Midwest by southeast: aircraft manufacturing and the journey to Lao community building in Wichita, Kansas, 1975—1995

Abstract

In May of 1975, a refugee crisis began as the wars in Southeast Asia came to a close. When the communist Pathet Lao overthrew the Laotian monarchy and established a new country, hundreds of thousands of Laotians were made into refugees and fled their country. The ethnic Lao, separate from the northern Hmong tribespeople, were among the 1.1 million Southeast Asians resettled in the United States beginning in 1975. Though they share similarities with fellow Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Hmong refugees, the ethnic Lao have often had their histories overlooked, which this thesis seeks to rectify. It discusses the long journey of ethnic Lao refugees from their homeland to Wichita, Kansas, showing them as actors in their stories rather than victims acted upon. It begins with the role the United States had in turning refugees into refugees, their experiences in refugee camps, and the legislation which allowed them entry into the country. Once here, they struggled to adapt while finding jobs and building their lives amidst the country’s devastating economic recession. This thesis asserts that coveted aircraft jobs in Wichita, “the Air Capital of the World,” provided security to ethnic Lao refugees and helped them to build a distinctly Lao American community in the American heartland.