In July of 2007, members of LAS attended the 10th Annual Searac Leadership Reunion in Washington D.C. Vice President, Cookie Morey, and Director of Membership, Sarah Phongsavath from LAS was a first time participant, while Singh Lo, Board of Advisor, and member Vong Vannady were returning participants this year.

2007 Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC) Leadership Education participants included: Ben de Guzman (DC), Cookie Morey (GA), Vong Vannady (GA), Long Le (TX), Phousavanh Sengsavanh (MO), YeeLeng Hang (MN).  Our topic was Education.

Education Track
Purpose: Address the educational concerns and needs of the Southeast Asian American community.

The profiling of Asian American students as “model minority” of academic success is misleading. It may seem that while Asian Americans students are doing well as a whole, many ethnic groups face significant educational challenges such as truancy and high dropout rates – especially in middle school – and children of Asian immigrants and refugees. As a result, many Asian Americans, especially Southeast Asian American students, (i.e., Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians) are at risk of academic failure and college completion. The number of Southeast Asian American students who hold a bachelors degree is low, compared to the national average of 24.4% for Asian Americans. According to the 2000 Census, o­nly: 7.6% of Laos, 9.1% of Cambodians, and 19.5% of Vietnamese ages 25 or older hold a bachelor’s degree.

The problems of middle school retention and a lack of a college degree for Southeast Asian students are rooted in many factors. Given the high rate of poverty, particularly in the Cambodian and Laotian American communities, financial hardship remains o­ne of the key constraints to educational success. For example, according to the census in 1999, per capita income for Asians overall was $20,719. However, when you survey the median incomes for Southeast Asian communities, the figures for Cambodian are $10,215, Laotian $11,454 and Vietnamese $15,385, all fall below the national average.

REQUEST: In order to ensure that the needs of the under-represented and under-served communities are met, it is important that our legislation support State funded agencies to collect appropriate data by ethnicity among Southeast Asian Americans so that these communities receive equitable and quality education. This is to hopefully ensure that the data collection results in an increase of funding and support for those students and schools that lack adequate resources and services.

Testimonials:

In July, I attended the SEARAC Leadership training in Washington D.C.  This 3-day leadership training had over 100 Southeast Asians, (Laotians, Vietnamese, Hmongs and Cambodians) from all over the United States.  We split up into small groups and picked our topic to go to Capital Hill to talk to our Congress person and Senators.

On July 24, 2007 the Education-Advocacy team went to Capitol Hill for our elected official visit with Robert Bovard, Legislative Correspondent, for Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), and Emily Lawrence, Legislative Director, for Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-MN-4th). Both Hill meetings went really well and we felt energized.

As a past participant in 2006, I was really excited to be invited back for the 10th annual 2007 SEARAC Leadership conference. It was great to meet like-minded, yet diverse people doing such amazing things. I really enjoyed networking with others, social time, and re-connecting with old friends and making new friends. I was moved to tears to hear the personal stories of Many Uch, Newton Hoang and Caroline Vang. It was very inspiring and uplifting.

The panelists and past participant speakers were passionate and represented a nice variety. I was disappointed, however, that Congressman Mike Honda, was not able attend and his staff did the presentation. Overall it was a great experience! I commend the SEARAC staff for all their hard work and outstanding leadership. Organizing such a large group (approx. 80 participants) was very impressive. My expectations were by far exceeded! Well done! I highly recommend the conference to others and I look forward to attending more SEARAC training in the future if the opportunity becomes available.

Vong Vannady

Sarah Phongsavath’s personal experience….

As a group, we did the topic of helping or getting funds to assist Southeast Asian elders, medical care, citizenship classes, etc….  Because of the language barriers, these specific groups of people are not well informed about laws & regulations that may affect them.  So they need people or a  non-profit organization such as LAS to assist them with issues like medicare, translation, obtaining Citizenship, etc…

I was nervous talking to the Senators and Congressmen, but I’m glad I did it.

I never thought I could do it, but kind of went with it.  Just like jumping off a cliff and I’m glad I did it.

Yes, yes, I highly recommend anyone to do it o­nce.  They’ll be glad afterwards…really.  I truly believe anyone with ambition can do it.

It was definitely a life-changing experience…it helped me look at everything differently.

Sarah Phongsavath