MOis de la francophonie LAOS - TALK
French Colonization, Lao Civilizing: Ambitions and Legacies (1893-2025)
In this community conversation Dr. Mai Na M. Lee, a historian at the University of MN, and award winning writer Bryan Thao Worra, author of American Laodyssey, hold a discussion on the complex and fascinating journey of the Laotians with the French across 130 years on a journey towards modernity and civilization--from lessons learned to mysteries uncovered.
About our speakers
Mai Na M. Lee, author of Dreams of the Hmong Kingdom (UW Press 2015), is an Associate Professor of History and Asian American Studies at the University of Minnesota. She was born in Laos at the height of the Vietnam War. After the war in 1975, her family lived in the jungle as part of the anti-communist resistance before escaping Laos by foot and crossing the Mekong River into Thailand. She came to the United States as a refugee in 1980, where she held the pencil for the first time at the age of eleven. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Carleton College (1994), and a Master’s degree (2001) and a Ph.D (2005) from the world ranking University of Wisconsin—Madison. She teaches courses on Southeast Asia, the Vietnam Wars, U.S. war and empire in Asia, Hmong global history, Hmong American history, Southeast Asian highland groups in Zomia, and Southeast Asian Diasporic history. She also enjoys gardening and embroidering.
Bryan Thao Worra is the chair of the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans and is one of the most widely published Lao American writers in the world. He has presented at the London 2012 Summer Olympics, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, the Library of Congress, and serves as the Creative Works Editor of the Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement. His most recent collection is American Laodyssey (Sahtu Press, 2025) looking at the first 50 years of the Lao diaspora.
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