Through Women's Eyes: Southeast Asian American Women's Stories by Lisa Falk & Ang Robinson

From 1990-1992, Lisa Falk and Uaporn Ang Robinson documented the life stories of Southeast Asian American women in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. The project was formulated using the techniques of social history, oral history, anthropology, folklore and documentary photography. Questions of identity and society, roles and expectations, cultural traditions and values in the Cambodian, Lao, Thai and Vietnamese communities in the Washington DC metropolitan area are examined. Women were interviewed about their lives, in particular about their dual identities as Southeast Asians and Americans and their multiple roles as professionals, wives, mothers, daughters, tradition bearers and community leaders. Each woman was photographed in her professional as well as personal, and often community, roles. Community events, such as New Year’s celebrations, were also photographed.

An advisory committee of community representatives and humanities specialists helped formulate project goals and objectives and helped to identify grant sources and women to interview. Eighteen women were interviewed and photographed. Photographs of community cultural events augment the women’s stories. The interviews were transcribed and as Falk worked through the transcriptions, she created follow-up questions for clarification of points in the interviews. She also began writing brief biographies for each woman. Falk and Robinson created a PowerPoint/slideshow to share the work. This presentation introduces the women through brief descriptions, quotes and photographs.

Robinson and Falk wrote grants and secured funding to underwrite the documentation work. They are still seeking funds to do follow-up documentation and to create a traveling exhibition and book of the work.

The women presented in the project are successfully balancing their multiple roles and identities. These women are doers and through their work they reach out to others beyond their own community. They serve as positive role models for the younger generation of Southeast Asian Americans, for all children of immigrants and for other women.

One of the women interviewed, Phouratsmy Naughton, remarked, “The American community has a lot of communities making America. And even though we’re new, only fifteen years since the refugees started coming in, we are a part of the American community. America, as a whole, each community should know the other community, should know who else is around you in order to work together.” Falk and Robinson hope that this project will aid these women in their ambassadorial roles.

Statement of Importance of Project
In the Washington, DC metropolitan areas, there are over 100,000 Southeast Asian refugees and immigrants from Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Some came eagerly to this new land so different from their home; most came fleeing repression, tyranny, or death. All carry with them their native language, history, religion and traditional customs, some proudly, others with a sense of confusion or even alienation. A new language and a new way of life have overwhelmed many. The older generation is having a difficult time adjusting to a new culture. The younger generation deals with conflicted feelings that they must choose between maintaining their cultural identity or becoming more Americanized. A new generation, born in the US, must decide how their ethnic heritage will color their American identity—some will embrace it, others will pull away and turn their back on it, and some may not even be aware of it.

In Southeast Asian cultures, women are the tradition bearers. In the United States, they continue to function in this capacity, passing their cultural heritage onto their families. But here, they must also transmit those skills necessary to adjust to the American way. For the majority of Southeast Asian refugee and immigrant women, this responsibility forces them to consider whether their life should be inside a home or in a workplace. Many women find themselves taking on multiple roles.

This project explores the complex lives of immigrant women from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. It looks at their transition from counties impacted by war to living in America. It examines how they take on new roles while maintaining links to their cultures, and how they are passing on their cultural values and traditions to a new generation of hyphenated Asian-Americans. The featured women serve as role models for young Asian girls, and as successful examples to new immigrants coming to America from other war-torn countries. Their stories provide scholars, students, and interested citizens a way to understand this part of American history and how people maintain a sense of cultural identity as they change and adapt to new situations.

Project Goals
Through Women’s Eyes: Southeast Asian American Women’s Stories is a documentary project using oral history and still photography to document the life stories of Cambodian, Lao, Thai and Vietnamese refugee and immigrant women in the Washington, DC metropolitan women. The participating women have all learned to successfully balance their two identities, Asian and American, rather than forsaking one. These women’s stories will form the basis for a traveling exhibition, book, and web site.

Funders
The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities generously supported this project with planning and implementation grants and space, money, and time for Falk to work through the transcripts as a scholar-in-residence at the Virginia Center for the Humanities. Grants from the DC Community Humanities Council, the Agnes and Eugene E. Meyer Foundation and the Hitatchi Foundation also supported the documentation phase of the project. The Asian American Faculty, Staff, Student Association and the Commission on the Status of Women, both at the University of Arizona, gave small grants to initiate the building of this website. The Lao Association of Northern Virginia served as the fiscal sponsor during the project’s planning phase. The Organization of Pan Asian American Women served as fiscal sponsor during the project’s documentation phase. Currently funds are being handled through the University of Arizona where Falk works.

Funds are still needed to complete and disseminate this documentation project. Funds need to be raised to:

If you are interested in supporting this work, call 520-626-2973 or email us at: