What Remains from a Lao American Memoir

From the desk of Amber D. Inthavong, Author of What We Brought Across the River: Memoir of a Lao American

My name is Amber Inthavong, I am a Lao American writer and the daughter of refugees from Laos. My work explores intergenerational memory, silence, and the lasting impact of the American Secret War on diaspora communities from Laos. Through my writing, I seek to preserve personal and collective histories that have often been left out of dominant narratives. 

I grew up knowing that something had happened in Laos long before my life in a Colorado suburb, even though my parents never spoke about it. The past lived quietly in their pauses, in the conversations they avoided, in the way survival was treated as both an achievement and a burden. As a Lao American daughter of refugees, I inherited a history shaped by war, displacement, and silence—and for many years, I didn’t have the language to name it.

As I got older, I began talking with other Lao Americans and asking, “Do you know how your parents got here?” I was almost always met with a similar answer: “I don’t know. They just say they escaped and crossed a river to Thailand.”

It was unsettling to realize how many people in my generation did not have a full story of why their parents ran, or how it all happened. As I entered my thirties and watched my parents age into their sixties, I felt a growing sadness knowing that one day they would no longer be here—and that many of us might never know the full story. The urgency to ask questions became heavier with time, shadowed by the fear that these memories could be lost if they remained unspoken.

The moment I realized there was much more to my family’s story came when I finally sat down with my mother and asked her about her first memory of the American Secret War. She didn’t begin with politics or timelines. She told me about her father being captured, and about the fear and confusion her family felt afterward—how they didn’t know what to do, or what would come next. In that moment, the war stopped being something abstract and distant and became something deeply personal.

After hearing my mother’s story, my heart broke for her. I began to understand how much she and my father had been carrying all along—the grief of leaving their parents and siblings behind, the impossible choice between staying and surviving, and the weight of seeking safety through asylum in America. Their silence was not indifference; it was protection. They carried their memories so that their children could move forward without the burden of fear.

As I learned more, I also came to understand that the consequences of the American Secret War did not end when families fled Laos. They continue to shape lives today—through unexploded ordnance still scattered across the countryside, and through the generational trauma carried by those who survived and by the children who inherited the silence. War does not end when people escape it. Its impact lingers in the land and in the lives of those who remain.

This realization shaped my decision to write What We Brought Across the River: Memoir of a Lao American. The book is my attempt to honor my parents’ history and to preserve stories that were never given space to be fully told. It reflects not only the journey to America, but the emotional inheritance passed down to first-generation Lao American children—questions of identity, belonging, and what it means to carry a past you did not personally experience, yet feel deeply.

I felt my memoir aligned closely with the mission of Legacies of War because their work focuses on the aftermath—on what is left behind. The impact of the American Secret War did not stop with the families who fled. It continues to affect the families who remained, including my parents’ relatives who still live in Laos. Their efforts are a reminder that the story of war does not end at escape or resettlement, and that accountability and care must extend beyond borders.

Telling my family’s story has been one way of breaking the silence I inherited and honoring those who endured unimaginable loss. Organizations like Legacies of War ensure that remembrance is paired with action—working to make Laos safer while preserving the histories that risk being forgotten. I am grateful for the space they create for stories like mine to exist alongside the ongoing work of healing, repair, and hope.