Born and raised in Woonsocket, lifelong organizer Vimala Phongsavanh had a pretty standard upbringing. She went to public school. Her parents worked in the local mills. But before that, her parents and three-year-old sister came here as refugees from Laos in the early 1980s. And she always wondered, “How does a Lao girl end up in Woonsocket, Rhode Island? You know, my ancestors lived in the jungles of Laos in Southeast Asia, to right now we’re looking at some snow outside, right? And so I was always curious about the choices that led up to that.”
That curiosity is part of what led her to create “The Heart of Wattayai,” the latest exhibit at the Museum of Work and Culture in Woonsocket. In a recent conversation with Ocean State Media afternoon host Mareva Lindo, Phongsavanh said that, in trying to answer the question of how her family came to be here, she found that a lot of the answers pointed to her grandmother.
Interview highlights
Why ‘The Heart of Wattayai’ begins with her grandmother
Vimala Phongsavanh: She lived through French colonization, the U.S. Secret War in Laos, and the separation of her family, including the imprisonment of her husband. She watched her children leave one by one for refugee camps, until she was left behind with only one child. And still, you know, she held her community together. … Eventually, my grandmother came to Woonsocket. Here she raised me while my parents worked long hours in the mills – the same mills that sustained generations of immigrant families before us. My grandmother only lived here three years, but her love and strength shaped the rest of my life, and she is my inspiration in everything I do. And her story isn’t rare. It’s shared by so many Lao women whose labor, care and endurance made survival possible for the next generation.
A way to ‘insist on hope anyway’
Phongsavanh: The exhibit is about people we are taught to forget, not because they were unimportant, but because their lives were inconvenient to remember. It’s about ancestors whose names were never written down, whose histories were never archived, whose survival lives in fragments, in food, in rituals, in stories told quietly at the kitchen tables, remembering them as an act of care, and it’s also an act of responsibility.
This project came together during a time when it’s been difficult to feel hopeful – not because hope is gone, but because it takes intention. It takes discipline. And I worked on this project while watching Lao families face detention and deportation, while immigration pathways narrowed, and while Laos was placed under a full travel ban. … For many families, separation is not abstract, it is lived, and still love stretches across borders and oceans. So creating this work became a way to insist on hope anyway.
What you’ll find at the exhibit
Phongsavanh: There are photos ranging from the 1960s to the early 2000s from our family house in Wattayai, to the refugee camps in Thailand, to the mills of Woonsocket. … There is another portion of the exhibit that highlights the Lao people of Woonsocket, because we want to make sure that the people who go see it understand that Lao people have been in Woonsocket for almost 50 years. They’ve contributed to the society. They’ve been cultural anchors here with small businesses and temples and different family organizations and nonprofits. … There’s heirlooms there, like my grandmother’s silver blessing bowl. There’s Lao silver, there’s textiles. … I went to Laos to collect bomb remnants that have been made into everyday objects, like airplanes, elephants, spoons, there’s marigolds, the flower of glowing life. So when folks walk in there, we want it to feel bright, vibrant and also like you’re walking into a Lao home.
What she wants people to understand about the Lao community in Rhode Island
Phongsavanh: I want people to know more about the U.S. Secret War on Laos, and the impact, you know, generational impact that that’s had on our community. Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the history of the world, per capita, and a lot of folks don’t know that, and that is a result of our U.S. bombs being dropped there. … I want people to understand, too, that a lot of the folks, Lao people in Rhode Island are here as a result of that. … And I think the larger message that I want folks to know is that, you know, our stories are important, that we should all tell them, especially when our communities are under attack right now – that this is how we resist, is that we tell the stories of our people. And hoping that the larger community will understand and feel empathetic, but also that our communities ourselves will feel powerful as a result of it.
On the Trump administration suspending visa processing to 75 countries, including Laos – and aggressive ICE operations in Minnesota
Phongsavanh: I wasn’t surprised. It’s part of just their ongoing attack on immigration, right? I don’t know if there’s data out there, but I think they really want to get to that zero of having any migrants come into this country, and so it’s just part of their larger strategy there. But … our communities have already been under attack. Like this isn’t something that we’re really surprised about. … And so I think the community has been preparing for it. I don’t think it’s a big surprise. I’m not shocked, but like, what’s happening in Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota is terrifying for our communities right now. I’ve gotten text messages that they’re under siege. I see posts every day that, you know, grandfathers, citizens who are just being grabbed from their homes. That is all part of this, right? And so it is painful, but I think, you know, we’re resilient, and we will organize and we will find a way to come out of this. But right now, it does hurt, and it is really hard to believe that this could happen here.
You can see “The Heart of Wattayai” at the Museum of Work and Culture in Woonsocket now through Feb. 28. Details at rihs.org/locations/museum-of-work-culture.
And on Jan. 25, 1:30-3 p.m. Vimala Phongsavanh will talk about “The Heart of Wattayai” as part of the “Valley Talks” free lecture series. More information at rihs.org/event/hybrid-valley-talk-remembering-through-resilience-and-grief-with-vimala-phongsavanh/.
