For many Southeast Asians, particularly those of Khmer and Lao descent, this time of year is especially significant. April does not only bring with it the Spring rains, but with that rain also comes Khmer and Lao New Year.
While many in our community will be celebrating New Year at home with close friends and family, many more will also join others in enjoying the annual festivities at their local Buddhist temple.
As a kid, New Year was always a fun time for me. I loved everything about it — the traditional foods, the games, hanging out with my cousins at the temple, and did I say the food already?
I can still remember running around, playfully splashing water and throwing fragrant bath powders on one another. These are some of my greatest childhood memories. But in hindsight, the best part was probably just seeing how my whole community came together at our temple to celebrate and support one another.
Coming from a family of Lao immigrants, my parents were generally always at work (like most Southeast Asian parents), so while I wanted for nothing, family time was often a rare luxury we couldn’t afford. But since in my community nobody missed New Year, or Pi Mai in Lao, you already know it was on and cracking!
For those of us incarcerated in a state that doesn’t necessarily make cultural holidays a priority, the celebrations are definitely a little different for us inside, but our celebratory spirit remains the same.
Recently, I got a chance to sit down and have a conversation with one of my closest homeboys Sambo Moeun, a Khmer Tacoma native, who also goes by the name “Shortt-E,” and has served 21 years of a 31-year sentence for first degree murder.
During our conversation, we both reminisced about our childhoods and what it’s like celebrating New Year at home — and reflected on what we missed most. Because Shortt-E was born in a refugee camp in Surin, Thailand, and didn’t come to America until he was around three years old in 1979, and I was born in Seattle, I wondered how, and if, our New Year experiences differed.
However, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that they didn’t differ much when Shortt-E began to share some of his fondest memories of celebrating Khmer New Year in Tacoma by telling me how he “enjoyed time with family members that came from other states to celebrate in one place. The love and atmosphere of joy and happiness. The day to be carefree and run around with baby powder and super soaker water guns to spray and throw at people. The joy of being in a child-like spirit to come together and be in a celebratory state of mind.”
I laughed when he described that scene to me, because I was a real professional with a super soaker when I was a kid. I could also relate to loving the joyous atmosphere.
Though Shortt-E and I were raised in different cities, both of us came from low-income immigrant households, so it was really cool to hear how much New Year celebrations also meant to him. I mean, in a way, that’s kind of what New Year means to all of us from Southeast Asian communities.
As I began to reflect on how this time of year makes me miss my family just a little bit harder, my guy Shortt-E also spoke on how he “misses being with my family and closest friends… and a chance to share a New Year celebration with my daughter Daysia.”
No laughter after we share that — just an honest moment between two brothers.
After the brief silence, we continue to talk about how cool it would be to have an official space to celebrate our New Year with our friends and family. Like I shared earlier, the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) does not place any real value or priority on our cultural holidays and celebrations, so for us Southeast Asians inside, we’ll have to make the best of what we have — each other. Despite the haters and Tulsi Gabbard! Don’t ask…
This cool moment with my homeboy is quite honestly bittersweet for me. While I love reminiscing about our childhood memories and mischievously plotting on how we can get DOC to recognize our New Year, I also realize that we probably don’t have many of these New Years left to spend together.
Though I still have nearly 50 years left on my sentence, with good time, Shortt-E will be released in less than ten. And it’s not the fact that my brother will be released from prison that’s the sad part, it’s the fear that we all have of the prospect of his likely deportation back to a place he’s never really known that’s the scariest. And with Trump in office, my friend’s deportation is sadly nearly inevitable.
I shake that off, and remind myself to take things day by day. But I just can’t shake the images I’ve been seeing on the news of ICE agents launching a full-scale attack on our communities, and I wonder what this could all mean for my brother Shortt-E. Yet we have to continue to do what we always do — survive.
And though this is a time for celebration and festivities, I also want to take a brief moment to remind us all of what that survival looks like. I want us to come together this New Year, but I also want us to make a commitment to also come together year-round when there isn’t food and fun. I want us to make a commitment to continue to support one another even when nobody’s watching or expecting us to. But most importantly, I want us to stop hating on each other and lift one another up. Because at the end of the day, it’s on all of us to make sure that we all make it to the NEXT New Year.
Happy New Year, my friends! Until next time, keep dreaming!
Felix Sitthivong is a writer, community organizer, and founding member of the Peoples’ Empowerment Assembly for Collective Equity (PEACE). Sitthivong is also the former president and senior advisor for the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Awareness Group (APICAG). Reach him with questions for “On the Fence Line” via Securus (WA #354579) or write to him at Felix Sitthivong #354579, PO BOX 900, Shelton, WA 98584.
Felix Sitthivong is an incarcerated storyteller, community organizer, and founding member of the Peoples’ Empowerment Assembly for Collective Equity (PEACE). Sitthivong is also the former president and senior advisor for the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Awareness Group (APICAG). He is currently serving a 66-year sentence at the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, WA. Reach him with questions for “On the Fence Line” via Securus (WA #354579) or write to him at Felix Sitthivong #354579, PO BOX 900, Shelton, WA 98584.
