Vimala Phongsavanh grew up in Woonsocket, surrounded by the Lao community. Her own parents fled civil unrest in their home country in 1981 and moved to the mill neighborhood of Fairmount, finding work in the city’s still-bustling industrial factories.
“The three-tenant housing in Fairmount, a lot of them were Lao families,” Phongsavanh recalls. “I always knew, I just didn’t know how many there were.”
Today, Phongsavanh works as the managing director of coalition mobilization for the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development. It’s a job that brings her in contact with communities of Asian descent throughout the country, but she’s always wanted to tell the story of the Lao diaspora in her own hometown.
“I’ve always been so curious about my own history,” she says. “How did I end up in Woonsocket? How did I end up born in Landmark hospital? What were the choices behind that?”
That story will be told in “The Heart of Wattayai,” a new photo exhibit opening Jan. 9 at the Museum of Work and Culture in Woonsocket. Centered around the life of Phongsavanh’s grandmother, Khamhoth Phongsavanh, the exhibit tells the story of the Lao families who endured war and displacement in their home country before rebuilding a new life in Rhode Island…