ROUSES_JulyAug2019_Magazine

by David W. Brown Laotians began arriving in the United States around the same time the Vietnamese did, and for the same reason. After the U.S. withdrew its forces from Vietnam, pieces moved rapidly across the chessboard of Southeast Asia, and communist forces quickly toppled the Laotian government in a civil war. In 1975, the U.S. began accepting Laotian refugees. By 1980, the Laotian population of the United States had grown to about 50,000. (The number today is about a quarter of a million.) That same year, Red Fox Industries, a fabrication and supply company in Iberia Parish, began offering job training funded by a federal law called the Comprehensive Training and Employment Act. The company’s doors were open to all would-be skilled laborers, and the small but burgeoning Laotian community in Louisiana took advantage of this to learn welding, pipefitting and other trades vital to the oil industry. According to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Center for Louisiana Studies, Laotians are the second-largest Southeast Asian group in Louisiana. Half of the Laotian community here still belongs to the skilled industrial trades as first learned at Red Fox (versus 15 percent for the population at large). Another 20 percent work in the fishing industry. The community has also proven entrepreneurial, with some Laotian Americans opening grocery stores and restaurants. Today, the Laotian community around New Iberia is thriving — take, for example, Lanexang Village near Broussard, Louisiana, with the stunning Wat Thammarattanaram Buddhist Temple at its heart. The village, the name of which translates to “million elephants,” was founded in 1986 when several Laotian families pooled their money to buy the land. The temple was built the following year, and is recognizable immediately and celebrated locally for its bright and ornate exterior and beautiful statues. Lanexang Village in Cajun Country

Wat Thammarattanaram Lao Buddhist Temple photo provided by Iberia Travel

The village attracts thousands of visitors from across the South every Easter weekend, when the community celebrates Lao New Year at the temple. It’s a three-day event, with music, parades, vendors selling clothes, jewelry and more from Southeast Asia, and authentic Laotian cuisine. The local community believes theirs is the largest Laotian festival in the United States, and the celebration is part of a wider effort by the residents of the village to preserve their culture for second-generation Laotian Americans who were born and raised in the U.S. — and to share their unique culture in the country they now call home.

Yak The Kathmandu Kitchen, Mobile "I keep hearing about the Momo, the Nepali version of stuffed dumplings, at Yak The Kathmandu Kitchen on Dauphin Street in Downtown Mobile. Nepali food sits at the crossroads of Indian and Chinese foods, and Yak serves everything from tandoori cooked in a traditional Indian clay oven to chowmein. The Tibetan noodle soup known as thukpa might replace my obsession with pho. I hear there’s also a killer lunch buffet." - Kacie, Marketing

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JULY•AUGUST 2019