Bayview Portraits

BAYVIEW PORTRAITS

About Bayview Portraits

Bayview is one of Madison, Wisconsin’s most diverse neighborhoods, with approximately 300 residents who represent more than twelve nationalities. The 37 stories in this book offer insight into the people who call this neighborhood home. These are portraits and stories of refugees, immigrants, and many first generation Madisonians, of new and lifelong neighbors. The longest term resident who participated in this project has lived in Bayview for 48 years.

First and foremost, Bayview Portraits is a gift to the people who call this place home. For many of them, this is the first time that they have ever shared their stories with anyone, including their relatives. It is our hope that this record makes it possible for these families to share and pass down their stories with their loved ones.

Each participating family chose a representative to share their oral histories, and whom to feature in a professionally taken portrait. While this gift was available to all Bayview residents, only those who gave permission are included in this book.

This book also serves as a historical document of Bayview at a major milestone. Many of Bayview’s original, two-story townhouses have become difficult to maintain. Additionally, as a percentage of Bayview residents choose to age in place “with their village,” there is a growing need for senior housing.

Bayview has engaged residents in a community-led design process with a team of architects to envision the future of the neighborhood. They are projected to undergo construction in the next three years. The new Bayview will have more housing units to accommodate families in need, accessibly-designed senior housing, more green space, more public art, easier access to community gardens, and an on- street entrance to the new, expanded community center. Bayview Portraits thus serves as a document of the neighborhood as it looks today, to honor the history of this community.

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Bayview is a nonprofit organization that provides affordable housing and community services to low income families.

Bayview is made up of Bayview Townhouses, a Section 8 project based development that includes 102 apartments, and a comprehensive community center. Bayview is committed to supporting families to grow and thrive through quality housing, educational opportunities, access to services, and cultural programs.

Arts and culture are central to Bayview’s mission, and the Center has initiated dozens of public and community art projects since the early 1980’s. Art is used as a tool to build bridges and foster a deep sense of community among people and across cultural and language barriers. Bayview developed the concept for Bayview Portraits in 2018 and received funding from Endres Manufacturing, Dane Arts, and the City of Madison Neighborhood Project Grant. Artists Jenie Gao and Jamie Ho were hired in 2019 to implement the project.

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Credits

Interviewer, writer, book designer Jenie Gao, jenie.org Photographer Jamie Ho, jamie-ho.com Interpreters Cristina Bravo, Maria Gonzalez, Fatima Sartbay, Maixia Thao, Nou Thao Bayview Foundation, Inc. Staff Nou Thao, Outreach Coordinator Alexis London, Executive Director

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Families

Amelia & Jose Corea

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Angie & Jeremy Powell

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Anna & Jesus Rios

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Anousits Seng Chanh

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Bao Xiong

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Catalina Rios Montellano

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Chouang Vaxding

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Cruz Perez

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Daycy Briceno

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Dia Xiong

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Gabrielle

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Henly & Rachel Tri

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Houa Xiong & Lee Moua

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Inhkhiene Baccam

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John Hess

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Khu Xiong

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Kia Thao

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Kong Xiong & Chou Yang

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Lilly Lukindo

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Mai Kommavang

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Mai Vue

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Mee Vang Xiong

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Mee Xiong

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Nhia Lee Thao

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Nina Okwali

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Pa Yang

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Pao Soua Xiong

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Teang Ou

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Tursun Kerimova

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Vankham Souannoy

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Xay Thor

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Xee Lee

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Amelia & Jose Corea

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AMELIA: We moved to Bayview since we already had family here. My uncle lived in Bayview, so I moved here in 2001 when I was 18. I met Jose when I moved here. We got married in 2004.

Most of my family is in Mexico, like my siblings and my mom. I haven’t seen them since coming to the US. We keep in touch via photos and phone.

JOSE: I moved to Bayview in 1997. I’m originally from Nicaragua, and left there on May 30, 1988, when I was 24 years old. I got residency in the US, and am now applying for citizenship. Most of my memories from Nicaragua are of my parents, but they’ve both passed away since I left. This is a safer place than Nicaragua.

JOSE: Living here, we do miss our hometowns. Not to move back, but we do miss it. We miss our families and traditions we have there. All these years go by, you get used to living here.

Everything has changed now that we have children of our own.

AMELIA: We celebrate a lot of holidays together, like Cinco de Mayo and the 10th of May, which is the Day of the Mother. We celebrate Father’s Day in July and of course Christmas. Now that we live in the US, we also celebrate the day of Thank you.

JOSE: When I first moved here, it was a nice place to be. Since then, it’s become our community. There’s a lot for our children to do here, and for the seniors, too. Bayview helps families out.

It’s safe and secure. We’ve enjoyed being here all these years.

AMELIA: Before I had the baby, I helped with the butterfly mural.

I used to help with Head Start, too. Volunteering with Head Start is something I really enjoyed. Even though it was just once a week, it was great for the children. Since they cut the program, it’s been good for the children to have other programming at Bayview that they can participate in before going to school. Now that I’m at home, I have the time to cook traditional dishes for my children.

JOSE: You’ve got more options than you do in your hometown.

More options for work and you also get help. I work in maintenance for a company called Cinta eight hours a day.

There are lots of Hispanics and Americans working there. It’s a

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popular company. Everyone says hi to each other. Amelia is a home mama.

AMELIA: We go to the park. We run, play, ride our bikes, and go to the pool. We like to garden and have flowers in our yard.

Bayview provides seeds and soil for gardening. We take the girls to the zoo and the stores. We grocery shop as a family. There’s a place towards Middleton with a carousel that we like to visit. We go walking as a family to the lake. For Mother’s Day, we like to cook Spanish food. We like to cook pozoles, which is a traditional Mexican dish.

JOSE: I’d like to see more things going on to keep the children busy. I’d like to see Bayview have more help, more staff and teachers for the kids. We are close to downtown Madison, and I want anyone who comes to Bayview to look around and see that we are professional and clean. Things should be calm and safe without any violence. It’s a nice community here, but everyone needs to pitch in to keep it nice for the children. All residents should work together, staff, residents, and people. My hope is to see everyone work together. Like on a weekend everyone comes and helps out, even in the winter.

AMELIA: For me, life here is so much better than it was in Mexico.

I came here to help my mom by making a living. My father had already passed away by the time I moved here. Then I met my husband. He helps me out. It’s much safer for the children in Wisconsin than it would be in Mexico. And here, you get help with food and school supplies, but you don’t in Mexico. I love this community a lot.

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Angie & Jeremy Powell

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ANGIE: I grew up in Madison on the west side. We knew a lot of residents in Bayview through middle and high school. I moved out of my parents’ house when I was 18 and lived at YWCA. I got pregnant with my son, Jeremy, when I was 20, and had him when I was 21. I was in the Third Street Program for two years before into subsidized housing on Williamson Street. We lived there for 14 years and moved to Bayview in 2010.

My parents still live in the same house that we grew up in on Monroe Street, by Edgewood College and Trader Joe’s. Jeremy and I can walk there from Bayview and see them, which is nice.

My parents adopted me from El Paso, Texas, when I was two years old. My parents are Caucasian. Jeremy is my only blood relative. I don’t know anyone else who’s blood related to me since I was adopted. My birth mom was 16.

The west side is not culturally diverse like Bayview or the East Side.

I was one of the few African Americans living there. I was really happy at 18 to get out of the neighborhood. I still feel like I don’t belong there when I visit my parents. It’s more culturally diverse and accepting at Bayview and the East Side. People actually talk to their neighbors. When I lived with my parents, people could go for years without knowing their neighbors. Here, we say hi and good morning and pick up new conversations. Next thing you know I’m knocking on someone’s door and sharing food. It’s like a family unit here at Bayview. If something happens, we’re there for each other.

I worked in housekeeping at the IBM on University Ave from 1998 to 2000. But I’ve had epilepsy all my life. The seizures were under control with medication until my twenties. Then, even on medication, it was no longer under control. I went under a lot of tests, MRIs, and CAT scans, for two years. Finally, in 2003, I had corrective brain surgery at UW-Hospital. That happened when Jeremy was six years old. Ever since then, I’ve lived on disability.

My adoptive family and I are close. We couldn’t live together. It wouldn’t work (laughs). We argue a lot and don’t get along. My mom is very controlling and wants her way. Otherwise, there’s a problem. A lot of people sense that, even my two sisters and a brother, who are my parents’ natural children.

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My relationship with my mom is a lot better as an adult. We get along now quite well. As long as I can keep my independence, that’s important to me. My sister, Cathy, is the youngest of us four, and she’s in her thirties. She’s married to a guy named Scott and has a daughter and son. We go out to breakfast or lunch once a month and talk on the phone quite frequently. My sister, Karen, is three years younger than me. She lives in assisted living with roommates and staff because she has epilepsy. She didn’t qualify for brain surgery. She works and also receives some disability. My brother’s birth name was Andy but when he was 23 he turned to Islam, and so he changed his name to Shakir. He married a woman from Somalia named Anisa. They have four daughters and live in Chicago. We’re very proud of them.

It’s been quite hard trying to fit in with people of my own culture.

I always wonder what my life would be like if I were raised by an African American family. I’d still be kind and respectful.

But you know, I missed out on a lot of the way other African Americans express and carry themselves. Jeremy’s dad was African American. He wasn’t adopted or raised in a middle class neighborhood. He grew up in poverty, but he grew up where it was culturally diverse. I’ve always said to myself, I’d have rather grown up in poverty some place culturally diverse than in a segregated middle class neighborhood. It still affects me today.

All my life I’ve had problems with obsessive compulsive disorder, because of problems at home and not being able to relate to my family and feel like I actually belong. I would spend hours combing my hair and obsessively washing my hands everyday.

After I had Jeremy, I turned to cleaning. When he was five months old, I would get up at 3 or 4 in the morning to clean my home. I still get up early to mop, do dishes, and polish.

Jeremy and I have four parakeets and two cats. Growing up, I had hamsters, rats, rabbits, and guinea pigs. I’ve always had a love for animals. I see them as people, equal to myself. I guess they’re the children I wish I had. And maybe as a child, it was a way to handle not feeling part of the family unit.

I hope the world with all the tragedies, people still learn about respect, peace, and community, and make better decisions in

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their lives. I hope people can have a better understanding of people with disabilities. My son has Aspergers. He’s 23 now. I imagined having a 23-year old who could drive and have his own apartment and his own car and take me out places. But that’s not going to happen, and I’m not going to have grandchildren.

But I find acceptance in the fact that Jeremy is still here. That he’s 23, and he’s still alive. I’m still here and I’m 45. We’re both in good health.

JEREMY: For my mom’s birthday, we go to The Curve on Broadway. They serve lunch and breakfast at seven. Sometimes I help her with baking.

I go to an organization called Pathways and hang out with people in the community. I work at the Lowell Center at UW Extension.

I’m a cleaning employee so I sweep and mop and vacuum, clean windows, dust surfaces, and clean tables.

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Anna & Jesus Rios

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ANNA: It took us 18 years from when we first applied to Bayview to get the final confirmation that we could live here. We moved in September 2019. We are very happy that we can be here. The whole community treats us very nicely, with so many different kind gestures and attentiveness to our needs.

We moved to Bayview because we’re getting older and neither of us can work anymore. We both worked at a laundromat. My husband, Jesus, had an accident at work. He hurt his hand and shoulder and one of the tendons in his arm broke. It was very painful and he needed surgery. Two months before Jesus’ injury, I also had an accident, where I fell on the ice and broke my wrist.

Because of this, I couldn’t work, so my employer let me go. Since I can’t drive, with Jesus also not being able to work, we needed help. So we are really thankful to be here.

We used to live with our youngest daughter close to the Super WalMart on John Nolen. We have five kids, 18 grandkids, and we’re soon going to have four great grandchildren. One of our great grandchildren was just born eight days ago, and one more, the fourth, is due in October. All our grandkids are mixed, Asian, African American, our family is very diverse.

We spend a lot of time with our kids and grandkids. Right now, with the pandemic, we’re doing one-at-a-time visits. Thank goodness we’re doing well and are healthy.

We like to walk together in the afternoons. We like to take care of the garden and flowers. This is the first year since we moved so our garden is going a bit slower with COVID. We have roses outside our home.

Before coming to Madison we lived in Mexico, four hours from Monterey. All our kids were born in Mexico. The youngest one was three months old when we moved to the US. She got married two years ago, but has always been with us. My siblings and mom also live here in the US, and my brother was the one who helped us move. Jesus has all his family in Mexico.

We were so poor in Mexico. We didn’t know where we were going to live with our five kids. It was very hard. Only my husband was

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working when we lived in Mexico. We made $40 a week. But then you had to pay for everything when your kids go to school, and we couldn’t afford it. We didn’t always have food for our kids. We had a very sad life. Most of the families there are living like we did. We’re very happy we could come here, we’re grateful to God. Our kids can go to school and have a better future.

We hope for health, and to be able to take care of ourselves.

Bayview is the community we want to be in. People wave and say hi to us. Neighbors talk to us. We’re very, very happy.

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Anousits Seng Chanh

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People call me Si. I have lived in Madison for over 15 years. My sister moved me to Bayview two years ago, after she moved back to Thailand. My sister lived here a long time and I wanted to stay close to family.

Before here, I lived in Texas; Des Moines, Iowa; and South Dakota.

My big sister first helped me come to the US from Thailand in 1977, to Texas, after she married a pilot. I was 22 years old.

The biggest change in my life is that the United States is a free country. The communists took over my old country and I would have had no freedom there.

I worked in meat packaging for many years. I am experienced in this industry, so that’s why companies would have me and why I moved from city to city. My big sister started the restaurant Lao Laan Xang on Williamson Street in Madison, which her daughter and son have taken over after her retirement to Thailand. I used to work there as well with my family. Now that I’m retired, I live on social security.

I like Madison because it’s not too big or too small, not too crowded like big cities can be. Things are different here. The weather is totally different. My family celebrates Christmas and New Year’s. Because 70% of our family is from China (my dad moved from China to Laos, where he married my mom), we also celebrate Chinese New Year. We go bowling. We walk by the lakes.

Thirty years ago, I got married, but we didn’t work out. We went our own ways, which is fine. My ex is now remarried to someone in Texas. I have my life here at Bayview. The people here help you. You have your own private apartment, but you have help, too, if you need it. You can call and someone will make sure you’re taken care of.

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Bao Xiong

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My family moved from Thailand to Fresno, California in 1990.

Rent was cheap at first, but then it went up to $800. We weren’t enjoying California and wanted to be closer to family, so in 2006 we moved to Wisconsin. In California, it’s hot, and all the plants are yellow and dying. But in Wisconsin the weather is always changing, with new flowers and plants growing every season.

We moved to Madison in 2006, first to Northport. My husband passed away in 2004, so it was just my four children and me.

We filed an application with Bayview and after five years moved here. We have been here ever since. Since I’m unemployed and receive social security income, most housing is expensive for me, and Bayview is affordable. But I stay because it’s a joyful, peaceful community that feels safe. It’s more like having a house than living in an apartment. Bayview is the most peaceful and happy place that I have ever lived.

Life is so different here for me than it was in Thailand. Back in Thailand, we were very poor. If as a mother, you didn’t have enough breastmilk you would have to go work to provide. But in the US, the government will help with basic needs and expenses like diapers so you can focus on caring for your kids.

We didn’t have any educational or job training opportunities in Thailand. It’s not like here, where the government helps provide your basic needs so you can pursue other things. I feel “kaj siab.”

I feel joyful. Since my husband passed away in 2004, I haven’t had a supportive spouse. It became very lonely and stressful.

The support from the government relieves me of that stress.

Our family has changed in some ways. We used to have soulcalling ceremonies for the dead, but don’t really do this anymore.

I’m still here, too, so there’s no need yet. I stopped practicing shamanism after my husband passed and have since become a believer. I still go to Kaj Siab House every day.

I have a lot of independence now and that brings me joy. My children are grown. I can go wherever and do whatever I want.

I can travel. Whenever my kids say, “Let’s go do something,” I can pick up and go. I just came back from visiting my son and daughter-in-law in North Carolina and Georgia. We went fruit

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picking and it was so much fun. They just had a baby and I’m going back soon to see my new grandchild.

Everyone at Bayview is so kind and well-spoken. Everyone is willing to share. It doesn’t matter what race or ethnicity we are, we always greet and help one another.

I just ordered a brand new outfit, and I’m wearing it for my portrait. I’m going to take pictures with the corn. I’m choosing this location because it makes me reminiscent of my life back in Laos and what things used to be like.

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Catalina Rios Montellano

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My family came to Madison in 1995. My sister, Nancy, has lived at Bayview for 19 years. My family and I applied to live here ten years ago and were able to move here last year.

Everyone in our family is here. We came here for a better life. I have seven kids. We’re here to give our children and grandchildren better opportunities than we had. We have a very tight-knit family, so that’s always a priority. I still tell my kids what to do. The grandchildren are now like my babies. I have 15 grandchildren in Madison, 3 in Mexico, and 5 great grandchildren. They’re very diverse, all colorful. I myself have 12 siblings total, two in Madison, and two in California.

I’m very active, but I also don’t like crowded places. I like to cook a lot. If one of my kids wants enchiladas, in a couple days I’ll have them ready. I do the same for everyone. On Saturdays, I prepare a lot of food, ready for all my kids to come to my home. With the pandemic, we have to take turns, so it’s more complicated.

I like to walk. I walk to church. I like to garden and always know when to plant things. Though this year, I don’t want to put too much work into the garden if Bayview is rebuilding all this.

Our family celebrates la Navidad and la Nuevo. In May, we celebrate the saints and in June the Sacred Heart. On December 12th, we celebrate the Virgin of Guadalupe. We rented a place here in Madison so we could celebrate the Virgin of Guadalupe with dances. All year round, we celebrate birthdays, baptisms, and more. There are so many of us we’re constantly celebrating.

I love participating in Bayview field trips. Our family also loves going to parks, hanging out together, and playing outside with the kids. Those are the source of some of my favorite memories.

A few years ago, Madison was even calmer, since there were fewer people here and it felt like a small village. We like how kind and welcoming people are here.

I hope that my kids and grandkids all walk a good path in life and have good futures. I hope they keep doing well. Life is hard, and our job as parents and grandparents is to teach that if you fall, you must get back up and continue.

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Chouang Vaxding

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I came to the US from Lao in 1967. I met my husband, who was Chinese, in Lao. All my children were born in Lao, and the youngest was two years old when we moved to the US. We moved to Fort Dodge, Iowa. That’s where I raised my six children.

I worked at a cloth factory for 15 years in Iowa. I became sick with rheumatoid arthritis and no doctors would help me there.

So I went to UW Hospital in Madison, and they helped me so much. I still hurt, but it’s not bad anymore. My husband and I moved to an apartment in Madison and then to Bayview in 1993. I have been here ever since.

My children all went to college in Iowa City, five sons and one daughter. My daughter now lives in Madison and comes every week to see me. My sons live in Los Angeles, Chicago, Indiana, and two are here in Madison.

I like my life here. I’m close to the UW Hospital and go to Infusion for my arthritis. I’m now a part of the program, Hmong Home Care, and every two months they come to see me. They moved closer to take care of me. They send my medicine here to me.

That’s why I don’t leave here. My husband died three years ago here. He lived to 92. In two years, I’ll be 80.

I go to church at the Salvation Army on Sundays. My family celebrates Christmas there every year. My children also celebrate Christmas. I don’t go to temple anymore, but I still cook traditional Lao food. Whenever I don’t cook, my daughter brings me food. She cooks both Lao and American food.

My oldest son has three children. My son in Indiana has seven children! My son in Los Angeles has only one child. My son in Chicago has two boys and his oldest is two years into college, studying to be a pharmacist. My youngest daughter has two children, one boy and one girl, and the girl just got a job in Oklahoma.

I like to exercise at Bayview’s community center. I like to walk, garden, and play bingo. I like going to Zumba, too. I love my community. I call one of my neighbors “daughter,” and she calls me “Mom.” We take care of each other.

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Cruz Perez

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I came to Bayview from Mexico because I had family here. It was 1972. This was the first place I came to in the United States, with all of my kids. My parents had already passed and I was a single mom. I had four kids originally, but the oldest passed away so now I have three children.

I didn’t think I would stay, because there was so much snow when I first arrived. But my children and I have all stayed in Wisconsin. I like it here. It’s relaxing and beautiful.

To raise my three children alone, I worked two jobs. For 25 years, I worked at Madison Concourse Hotel, cleaning offices for four hours every night. I didn’t ask for welfare because I was scared that then the government would send my children to war. So instead I worked 16 hours every day. Sometimes, I didn’t sleep at all, so I could provide for my family. That’s life. You have to work to provide for your family, especially as a single mom.

Now that I’m retired, I like to cook and sew. When my kids come to visit I like to cook for all my family and grandchildren, too.

My daughters-in-law come often to eat with me. I’ve also been caring for my granddaughter since she was three months old. I have seven grandchildren, and two great grandchildren who are twin boys! My children and grandchildren live all over Wisconsin.

In Fond du Lac, in Milwaukee, close to Racine. One is at UWMadison and another is in Sun Prairie. We don’t have family in Mexico anymore, so it’s very important for my children to know our history and roots. We’re a true Wisconsin family.

These days, it’s important for me to have a safe place where my grandchildren can play outside. Here at Bayview, I like everything. I don’t drive so it’s convenient to be close to the clinics, hospitals, groceries, and capital. Bayview is also always ready to help people. We have pantries and many other support systems. There is support to take my grandchildren to the hospital to get their shots. While I might not speak English, I can understand it, and now after all these years, we have help with translation.

Bayview is a very relaxed and peaceful community. Everybody knows everybody. The Hmong ladies knock on my door if they

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haven’t seen me in a while. Everyone checks on one another.

This is something I like about living here. Sometimes it’s good to be nosey, sometimes it’s not, but it’s good that this community cares for one another.

I have been concerned before that if Bayview went away, what would I do? But Bayview is here to stay and that’s a very good thing. I hope only to stay alive. I’m 74 now. I’ve been sick so I don’t know how long I will live. I want to see our neighborhood stay clean and have more activities for people of all ages. I’m very happy about the remodel at Bayview so that it will be even more beautiful. After 39 years, it’s time to have a newer, prettier place to live!

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Daycy Briceno

I came to Wisconsin from Ecuador in 1982. Both my parents were in Wisconsin at the time. My dad came through the government to take a course at the university. My mom joined him, and took it as an opportunity to find out if they had the medical expertise here to help me. I have always had a complex health situation, and at the time I was at risk to have my leg amputated.

I was able to come to Madison, but in order to get permission to stay here for enough time to seek treatment, I needed to go to the immigration office in Milwaukee. My mom borrowed money from a friend who lived in Bayview, but it was only enough money for a one-way bus ticket, not to come back. My mother said we had to go anyway because I only had permission to be here for so long. When I asked how we were going to return to Madison, she said, “Don’t worry, God will provide.”

Once we arrived in Milwaukee, we had no idea how to get to the immigration office. It was December, so it was very cold. My mom and I went into a nearby store, and asked the girl at the

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cash register if we had enough change for two coffees and two donuts to keep us warm. The girl said we only had enough for one coffee, but when my mom said that wasn’t enough for the two of us, the girl gave us the second coffee and donuts anyway.

We returned to the bus station, and I asked my mom again, “What are we going to do now?” She told me again not to worry.

At this time, a lady stopped and asked us if we were okay. My mother asked her if she spoke Spanish, and she did. My mom told the lady that we needed directions to the immigration office.

The lady instead drove us there. Once we got there, she offered to be our translator and helped me get permission to stay in the US for four months. Afterwards, she took us out to eat, learned more about our situation, and connected us with a doctor at the university who could help me. My mom kept looking at me and saying, “What did I tell you? God will provide.” This lady, I still don’t know who she was and what her name was. But she gave us the name of the doctor who would later do my operation in Madison, took us back to the bus station, and gave us the money we needed for our return trip.

My operation was successful and I didn’t need to have my leg amputated. My parents returned to Ecuador. I met my exhusband. We had two children together, and I brought my first daughter from Ecuador to the US. We lived together in Madison and then in Wisconsin Rapids, before I got news that my mother was ill and we ended up going back to Ecuador. It was there that my husband and I started having issues.

When I returned to Madison, I applied for housing at Bayview, but they didn’t have any vacancies. So I ended up living in Sun Prairie, and then I got really sick. I have had a lot of health complications and huge operations. I ended up in the hospital, and then was evicted from my home. My husband left. My kids were still in school. It was a whole mess. I found a place to live on Fish Hatchery Road, where I stayed for a couple years before I got a call from Bayview saying that they have a vacancy. That was about 17 years ago. I’ve been here ever since.

It was just me and my children for a while. Then, around nine years ago, Francisco came along to help me. Again, I’ve had

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a lot of health issues. I have a blood disorder called immune thrombocytopenic purpura. My blood platelets go very low and I could bleed to death internally. At that time when I met Francisco, I had a gastric bypass, my biggest and last operation.

This was a time in my life when I wasn’t able to do things on my own. I’m a very limited kind of person. I cannot lift things. I am grateful to have someone like Francisco, because I don’t know what it could have been like without him. The only thing we have to deal with now is the huge amount of rent we have to pay. We are thinking of moving away from Bayview because we cannot afford it. It’s not affordable housing anymore to me.

When I was younger, I wanted to study to be an engineer, architect, or chemist. But since I was spending too much time between one hospital and another with my health issues, I never had a chance. Then I got married and had kids, so I dedicated my life to my children and to my health. I still tried to stay involved and active before it got too hard. I have worked a lot of jobs, like waitressing. While my mom was still in the US, I also volunteered for the Hispanic Center. My mother co-founded Centro Hispano with Ilda Thomas. The Center has changed quite a bit since then, but it is still here and continues to serve people today.

Right now, things are hectic. I had been going to Ecuador once a year to spend time with my mom after she became ill. Last year, she passed away, so I haven’t been good for anything. This year, I learned that my dad has cancer. He’s 97 years old and I want to spend time with him before he’s gone. I’m dealing with my rent trouble in the middle of this chaos. But I’m too wrapped up in my own problems to be worried about issues at Bayview.

My kids are still in Madison. When they were little, they attended the after school programs at Bayview’s community center. Now my daughters’ children attend the after school programs and student work programs. Bayview has very nice programs here, and I do like that. The rent situation is the main thing that I want them to fix.

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Dia Xiong

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I am alone. I was not able to pay rent on my own. I lived near Allied Drive for seven years while waiting for my paperwork to be processed at Bayview. I’ve lived in Bayview for eight years now, and 33 years total in the US. My family had a Xiong relative who sponsored us to come to the United States. We first moved to Milwaukee, where we lived for two years. Then my son-in-law, Va Ming, had a child and asked us to move to Madison to help with childcare.

My first husband was a soldier of the war. When General Vang Pao fled the country, he didn’t tell my husband. He told him instead to divide the livestock, which they did for three years.

When there were 10 cows left, they came back to base in Long Cheng, and saw many people fleeing and getting arrested. My husband fled to Puka to avoid getting arrested, but we didn’t know that, so I waited for him.

Later into the evening, my husband sent someone to come and get us. At the time, I had a one-month old. I strapped the onemonth old to my back and we left. That night, we slept among the cow sheds. Early into the morning, I heard that my husband escaped into the jungles. Eventually, we were able to meet up with him, and we moved from village to village. Finally, we stayed and lived at a village where we were able to cultivate rice. But because he was a soldier and he had a role that was extremely important, he was still being hunted.

We had to run again. We lived in two other villages. At the second village, my husband was arrested. My baby was eight months old. That was the last time we ever saw my husband again. After his arrest, for three years, I ran from village to village, from parts of the jungle to other parts, fleeing for my life. That was when I met my second husband. I thought because my kids were still young, it would be good to have another helping hand to find food for our stomachs, and to have a male companion through marriage would help me be recognized again by my culture. So I decided to marry him.

We moved to a village called 52, then to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. In Vientiane, we were arrested and detained for a month

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and fourteen days, before we could escape. If I am to explain my life tragedy I could keep going all day, so I will just tell my marriage life for now.

When we first married, I brought in four children of my own, and he had four of his. One of each of our children died. We had two children together. My three children, two of his, and the two we had together came with us to the US. One of his children stayed in Laos. He ran into the jungle and became a guerrilla soldier.

My kids loved me very much. But my husband and I had a lot of problems, until he left to live with his son. My clan called for the elders to come and talk about our problems. When they came to talk, they brought up divorce. I didn’t want to divorce, only talk.

So they asked my husband what was going on and he wouldn’t share, so I stepped in. The clan invited other clan elders to come and listen in on our session. Then his clan told my clan that they should teach me how to be a better person, but my clan said, she isn’t the problem. How can we tell someone to be a better person when the problem does not lie with this person?

When we were a couple, my husband never contributed financially. Even when he did, he would count exactly $600$700 in an envelope, and then curse the envelope so if I ever took money from it I would be cursed. I could kill 30 chickens for food, and he would still never give me any money to help.

He would hoard everything for his birth son. I told him we don’t know who’s going to die first. But what we do know is that we trust our youngest daughter the most. So if I die first, I hope he can continue to support her. But if he dies first, I will still care for his son.

The most important thing to me about the Bayview community is its location. I’m old and can’t drive. When I first came to live here, I had a lot of illnesses, headaches, and weakness. Asian Midway is close by. The hospital is across the street. Everything is walking distance. I have many family members that live here in Bayview. Even if they’re not my family by blood, they’re of the Hmong community, whom I can rely on to help me.

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Gabrielle

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I’m Gabrielle. I’m a mother of four. I studied fashion and got a certificate. I’ve also studied interior design and gone to barber cosmetology school at MATC. I’ve entered poetry slams and won money for it. I’m in dance groups. I love fashion.

I moved to Madison in 2009. Madison felt like my personality, peaceful and quiet. I lived on the North Side for six years while on Bayview’s waitlist. I was homeless for a year and a half. I left the North Side in 2017, after the apartment I lived in was sold.

The rent went from $850 to $900 a month and I couldn’t handle it by myself anymore, so I let the apartment go. I went back to Chicago, where I was born, to live with my mom. On December 27, 2017, I got off Bayview’s waitlist, and on December 28th I moved here. It was the best Christmas gift I could ever get.

Life was stressful before that. I was constantly day by day trying to find a better way. Family members passed away out of the blue. I’m my dad’s only child and my mom’s oldest. My son has epilepsy. His dad passed away from epilepsy after hitting his head when my son was five years old. His dad’s dad died the same way. My son is his dad’s only child, his dad was his dad’s only child. I didn’t know what to do when I was a first time mom, what resources there were. There’s more support now. My son turns twelve tomorrow.

My granny, she’s everything to me. She always had this special unicorn on her bed, and when she passed I got that unicorn. I keep it in my bedroom, you can see it when you walk in. May 13, 2017, was when she passed.

My granny always called me Black Diamond. She said, you special, you different, you’re gonna make it really far. If I knew then what I know now, I think I’d have an easier life.

We used to go down South to Little Rock, AR for the holidays where my granny had land. I always found it boring, but that’s what I’d do if I still lived in Chicago. I don’t go back now. It’s not the same without Granny.

My life has changed for the better. From the storm I have faced, Bayview has let me know that there is a way. There were so

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many times I wanted to give up. I know I have a lot to offer and a lot to give. I love how my kids are comfortable here.

I work here now in the Bayview leadership program. I saw the application and I asked—it taught me to ask, because they don’t know otherwise that it’s something I want to do. I want to be a better role model for my children and teach them to use their voice. Every step I take, my kids take. They know what it’s like to appreciate something. I’m just thankful for Bayview.

As Bayview leaders, we figure out ways to find funding and come up with safety tips. We constantly try to find ways to better the Bayview community. I spent a lot of time with kids. I love kids. I love coming up with activities with the kids. Barbecue, going to the pool, bringing new experiences they have’t had yet.

I always cook big with my family for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

But we never celebrated Halloween. My granny always told me we shouldn’t celebrate Satan’s birthday, so I was scared to eat candy on that day. But now that I’m over that fear, this will be the first year we celebrate Halloween.

I hope that I become a better person, mentally, physically, emotionally. I’ve learned to be less fearful. I want long-term, stable shelter for my children. To allow myself to be the best, and for my children to get to be themselves and to have less pain than I’ve had. I want more and more happiness. I don’t ask for much. This already is everything for me.

To me, community means having a special bond with people in a way that we’re like family even though we’re not blood. They say it takes a village. Being a community means giving one another a helping hand.

I can read people’s energy. I used to get teased about it, like I was a witch. But I feel for people. I feel if something ain’t right.

There’s a lot of people who’s afraid to open up, if only they would just try it. This is my first time living among different people. But they’re all so welcoming and I really love them.

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Henly & Rachel Tri

HENLY: I moved to Bayview in 1984. I was 13 years old and lived with my foster parents until I was 18. I moved to New Orleans for a year, then to Houston briefly, but I had to work 6-7 days a week. I had no time for myself or my family.

In 1989, my younger brother escaped to the Philippines. I came back to Madison to sponsor him to come to the US. We lived by the East Side for two years. When he enrolled at UW for college, we moved back to Bayview.

In 2001, my mom passed away, so I returned to Vietnam for her funeral. Every year since then, whenever I have a chance, I go back to visit my family. In 2006, my father passed away, so I went back to take care of family business.

I met my wife, Rachel, at the beginning of 2008. I asked her family’s permission to take her out, and in November 2008, we were married. Our first child, Jonathan, was born in June 2009.

I came back to the US in 2012, and we applied for her visa. In

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February 2012, we had our daughter, Jamiesley.

In 2013, we filled out Rachel’s application for her visa, and in March 2014, she was approved. We came together to the US and to Madison. Our third child was born in September 2016.

His name is James, like James Bond. Six months later, Rachel started working at Asian Midway as a cashier. I also work there as a truck driver.

Everything was new to Rachel at first. She was very busy with children and work. Back in Vietnam, she was in college, studying computer programming. We met while she was still in school. She stopped school for a year, but didn’t continue after we married and came to the US. She wants to go back to school some day.

But right now, we want to open our own market. We want her mother-in-law to come to the US to watch the children so we can start a business. My daughter is rough and really strong.

When she plays with her younger brother, she’s in control.

We have a good time together. Having Lexi gives us hope. She’s been a good director, and we’re thankful for everything she does for this community. Lexi came on in 2017 after the last director was here for thirty years.

In Vietnam, we had a good social life. But the neighborhood and community are not friendly compared to here. When I returned to Madison to sponsor my brother, David, the old director, was like my father. He helped me apply for my wife’s visa. He helped this community a lot.

We keep in touch with our relatives online. One brother is in Canada, another in Georgia, another in Vietnam, one aunt is in France, and we have an uncle in Australia. My grandparents have eleven children. It’s easier to keep in touch nowadays. Back in the 80s, my parents and I were only able to keep in touch via letters. 1994 was the first time I visited Vietnam, after being away for ten years. I was there for 20 days. In 1997, I went back for a month. In 2000, my dad came to visit America for a month.

My oldest sister escaped the country to Thailand, but the US would not take her application because she had children.

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Canada took her. My mom and dad helped my younger brother escape the country in 1988, and I sponsored him. Back then, my brother wanted to go to law school at UW. In 1992, he met his wife. They moved to Houston and opened a nail shop in 1993 and are doing really well. My parents wanted to keep my second oldest sister and other younger brother in Vietnam, because every time they sent each of us away, they felt bad about it, and they didn’t want to lose all of us.

We’re really happy because our children have a chance to go to school. There’s also after school programming, for my children to have a better education and develop a better life.

They’ve learned so much English. When they first came to the US, they didn’t speak in English at all. Three years later, they’re just amazing. That gives us hope. We try to work hard, to open a small business, and hopefully, if everything goes well, we can move out of Bayview. But we will really miss this neighborhood, because it fills a real need for when people first come. We’re thankful for all the staff at Bayview. They’re working hard for us.

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Houa Xiong & Lee Moua

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HOUA: We came in 2008 to Bayview. We moved from Badger Road, where we lived from 1995 to 2008. We came to live here because they provide low-income, affordable housing. We have not found another place where we desire to move, so we have decided to stay here.

We moved to Madison from California, where we lived from 1986 to 1995. We moved with our (Houa’s) parents here, together at the same time. We moved to follow the elders and also to find work. I worked for a company that makes sheet metal for garage doors and storage units.

LEE: My story is a little different. I came to the US when I was very little, so I only remember life in the US. I remember being a high school student in Mercedes, California. My parents still live in California. My four brothers also live in California, and my two sisters after marrying moved to Wisconsin.

HOUA: I was so much older when I came to the US, so I would probably still recognize a lot of the plants etc. I keep in touch with three sisters and one brother, who live in Laos. Not everyone in my family made it to the US. Lee Moua and I met in Fresno, California, during the Hmong New Year. Shortly after that, we got married in Maryville, California, in 1990.

LEE: We’re originally from Potala. There are a lot of Hmong people in this part of China, but this is the Hmong name. We speak Hmong White. We can still understand all the Hmong that live in Southeast Asia, but the Hmong Chinese, we can’t understand anymore. We have not been back since coming to the US. We don’t keep up with Hmong traditions.

HOUA: We do daily chores as they come up. In the summer, we garden a lot, and wherever we want to go, that’s where we’ll go.

Our community is about helping each other out. When you ask for help, your neighbors help you. When someone needs your help, you help them, too. This extends to our community outof-town.

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Inhkhiene Baccam

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I moved to Bayview on August 1, 1982. My family bought a house in the ‘90s, but I work at Bayview so I keep coming. Bayview is like my hometown and extended family.

I lived in Pella, Iowa for a year when I first came to the US. My family and I were born in Laos. We escaped to Thailand and then came to the United States. Our great grandparents and grandparents, all of us came here after the war. I still have a lot of family in Iowa.

I had a cousin who lived in Bayview and said he could help me go back to school if I moved here. I was 20 years old then. So I moved to Madison to go back to school, and wanted to live close to downtown and MATC. I studied ESL at MATC. I married, had a kid, then went back to school for accounting and computer programming. I now do finance, office management, and accounting at Bayview. They like to hire residents here, so I started part-time collecting rent while going back to school.

I now have three kids. My sisters and brothers live close and my mother lives with them. They run Vientiane Palace on Gorham. I still go help out sometimes on Saturdays.

There are families that have stayed for thirty years. Good people, and that keeps us here. The elderly here are close to the Asian food store and close to the doctor. They can walk and don’t have to drive. I like to make them feel happy and comfortable at Bayview.

We go to Lao Temple, Thai Temple, with friends and whomever we know. Some go to church. But we still keep our own culture.

It’s good for the kids to know what we do, what we share, and when to celebrate. There’s a big party in Des Moines where we have a lot of family. That’s probably where the kids learn the most about our culture.

For us, community means to help people, and to have a social life. It’s a group of people who enjoy each other, know each other well, and help each other out. I have a good community working here at Bayview and also at Lao Temple. The ways we see differently we can talk about and share.

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John Hess

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I moved to Bayview when I was three years old. I believe I’m the oldest resident here. I’ll be 51 next month.

I like the community and I like everybody that lives here. My sister lives on the other side of town. My son is in South Korea in the army.

I like fishing. I go across the street to Brittingham Park, sometimes by myself, sometimes with friends.

In 50 years, the only thing that’s really different is this community center. Everything else has stayed the same. The playground has changed every so often. Though now they’re actually going to remodel, so that’ll be a big change.

My life hasn’t changed too much. Normally, I go to festivals in the summer, though that’s different with the pandemic. We always throw a big summer party at Bayview. A lot of the people who’ve moved away would come. We’d have a big volleyball tournament and big bash, but not this year. I haven’t worked for two years now and am applying for disability.

On my birthday this year, I am going to have ten people come for a barbecue. Those will be my immediate family, my sister, her girlfriend, and some neighbors.

My son is a paramedic in the army. He was in Hawaii and now South Korea. He joined right when he graduated. He’s 21 now.

His birthday is the day after mine next month. So he’s been in the army now for 4 years.

This community is very friendly, sociable, sort of like a family.

Whenever I talk about Bayview, I always say there should be more stuff for the kids. They used to ride bikes to the pool, though not this year.

When we were kids we would ride, rollerblade, and go to Great America. We went all over. I want that for today’s kids, too.

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Khu Xiong

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When we first came to the US, we lived with a relative on the South Side of Madison, then for one month on the Northside, and with relatives for three months in 2006. We applied to a few places and got housing here at Bayview.

We lived in Thailand before Madison. We are the result of the war. If I were to explain it would be extremely long, but the history goes from Laos to Thailand. I grew up in the refugee camps. My parents didn’t want to come to the US, so we lived in the refugee camps until they closed down, and we had to live in caves in Thailand. Then the Thai government couldn’t continue to keep us, which resulted in us coming to the US. In Thailand, we weren’t documented citizens and we were confined to live in only the areas that the Thai government allowed. Being undocumented meant we weren’t able to seek employment. With confinement, we weren’t given land to garden or farm. So if you are asking about how different life is, it’s that here we are documented. We are people of a country.

We are not confined. We have opportunities for employment.

The government helps with financial assistance. They give our children educational opportunities. And we have the free will to do what we want to do.

We still continue our traditions here. I enjoy making Hmong clothes for my children to wear. I have so many children! I have two groups of children, from two marriages, living together. My husband has three children of his own from a prior marriage. I have two of my own children from my prior marriage. Together, we have eight children. So that’s 13 children altogether.

My children are still very young so probably don’t know much about our history. I do have that desire for my children to know, and I do tell them on a daily basis about my parents and what life was like in Thailand. However, they study so much here in the US so they don’t seem to have much interest in my stories.

I have many hopes and dreams. I hope that my children have a good education and continue into higher education. Like everyone else, I want to have a well-paying job. I want to own a home of my own. And I do desire to go to school some day,

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but I’m so old now. It’s a desire. I hope that my children will be educated and will have better paying jobs than I can. I hope they will live a life that is so much greater than mine, and not live in poverty like I do now.

What’s important in a community are the people. Because if we lived far away from each other, we would feel so lonely and isolated. When people live together with a sense of community, then there’s a way for all of us to release and find peace.

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Kia Thao

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We lived in poverty in Thailand and heard that the United States is a country of riches. We heard that this was also a place where our children could pursue higher education and we could become educated as well.

We first came to St. Paul, Minnesota, where the aunt who sponsored us lives. We were two adults, myself and my husband, and three children who were born in Thailand. Our youngest son, who was born in 2002, was just a baby then. Our parents and families lived at Bayview, and when we visited we liked the community so much that we decided to move here.

Our life has changed drastically since then. My children are now educated. With the little education that I’ve received with English classes, I understand you when you say it’s time to leave. I think if we had stayed in Thailand, our lives would have continued the same as always.

We now have six children, with three more born here in the US. The three kids born here all grew up at Bayview. Five of our children live with us at Bayview and my oldest daughter still lives in Madison. Our family still lives near us. I’m a homebody. It’s hard for me to get an education now so I stay home the majority of the time and in my garden as well.

We still maintain our traditions and religious practices. When we give birth, we bless the children with the one-year-old religious ritual.

We continue to stay at Bayview because our children are welleducated and we have access to the community center to help us with resources. This is a really good community, and I think that’s why people stay here for such a long time. The good thing about a community is that you’re able to rely on one another, exchange favors, but more importantly, you do good for one another. That’s the only way you can survive by being neighbors.

My hope lies within my children. I stay home all day and I hope that they continue to be educated so that my hope can continue to grow with them.

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Kong Xiong & Chou Yang

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CHOU: For us Hmong folks, we’ve had to steal our way into this country. If we didn’t, we would have been killed back where we came from. There’s no way we would have survived. Our leaders in the military, all 65,000 of them, were killed.

It was so dangerous. You couldn’t have your wife and children with you. If you did and you had a lot of kids, it was way too hard to come to the US legally. If you had money, the Laotians would help you. But just to get three people to Thailand cost $80,000 Laotian dollars. You had to sneak your way here. I worked with General Vang Pao as a French soldier, so I had money. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.

During my time as a soldier in Thailand, the governmental leaders would ask, how many people do you need to help? I would say that I have 65,000 people to help, to get the money to help the families. People couldn’t buy their own things. So we would purchase cans of fish and rice and give it out based on the size of the family. If a family were large, we would give them two cans of fish and a lot of rice. A smaller family would get one can of fish and four cups of rice. But everyone cooked together because otherwise you might not get enough to eat.

In 1979, I moved to Omaha, Nebraska, then Colorado, Milwaukee, back to Colorado, Ohio, and finally to Madison in 2001. I was already living at Bayview when I met my wife, Kong.

My older brother lived here before me, then I moved my mom here, and stayed after she passed away. We were very poor, so we stayed here in Bayview. When I came to the US, I already had driving skills from being a soldier. People in the US thought that I practiced a lot or was a quick learner when I went to get my license. I had my car and raised and sold chickens for money, more chickens than anyone else! But I injured my hand from over-work and had to have surgery. I haven’t been able to work ever since. I’m 87 years old now and a part of Wisconsin Lao Veterans of America, Inc. Because of my service the government now helps me with my living costs.

KONG: I remember a time when I was a young girl and my mother and I went to fetch some water. It was an early morning, around six o’clock. We went by the river. We would dig a hole in

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the stream bank, scoop the water with a bucket, and carry it on us back to the village.

Suddenly, I saw several soldiers walking towards us. They were all wearing uniforms and carrying rifles. There were so many of them. They had women and children with them, too. They came over to us and said they wanted water to drink. They drank all the water we had prepared and left us. We refilled our buckets, and when we arrived home, those same soldiers were already there and settling into the houses of our village.

The soldiers used a telegraph to communicate outwardly and have food dropped to a location nearby for them. But the Vietnamese saw the food drop and sent their soldiers to watch and wait. At 3 AM, the Vietnamese arrived and shot at the soldiers. Behind our village was a mountain, where the soldiers and their families fled. My youngest brother died in the crossfire. We kept his body in our home against the wall, as we always did when a person died in the community. By dawn, the battle reached our homes. Bullets zoomed through the house.

They were shooting at everyone. We hid under the beds. The Vietnamese finally lost and ran away. We watched until the last Vietnamese soldier was standing. He kept shooting at the soldiers in the mountains. Finally, he fled, and as he ran he fell right outside our outhouse. It was quiet and we couldn’t hear the whistle of bullets in the air anymore. We searched to make sure all the Vietnamese were gone.

As a young child, you don’t know to be afraid. So you’d follow the adults as they searched the homes. Since my brother was dead, the soldiers rubbed their gun on his neck. The hot gun barrel made the outer layer of skin peel off and show the white flesh underneath. He must have been around one or two years old because he was still nursing at the time. My father and brotherin-law had to dig multiple graves and often buried people together. The graves were everywhere, by our gardens, behind the trees. The wild boars would dig up the graves that were out of our sight, and sometimes they would show up with an arm or leg. It was so scary. The Vietnamese soldiers returned seven days after the battle. They tied my father up and accused him of hiding things. One of them was standing behind him holding a

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gun to him. I was shaking so much, because I didn’t know what would happen. I could go on about that time, but then my story will never end.

We left our village after 1967. We lost the war and escaped to live in Long Cheng. I was probably of adolescent age. I became the wife of a veteran, which afforded me many privileges. I didn’t have to worry anymore. It was a great lifestyle.

Then in 1975, General Vang Pao was flown out of the country.

We didn’t have any protection. We fled into the jungle and had to live off of whatever we found and thought was edible. We couldn’t live in that condition, so we left in April 1980. I had a four-month old that I held to my chest while carrying food on my back. Sometimes, we had to climb up very steep hills, which was very challenging. But there were other women who were very pregnant and also had to make that journey. We traveled about ten days before arriving at the Mekong River. In May, we arrived at Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand. We were told that General Vang Pao would return and we could go home to Laos. So we stayed and stayed. But he didn’t come back. So we moved to the US on December 10, 1991.

I moved first to Philadelphia, then Fond du Lac in 1992. My first husband and I were childhood sweethearts. Because of his time in combat, he was always very sick, which eventually led to his passing in 1986. In 1987, I married my second husband. We moved to Milwaukee in 2002. He was much older than I was, became ill, and died in 2005. That’s when Chou Yang and I met through a group of widows in Milwaukee. We are around the same age, and we decided we were compatible with each other.

We have each other in friendship. Living in Bayview, we also have many other people who are our age and participate in the same programming. If we were rich people and lived elsewhere, we wouldn’t have this community.

Our kids live all over, in Madison, Appleton, Georgia, Kansas, and Missouri. Chou has sons living in the south. Some day, we won’t be able to live without our children. But as long as we are still young and capable, we can continue here on our own.

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Lilly Lukindo

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I’m originally from Chicago. My husband was from Africa and originally came to the US for school. My sister lived here at Bayview and I would visit, and one time I met my husband at a disco. After we met, he went to Rhode Island for a job. He then visited me in Chicago and proposed to me in front of my mom and siblings.

Since my husband had a job opportunity in Rhode Island as a receptionist, we left the Midwest. He had previously worked in a warehouse picking orders. My husband had been on the list to move to Bayview for 3-4 years. We were in Rhode Island when we got the call and we moved back to Wisconsin. That was 1998.

We were together for 15 years before he passed away, six years ago. We had four children, three girls and one boy. My son just turned 30. My daughters are 27, 21, and 17.

I used to work as an assistant teacher. Later, I worked as an assistant office manager here at Bayview. That was four years ago. These days, I like to spend time with my daughters and make sure they’re doing well. I go to all the meetings for the Bayview Community Center. I go to bingo and all the parties they host here.

It’s important to me that people get along. It’s quiet at Bayview.

We have potluck dinners at the center. We have Zumba, sewing classes, picnics, and parties. I’m looking forward to the renovation project starting to change the living quarters so we’re not so cramped. It would be nice to have more space. My son lives in Colorado now, close to Denver, and my daughters are talking about going, too, so maybe I’ll go with them.

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Mai Kommavang

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I moved to Madison in 1981 directly from Thailand. We had sponsors here in Madison for our family. I was in my thirties.

When we first came here, my husband and I had five kids. We had our sixth child here. I also have nieces and nephews who came to the US. Our family lived in a house on the west side of Madison. When my husband passed away, I still had my kids with me. But when they moved out, I could not afford my house by myself. So on February 1, 2017, I moved to Bayview, and have lived here almost three years now.

We were farmers in Laos. We had a regular life in the countryside, working in the rice and corn fields. Here in the US, I worked in Home Healthcare for more than ten years but had to retire after I started having health problems.

I still celebrate the Lao New Year’s and Lao customs. I’m at Lao Temple more often than I am at my own home. I keep up with my Lao traditions, including traditional dress, and participate in activities every month. I’ve gotten to know lots of people in my community, so now our family also celebrates Thanksgiving and Christmas. Some of my kids keep up with Lao traditions, but not all. We try to take as much time as we can for the holidays.

A lot changed in Laos after government rule changed. Policy changed a lot. It’s gotten a lot better, I think.

I like to cook. I cook every day. People need to eat every day.

Plus I had six children, so I need to cook a lot! I garden. I care for my six grandchildren. I think I will have more grandchildren.

Three of my kids still don’t have kids of their own.

One of my daughters went with her sister to the hospital, saw her sister go into labor, and never wanted kids after that. She’s 41 now and still doesn’t have kids. They’re all from the same family, but their thinking is very different.

I want my community to know my name, my family, and that I came from Laos and have raised my children. I want my neighbors to know who we are.

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Mai Vue

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My family moved to Madison from Thailand in 2004. My husband didn’t want to live in the US, but the Thai government wouldn’t let us become citizens so we had to come here. My eldest daughter came first in 2001. My younger daughter came in 2005. My husband, son, and I came in 2004. My son was only four years old.

We were living on Allied Drive, but after my husband was beaten, the police forced us to live in Northport instead. We lived in Northport for a year, then Fitchburg, before coming to Bayview.

My husband had a heart condition, so after he was beaten, he couldn’t work and received medical assistance. Back in Thailand, I fell from a high boulder and was badly injured, and haven’t been able to work since.

I’ll tell you about my husband. He was a short person. When I married him, he didn’t have parents and was very poor. He worked tirelessly to come up with the finances to marry me. He begged my parents for my hand. I decided to start a life with him and to work hard to establish our lives together, to create hope for our family. He was such a hard worker. He liked to do all the cooking. He never let me do anything. But now all the cooking, cleaning, and laundry are on me.

Ever since he passed away last October I’ve become so forgetful.

He was just like us. He felt shortness of breath, and it just happened. We were married at least 50 years, as our oldest is in her forties. Now that he’s gone, it’s like I also died with him.

Now my eldest daughter lives in Madison with her seven kids, after her husband left. My other daughter is still in St. Paul with eight children. She also married a husband who, like mine, doesn’t have parents. Their oldest son is 14-15 years old. Their youngest is one. My son just turned 18 in July and got his permit, so hopefully soon he can drive and we won’t have to rely on my daughter for everything. My daughter no longer lets me drive since I’m not well enough anymore. But I live at Bayview and have the Asian grocery store in close proximity, which is really helpful. We elderly go in groups to make our purchases so we don’t have to rely on others to help with that.

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Our traditions have mostly stayed the same. For example, if there are any illnesses in the home, we still follow traditions like soul-calling like our ancestors have done for generations.

At Kajsiab House, there was a doctor who told us that even if we are over 50, it’s important for us to continue gardening for exercise. We grow things like corn, squash, and cucumbers.

I hope that when my son graduates he will find us a daughter-inlaw. Hopefully, I will be able to stay with them. If he doesn’t have a successful life, I will feel very hopeless.

The women in this community are important to me, and having fellowship with them. If we lived elsewhere, we wouldn’t have this connection with each other. We would all just be peering out of a window at our neighbors. But here we all get to be together.

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Mee Vang Xiong

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My name is Mee Vang Xiong. I came to live here as a result of the war. From my life as a young child until now, this is the first time that I’m sharing my story.

I was born during wartime. My dad died very young, at only 15 years old. My mom was a very young widow, and because of her yearning for my dad, she did not remarry. Four months after he died, my younger sister was born. I was around two years old.

There’s only two of us and my parents do not have any sons.

Some time after my father’s death, we had to flee the communists.

When we were fleeing, the ants bit me, and the only thing I knew to do was cry. My mom would run ahead, realize that I wasn’t following her, and turn around and come back for me again. I carried two loads of our luggage on my back. Among the three of us, my mom, my sister, and I, we carried six loads.

We ran and escaped to the mountaintop of Phou Bia. During our escape, we ran out of food. We had to forage for wild vegetables, and one item I remember clearly is a wild potato, because when you ate it, it was bitter and extremely prickly. We ate everything plain and bland.

The conditions were so harsh that eventually we surrendered to the Vietnamese communists. I was 16-17 years old at this time.

The Vietnamese communist leader liked my younger sister so much that he would join us at meal times and stand guard by our beds through the night. This instilled so much fear in us, of unimaginable thoughts such as rape. So one night we decided to escape to Thailand. We didn’t know the way to Thailand and understood fully that we were risking our lives, but that risk seemed better than living our lives in fear.

It took us a full day and night to escape across two villages. The Vietnamese leader chased after us. The villagers we met would inform us of his pursuit, and we could hear his gunshots in the distance behind us. Even today, I still fear him.

Once we got past the villages, we arrived at the Mekong River.

None of us could swim, and there was no way to find or buy a flotation device to help us cross the river. We had a friend with

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the surname Yang who had given us a bag. My mom, my sister, and I all relied on that one bag as a flotation device to cross the Mekong River. We blew up the bag with air and tied a rope around my mom’s waist and my sister’s boyfriend. But the bag tore and the only way to continue was to swim. My sister, her boyfriend, and my mom reached the shore. But I didn’t reach it with them. My mom called out to me along the river bank, and somehow, her voice helped carry me across.

When we reached the shore on the side of Thailand, it was around eight in the morning. As I turned back to look at the Mekong River, it looked wider than the Earth itself. I could not imagine how I crossed it. Maybe it was my dad, who died so young, watching over me to make sure I would cross. Or maybe it was just plain luck.

We arrived in Thailand, where a lot of Hmong people already lived. Many suitors pursued me. But without a father, I thought about the struggles that my mom had to go through to put food on the table. So I decided to stay with her and become an old maid. I was 22 years old.

Some time after, while I was working as a cook, I met a man who said he would take responsibility for my family and marry me.

My husband and I got married in the refugee camp, Ban Vinai.

When Thailand forced us out, we came to the United States.

I’m grateful that this country has provided me with shelter and food and that I have escaped multiple life threatening situations.

I’m very happy and grateful to live here at Bayview. The people and manager here are so nice and considerate. I share this story in hopes that people can understand my struggles. I was a victim of war, and though my ex-husband no longer wants me, I want people to see me as a fortunate person. I have escaped death many times.

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Mee Xiong

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I was born in 1981, and lived in Laos until moving to the US with my husband on April 30, 2015. My husband has relatives in Laos that he visits. His family introduced us on May 27, 2009. Before moving here to live in the US, I lived with my parents. They owned a mini grocery in Laos, where I worked.

I miss my dad dearly. I miss the capabilities that I had back in Laos. When I was going through the process of getting my visa, my dad strongly discouraged me from leaving since he’s old and we might not see each other again. But because I had two children, I thought it was best to come to the US. My children are now 9 years old, 5 years old, 3 years old, and 10 months.

My father hugged my two children. But I was nursing at the time and didn’t hug my father. I told him I would work hard and visit him in two years. But eleven months later, he passed away. I feel like if I were more capable and could work and earn more, I could have gone back to visit my dad. Since moving here, I have a lot of regret. I regret not listening to my dad and his wisdom. I will regret it for the rest of my life. I regret moving here.

My life has pretty much stayed the same. My family back in Laos is still the same. They’re very poor. They raise animals, and the only way they can make money is by selling those animals.

Since moving here, I’ve worked hard to pay for our basic necessities: rent, food, and clothes for my children. I work fulltime at the manufacturing company, Little Potato Company. I work in an assembly line and we sort potatoes. My husband takes care of our children.

My life feels like it hasn’t changed. I think if you were to compare our life here to life in Laos, we are the same. It’s hard. We are still in poverty. There are times when I can’t afford to pay rent. But I do the best that I can for my children. Here, I don’t speak the language. In Laos, I speak the language. I feel capable there, and at the end of the month I still have money in my purse. Here, at the end of the month, I have nothing to pull out of my pocket.

When I see clothes my children would like, I’m sad that we can’t afford new clothes for them.

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I’m getting old. And again, because I don’t speak the language, it is hard for me. I try to guide my children as best as I can, because if I can’t, then my hopes and dreams are gone.

I don’t have a lot of friends here. I have a few friends I can rely on and the community center. My friend, Pao Soua, helps me with English, and another neighbor I socialize with as well. I like to socialize. I would like to have a lot of friends. Due to the difficulty of learning English, I tend not to have many English-speaking friends. A lot of people might not think I’m approachable, but I’m actually a very friendly person. Of course, while I’m friendly, I won’t tolerate people mistreating me. If people are kind to me, I will return their kindness. If people are mean to me, after three or four chances, I will ignore them.

I really like the manager and staff at Bayview. They’re awesome and very helpful. I like that the bus picks up my children to go to school. I like that my children can play freely here and be safe and not be hassled by the police.

My family practices traditional customs. We celebrate new year’s. I still grow a garden and our own food. So overall, our lives have stayed very similar.

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Nhia Lee Thao

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I came to the US in 1981 via the refugee camp, Ban Vinai. I was 17 years old and still married at the time. I was living in poverty in Laos. My family and I were running away from the communists.

My parents were both captured and taken back to Laos. Only my uncles and I escaped. In Thailand, I met my husband, and came here with my husband and his parents.

We landed in the US and stayed in Los Angeles for a night before coming to live with a sponsor through a church in a small town in Wisconsin. I don’t remember my sponsor’s name, but we lived with them for a year. After a year, our sponsors took in another Laotian family. We had relatives living in Bayview, so we decided it was time to move to be with our family. Since moving to Bayview, I’ve had eleven children.

In Thailand, I lived in extreme poverty. I got married because it gave me a way out. Life here is much better. We get government assistance. We don’t live in extreme poverty anymore.

Culturally, when we daughters are married, we are no longer a part of our family’s clan and family’s spirits. Since I am a divorcee I no longer belong to my family’s clan and spirits, so when someone in the family gets sick we rely on western medicine and go to the hospital and clinics.

According to cultural belief, when we are ill, we go to the hospital and rely on western medicine. When doctors can’t find anything wrong with us, we will turn to our spiritual belief, which is shamanism. If the doctors can’t find anything wrong physically, then we address the spiritual side through soul callings.

We do an annual soul calling in the new year. Because my children grew up here, they are pretty westernized. They often discourage me from soul callings because they don’t understand how impactful they can be. But if the doctor can’t find anything wrong with our bodies, then we should turn to soul calling. Some of my children understand, but others actively discourage it.

I’ve never told my children about my story and life, so they don’t know how I came here. My children still live in Madison. I want to find a good time to sit down and tell my children my story.

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I don’t think anyone can fulfill my hopes and dreams for me. I have to do it myself. I would like to be fluent in other languages and English. Because I am old, I do have dreams, but I don’t think they will be possible, so I don’t have a lot of happiness. A lot of people tell me I’m still young, but I can tell my body is older when I garden. Maybe my spirit is still young.

I am currently 56 years old. All my kids are grown. I don’t do a lot of things but in the summer I garden. I enjoy our women’s group here. We know if we are struggling or afraid, there’s another woman who’s willing to listen to us.

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Nina Okwali

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I’m originally from Nigeria and lived in London for one year before coming to the US. I had some relations who encouraged me to come to Madison, and when I first moved to this city, I lived in Greenway Cross for 2.5 years. A friend was living in Bayview so I applied.

Life here has been wonderful. I had my two boys at Meriter Hospital. My experience there made me feel loved, compared to Nigeria where there were a lot of problems. My life has changed so tremendously. I live a life with no fear, with free movement.

I feel I am happier in the US. I don’t know how to describe it, I’m just happier. I love to care for people. I love to share, counsel, and give help. I’m on the housing committee at Bayview and the leadership group. I was selected to be on the leadership group with a bunch of students and adults who come together to improve things here in every aspect of life.

One of my greatest joys is meeting my husband here in the US. We met in 2003 and married in 2008. My first son, Alex, is at Edgewood College. He’s a second year in clinical psychology.

My younger son is eight years old and in third grade. I tell my younger one to look at his brother and choose to be the good part of him.

Our neighborhood is safe, which is the most important thing to me. My kids can go play outside and I don’t worry. We celebrate Christmas, Thanksgiving, and birthdays as a family.

We celebrate Nigerian Independence from Britain. I talk to my kids every day about their heritage. I speak my native language with them. Even though my two boys were born in the US, I want them to know their roots.

I hope for myself to be a good leader, a good wife, a good mother.

I hope for my children to strive for the best, to be known, and for them to give back to the community. I want people to know I am a gentle and caring person, easy to approach. I love to give advice. I just love helping. It gives me joy to help and give to people. I’m happy to be in Bayview.

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Pa Yang

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My family came to Bayview towards the end of 2004. We lived for two years at Northport Apartments before coming here.

My husband, husband’s brother, one younger brother, and the majority of my children live here at Bayview. Most of my immediate family still resides in Laos.

We are poor and Bayview provides low income housing. With government assistance, they help determine rent for us and that’s why we continue to stay.

My life before Madison is like everyone else. We are victims of the war. We cultivated crops in Laos and in Thailand as a source of income. I also embroidered extremely intricate designs for clothing exported and sold in the US. When we lived in Ban Vinai Refugee Camp, we didn’t make much money. We only made $800 in Thai Baht ($26.44 USD) or one pair of Thai money bags at a time. In one year, you might make four or five pairs of money bags. When we lived in the Chiang Kham Refugee Camp, my husband was tasked with receiving our food ration. Every day, I would go and load five to six gallons of water. Afterwards, I sat and I sewed all day long.

Later on, when we had electricity, we were able to make five to six pairs of money bags in one year, or $9,000 Thai Baht ($297.45 USD). I used a sewing machine for my embroidery, as it takes too much time to do this work by hand and you make less money. I had five kids, so I worked with brains and smarts on how to work faster to feed those five children. I worked so hard during that time. Now, when I see people hand-embroidering, it makes me so sick to think about how long it takes. But since I get government assistance now, I don’t need to do that anymore.

When I came to the United States I was already old. I couldn’t work, so I have stayed on government assistance as a senior.

We continue to live at Bayview because we have so many family members who also live here. We get to stay close to family, which gives us security and ways to socialize.

We maintain our traditions. We especially keep up with our religious traditions. During the new year, we still sacrifice

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chickens. We still make offerings to our ancestors. We still carry on as many traditions as we can. Religiously, we have not converted at all. We still practice the religion our ancestors carried with them from China.

For us, community to me means cohesion. That means helping each other out during happy and sad times. It means having a social outlet for our mental and physical wellbeing.

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Pao Soua Xiong

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We love Bayview. We used to live in Northport, from 2004 to 2011. We decided to come to Bayview because it’s close to the hospital and grocery store.

Our family moved straight to Madison from Thailand. We came from a refugee camp, me, my parents, and all eleven of my siblings. I’m the oldest of twelve and was around 15-16 when we came to the US. My aunt already lived here in Madison. Madison is the best. I’ve been to other cities and states and think they have much higher crime. It’s safer here, especially at Bayview. I feel safe having my kids outside playing here.

Life in Thailand was hard. We worked in the fields, picking corn.

Other times, I went to school or worked sewing clothes. Life was hard because there’s nowhere for us to go because we weren’t citizens of Thailand. There were no opportunities for us.

So I got married. My ex and I came here to the US. Then after having our first child, we separated. My current husband and I met in Minnesota through mutual friends.

My family has changed a lot. There are opportunities for us here. I had to stop going to school in Thailand because my dad couldn’t pay for my supplies. Here in Madson, I was able to get financial aid here and go to school at MATC for accounting.

Right now, I stay home and take care of the kids. I will go back to work soon. My oldest child is 14, and my other children are 8,7, 6, and 3. Sewing and cooking are the most enjoyable activities to me.

We keep up with family traditions, new year’s, calling spirits, and eating together. If I make more money some day, I’d like to take my kids back to Thailand to see where they came from, and how lucky they are to have opportunities here.

Here there are more opportunities for us. Not only school, but work as well. There was no stable work for us in Thailand, only work in the field, which is hard. My grandparents and mom’s siblings are still there. My dad’s side of the family is all in Laos, but we don’t chat a lot because we don’t have the same bond.

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I hope to see my kids be able to survive by themselves. I was born in a country with no opportunities, but I knew how to survive by myself. Here, while there are more opportunities, I’m not sure if my kids know yet how to survive on their own.

The most important things are a safe community and good school. One reason I don’t want to leave Bayview is because we are surrounded by good schools. I had to quit school in Thailand, and it was so sad to see my friends go when I couldn’t.

I want to go back to school again for accounting and get my CNA. A lot of people ask me for help with phone calls, appointments, and translating, and I learn a lot from helping them. When I ask them why they don’t call someone else to help them, they say, no, they’re not like you, we want you. I ask a lot of questions when I accompany them, say, at the doctor, and I may realize or catch something that they don’t. There’s an elderly woman who says, “You are a small woman but you are an umbrella for us, so that’s why we always come to you.”

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Teang Ou

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I left Cambodia in 1975 because of the war. I was 26 years old.

My husband and I were living in a Thai camp for five years before a sponsor in Cambridge, Wisconsin brought us to the US. We lived in Cambridge for seven years before coming to Madison.

My husband and I lived in Bayview for five years, then bought a house near St. Mary’s Hospital. We lived in that house for 20 years, then moved back to Bayview in 2014. My husband sold the house and returned to Cambodia, where he is now a landscaper, planting mangos, cashews, and coconuts. He has his own ponds, 100 of them, and bought many kinds of fish to fill them. I will go there in December and live there for five months and come back. It’s nice to be in a warm country in the winter, but not as nice when it’s hot.

Life in the US has been much better than living over there, because here we could have jobs. I worked at a hotel in housekeeping and had a cleaning job at an office for years.

I have three daughters. My two oldest, Davy and Davun, were born in the Thai camp. My youngest, Daryna, was born in Madison. Davy, the oldest, lives in a house with a nurse because she is sick--her leg doesn’t walk straight. Davun answers the phone at the hospital. Daryna works for Dane County.

My children know a lot about our family history. I tell them about life in Cambodia, about what my husband and I did there.

Before, I worked farming rice. My dad and mom owned land and they farmed rice. My parents still live in Cambodia. We write letters and call one another to keep in touch.

Our family celebrates Thanksgiving and Christmas. My children come over and I make a lot of food: egg rolls, paid thai, sweet and sour stir fry, and spring rolls. I make these on the weekends also, not just for the holidays. My children now want to learn how to make egg rolls.

For fun, I make jewelry with the teaching artists that come to Bayview. I like to garden and plant flowers and vegetables. I have a Lao friend and we plant vegetables together in the summer-tomatoes, cucumbers, and beans. Friends visit me often here.

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Church people and family members come and we play ball together. Since I don’t have a car, other people come to take me to the store or food pantry. There are many people here who are nice and help me. I attend meetings at the community center because it’s important to know what’s happening in our neighborhood. I hope for myself and my family to continue living a happy life in Bayview.

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Tursun Kerimova

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Our family is from Kyrgyzstan. My daughter, Fatima, married an American boy who was in the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan. Fatima and Scott moved to Madison, married, and got pregnant. I moved to help take care of my grandson, who was born in December 2008. Fatima teaches ethnic studies classes at UW-Madison.

I came to Bayview because there are so many seniors here and it’s multicultural. It’s a place where I can meet people from very different backgrounds and cultures. I feel very connected to Bayview. Also, I garden. Flowers are not only beauty. They are also a hobby to help maintain my health, for nurturing, for self-healing, for admiration, for attraction. Flowers foster neurological systems and happiness. I worked as a language teacher and it was a priority to help students grow indoor flowers and love nature. It’s practical, pleasant, and very useful.

My grandson is now transitioning to middle school, so I have more time to work in my garden plot. I found friends here with similar hobbies, who love nature and growing flowers and vegetables.

The weather is similar to where I’m from in Kyrgyzstan. I love spring and fall, and that Madison is small scale, not like Chicago.

I love that people here regardless of differences respect each other. Respect is very important at Bayview. People are friendly.

They speak intentionally to seniors. I appreciate the activities at the community center. Women my age develop new hobbies and explore different recipes and traditions. We live here as one big family. We support and understand each other. I’m very appreciative of Nou. She works hard to support seniors to live comfortably. I appreciate Bayview administration like Lexi, and the opportunities and programs for seniors to enjoy life.

One of my goals is to introduce an embroidery program for seniors. You can make many things, like carpets, clothes, and pictures, from natural materials like wool that are useful for people’s health. Even the colors can come from grass. In the future, when I travel to my home country, I want to bring back materials to introduce to my leadership team. I have a lot of ideas for the leadership team. I’m into fashion. Where I come from it’s all fashion and colors. I want to bring a complete Kyrgyz costume to show to the leadership team. This is my dream.

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I’m wearing my national costume today. This one is machine made, but they can also be handmade. These are traditional patterns. Each pattern has a meaning, like mountains and flowers, a reminder to preserve nature. Then nature will say thank you.

Kyrgyzstan is a small, mountainous country with very beautiful nature. It is 90% mountainous, and even in hot summer, there’s snow in the mountains. Mountains are very special to us. People swim in the lakes below. There’s a variety of food. People love meat. I make handmade pasta, dumplings, and spaghetti, and rounds like pizza. I bake bread. Here, I use an oven, but in Kyrgyzstan it is a handmade oven. I make very tasty bread.

You can find all vegetables in Kyrgyzstan except for mandarin oranges. Kyrgyzstan is a beautiful country that attracts people to check out the culture and nature.

The houses keep you warm in winter and cool in summer. Inside there are women’s rooms, men’s rooms, and dining rooms.

Women make wool items from scratch as souvenirs. People have many kids, 10, 12. Rarely do people have 3-5 kids, usually more. It’s one of the reasons I love Bayview. There are many kids here. It’s happy and joyful.

I hope my grandchild will grow up and go to college and foster multiculturalism. I will be proud of him. He’s growing up here and I hope he will promote my culture. He speaks three languages, English, Russian, and Kyrgyz. He teaches me English and I teach him Russian and Kyrgyz. He helped me study for the citizenship test, so I could become a US citizen last spring.

I’m religious. There’s one god, though everyone imagines god differently. I’m also a Russian Asian. Kyrgyz was a colony of the former Soviet Union for 70 years. I taught the Russian language and literature for 38 years. I respect Russian culture and have always lived multiculturally.

Kyrgyzstan is a small country. People usually don’t know us.

Culturally, we are similar to Mongols. Mongols also live in yurts.

Their food is similar to ours, bread, meat, and handmade pasta.

Women are taught from a young age to make dough and pasta.

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Mongolian boys often marry Kyrgyz girls and Kyrgyz boys marry Mongolian girls.

We are nomads. We are used to moving. That’s why we can move here. We feel comfortable moving to a new place, meeting new people, adjusting to a new culture, learning a new language, adapting, getting along, fostering friendship, and teaching our culture through things like embroidery, gardening, cooking, handmade pasta. We feel comfortable moving. That’s what we do. We are always on the move.

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Vankham Souannoy

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I moved here because we have Lao people who live here. I moved from Laos to Thailand to Madison because I had a cousin here. And then to Bayview, because my cousin had lived here before. I live alone. I came alone to the US, on May 1, 1983, so it’s been 36 years.

Bayview requires two people to move in, so at the time I moved in with my cousin. I’m still happy to be here because of the Lao community. It’s safe and comfortable, and I’m used to the area.

I was in Laos and Thailand until I was 17-19 years old, and I lived at the Thai camp. So I’ve spent most of my life now in the US and have more experience here.

I enjoy going to Lao Temple. I go to potlucks once a month. We have ceremonies at the Temple. Volunteers at the temple help with the gardening, cleaning, upkeep, ceremonies, sometimes once a week, sometimes multiple times.

Things have pretty much stayed the same in my life. I love gardening. My name means “little garden.”

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Xay Thor

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I came to the US and Bayview when I was 12 years old, at the end of 1980. I was already married by then, but didn’t live with my husband yet. I lived with relatives here at Bayview, and when I became of legal age, my husband and I moved in together.

I married my husband in Ban Vinai Refugee Camp. My family had moved from Laos to Thailand, right before the new year, and my husband and I married after the new year festivities.

We applied a few times to come to the US, but each time we failed the interview. My mom asked my husband if he could go ahead without me, but he refused. That’s when my family met the Xiong family, who were on their way to the US. My maiden name from my parents is Nou Chi Yang, but in order for me to come to the US, the Xiongs claimed me as their daughter. That was the first time I changed my name.

After we arrived in Madison, the Xiongs moved to Ohio and passed me along to live with my great grandparents, the Chas.

So I became a Cha. It’s so heartbreaking that I’ve had to change so many last names. I lived with the Cha’s from age 12 to 15.

At 15, the husband I married when I was 12 came to get me.

When I applied for citizenship, the person who helped me said I should switch to my husband’s last name, Thor. I really wanted to keep my Yang last name, the name from my parents. But the person who helped me said that divorce rates are high in the US. So to better secure my ability to get custody of my children in the event of divorce, I should change my last name to Thor.

When my husband and I divorced in 2010, I was able to get custody of my eleven children, six sons and five daughters. He ran away and left us in January 2010, and July 4th of the same year our divorce became final. He has never returned.

There hasn’t been much change in my life, but the saddest thing is when someone asks if I have a husband or male counterpart who can take care of cultural and religious duties. I tell people that my oldest son has served in the military for 35 years. I tell them that I also have a daughter and son who speak Hmong and English, who help me the most. So even though I don’t have a husband I don’t look for one. I’m blessed with children who love me very much.

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I will not get married again. It does not matter if those who pursue me are young or old. I have a group of children who are doing very well and are very successful. Some of them have even become nurses. My youngest daughter works at the hospital.

Besides my children, I don’t have much family left. When I came to the US, I had no immediate family here, so in 1993 I was able to sponsor my brother and mom to come. About six months later, my mom passed away. In 2008, my older brother passed away.

So now the only immediate family I have is my dad’s younger brother, my uncle, who lives in Stevens Point. So whenever I go to Stevens Point, that’s who I visit.

In Hmong culture, when parents divorce, the kids are considered orphans even if the parents are still alive. I want everyone to love and respect the orphans that they see. I ask that they don’t yell at orphans, and instead ask orphans why they are at their front steps. If orphans ask for food, give them food. If their clothes are torn, don’t read into it, just give the orphan one of your child’s clothes. I’ve lived a life of being an orphan myself, so I understand how it feels to be one. I hope that everyone will help to love and contribute to these children and assist them to become independent, even if they’re not children from your own womb.

I hope that all housewives who hear about my story can understand that even if they don’t have partners anymore to continue to love and care for their children. I’ve seen videos about parents who have abandoned their children and left them homeless.

I’m very thankful for Bayview. I’ve lived here for almost 40 years.

People ask me why I’ve lived here so long, and I tell them there are other families who’ve lived here even longer. Madison and Bayview are great. There are great schools for our children.

There are lots of activities to keep my mind off things. But I’m most thankful for the Hmong staff here, like Nou and Mai, who create activities for us at the community center and take us on field trips like pontoon boat rides. Time goes by fast when you’re out and about and participating in these community programs and activities, and before you know it, the day is over.

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Xee Lee

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In July 1980, my husband died in war, so I came to the US. In Laos, I am an orphan. My parents died when I was five years old and I lived with my relatives. I moved from relative to relative.

I wore rags. I would live with a relative for a few days and move on to another relative for a few days. My life is so depressing when I think about it.

I lived with my younger aunt and uncle until I met and married my husband. He was a soldier, so he was gone most of the time.

So all of my life, I have always lived a poor life. To share my full story is going to take so long.

My husband lived on base all the time. Even when I had two children, he never came to take care of me. Over time, those children died, which is why I don’t have any sons now. During that time, we were in the middle of war. Our husbands only came home once every few months. Sometimes, in a year, they’d only be home two times.

We lived in the villages up in the mountains, and were always poor. Fortunately, there’s a higher being who guided us to live in the United States. Now, we live like everyone else. I brought my three daughters here. When we came, the oldest was eight, the middle was four, and the youngest was two. They are educated now and help me out, so I can live like everyone else.

I can’t imagine the poverty we would continue to live in if we couldn’t come here. But even though I’ve come a long ways from the poverty I grew up in, I’m so disappointed in myself because I’m always battling some sort of illness. Three days out of seven I am sick with something. So I live from day to day not knowing what tomorrow will bring.

My life here in the US is a different kind of poverty, because I’ve never been able to work. It makes me so sad each time I think about it. So I’m very thankful to you all at the center for helping me and being a source for me to vent and find joy. It brightens my day. Thank you, and this is all I will say.

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS Interviewer, writer, book designer Jenie Gao is a full-time artist and entrepreneur. She specializes in social practice and community engagement work using mediums such as murals, public art, printmaking, and storytelling. She consults in best practices centered on equity. jenie.org Photographer Jamie Ho is a photographer whose art practice focuses on first and second-generation Chinese American experience. She is currently pursuing her MFA in photography at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. jamie-ho.com

BAYVIEW PORTRAITS 2019 - 2021 Creation of this work took place from 2019 - 2021. In accord with the ethics of oral histories, all stories and portraits belong to the families and their descendants, who have given permission to the artists and Bayview to use them in this book.

For more information about Bayview Portraits, please contact Bayview Foundation, Inc. at 608-256-7808.

Thank you to the families honored us with their stories.

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