Lao Voices

There is a disease growing in the Lao community in the US and it is very contagious. I want to know the answers to this disease of forgetting your loved ones. It bothers me to know there are people out there who are living the “American Dream” and forgot about their parents back home.

Even my Grand-Mama was forgotten by some of her own children. She fell down last June and broke her left knee. Not all of her children in the US made a call to check and see how she was doing or sent money to help with the hospital bills. While most of them cried when they heard my Grand-Papa was in the hospital and sent money to help, they ignored their mother.

I went to Pakse to help with Boun Loy Vanh for my Grand-Papa and to check on my Grand-Mama’s health in January and February of this year. I didn’t know about her existence until a few months ago. Before I left for Vientiane I arranged for the surgery of my Grand-Mama so she could be on the road to recovery. This is her message to all of her children, even the ones with no names mentioned. At the end she asked for her children to send her money, only for 100 or 200 dollars at the most.

My Grand-Mama is a wonderful and loving person. She is the oldest living person in her village. At the age of 87, she is the leader of the community and spends her days at the local temple. She would get up at 4:30 AM to cook sticky rice for the morning alms giving at the temple. She would help with setting up the meals for the monks, with the dishes, and make sure things are running as they should be. Grand-Mama would then come home for dinner and to sleep.

In the past she was a single mother, raising 8 children on her own. She sold all her land and took odd jobs to give her children the best life that she could. My Grand-Papa left her to have many wives. Yet, it was my Grand-Mama and her children that took care of him during his final days. The wonderful person that she is, she taught her children to love their father and to respect him. It was her idea to have Boun Loy Vanh for Grand-Papa, to give him peace in the after life.

You would think with being such a loving person that she is, her children would love her and adore her. Somehow most of her sons don’t seem to care about what she has done for them. Even worse to make a statement of “I have done enough for people living in Laos”. Who do they mean by the people living in Laos? Their mother.

My Grand-Mama is not alone in this. There is an old couple living in the same village that are left for dead by their children in the US. This couple come to my Grand-Mama’s house on a regular basis for food and clothing. The husband is in his 70’s who also fell down last year just like my Grand-Mama. He is also going blind. His wife in in her 60’s. This couple has a daughter living in Dallas who only called her parents once last year. She sent 500 dollars last year and was never heard from again. This lady has a nice job, lives in a nice house and drives a Hummer.

Some of you might want to defend her and say that she has bills to pay and many pressures to deal with. But I don’t care about such excuses. I have a friend that would charge her credit card to send money to her mother and siblings in Laos, just so they can have food to eat.

This lady that I am talking about doesn’t even care that her father has to catch a took took to Pakse market so he can beg for money and food each day. A fare for took took costs $1.00 round trip. That is not cheap when you don’t have money. Her mother would often come to see my Grand-Mama for food and company.

There is another old lady in the village that often visit my Grand-Mama for food and to chew with her. I met this old lady while I was in Pakse. She is 62 years old and not in good health. At her age she can’t get a job and her children in the US haven’t call her for years. If they don’t call to check on her or send money, then how is she going to make a living? She can’t even stand straight up. She survives by going from house to house asking for help.

How can anyone say that he/she has done enough for his/her parents? Do these people actually calculate the values of what their parents have done for them in Lao currency and then converted to US dollars amount and then say they have paid back in full price? I really don’t understand this logic if there is a logic explanation for writing off your parents on accounting sheet. I have seen this attitude in many Lao communities in the US. What kind of people have we become?