Our digital storytelling archive will be a living, breathing account of our communities’ journey here to America, an effort to forever cement and preserve our communities’ story through a curation of collected stories.
Mekong Journeys: Stories of Abundance
Join us for screenings of Year of the Cat and Bitterroot.
All events are free, but registration is required.
Mekong Journeys: Stories of Abundance is our film screening series highlighting Southeast Asian filmmakers and the stories they capture. We will also host a roundtable discussion facilitated by Palita Chunsaengchan, Assistant Professor of the University of Minnesota Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.
Roundtable Discussion
Wed, Apr 29 | 5:30-7:30 p.m.
120 Pillsbury Hall, 310 Pillsbury Dr. S.E., Minneapolis, MN
Film Screenings at the Trylon Cinema
2820 E 33rd St, Minneapolis, MN
Year of the Cat
Sat, Apr. 25 | 4–6 p.m.
(2025, 98m) dir Tony Nguyen. Year of the Cat follows filmmaker Tony Nguyen on an extraordinary quest to solve the mystery of his father, lost in the chaos of the Fall of Saigon. Crafted as an investigative home movie, this intensely raw documentary weaves together moments of humor and heartache, offering an intimate look at how the children of refugees are shaped by war and loss. As Tony delves into his family’s history, the film reveals the emotional lengths we go to in confronting the past—and the possibility of healing as we reclaim and transform our futures.
Bitterroot
Sat, May 2 | 4-6 p.m.
(2025, 85m) dir Vera Brunner-Sung. In western Montana, recently divorced Lue keeps to a steady, quiet routine: his maintenance job, working his family stand at the farmers market, fly fishing on the river, and midnight outings for karaoke at the local bar. He lives with his widowed mother, Song, whose efforts to find him another wife are unwelcome and increasingly difficult to avoid. Song worries that she can’t get through to him, seeking guidance from ancestors. The order that Lue clings to begins to crumble when he is suddenly laid off. He hides the truth from Song and scrambles to find work, but she senses something is wrong. She consults her shaman for help, but Lue only pulls further away. Soon Lue discovers that the spirit world may still have influence over his life—and he must finally face the buried pain that destroyed his marriage.
THE FULL ABUNDANCE CAMPAIGN
Abundance Altar
The Abundance Altar is a mobile, ever-evolving tribute to our shared journey.
As the centerpiece of our 50th programming, the altar is a gathering point for storytelling sessions. Community members are invited to contribute photos, mementos, and offerings that honor the people and histories that shaped us.
Storytelling Collection
This series of first-person storytelling exchanges will center the personal experiences of SEA communities, capturing accountings of migration, adaptation, and renewal since their family’s first arrival in Minnesota, and how individual experiences have shaped community identities and contributed to Minnesota’s cultural and historical landscape.
We’re collecting these first-person accounts and preserving them in five languages: English, Hmong, Khmer, Lao, and Vietnamese. Through transcription and translation, we’re making our stories more accessible and preserving our heritage languages.
Select stories will then be featured in a public exhibition and an interactive digital storytelling map.
Digital Storytelling Archive
Our Digital Storytelling Archive will be a living, breathing account of our communities’ journey here to America, an attempt to forever cement and preserve our communities’ story through video, photo, and collected stories.
These stories will be compiled into a historically accurate and chronological timeline and made accessible via an online platform.
Exhibition:
To close out our 50th programming, we’ll host an exhibition that brings together the altar, the stories, and the spirit of everything we’ve created together throughout this programming.
This final event will be both a celebration and a call forward, reminding us of how far we’ve come, and what’s still ahead.
The 50th anniversary is a significant anniversary that has cemented our legacy as diaspora and refugee individuals, but together this experience has united us in resilience, bravery, and care. Over the next two years, SEAD will work to gather, preserve, and elevate the stories of our community through this multi-leveled project of art and storytelling.
Our hope is to connect the Southeast Asian community to our culture and history, tracing experiences from arrival in Minnesota to the current generations in the state, reflecting on how histories still reverberate today and how they can inform our future. By collecting first-person narratives from our community, capturing their lived experiences of immigration and building community in Minnesota, we will be preserving oral histories before they are lost with our elders, while also providing an opportunity for younger generations to engage with and define the role of these stories in their lives.
Minnesota history would not be complete without the strong and varied contributions of Southeast Asians. The 50th is an important milestone to reflect on their acts of resilience and the lives they've built here. Additionally, through this narrative work, we aim to create more avenues to bridge academic knowledge and history with community grassroots efforts through stories and digital publications.
THANK YOU TO OUR FUNDERS
This project has been financed in part with funds provided by the State of Minnesota through the Minnesota Historical Society from the Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund.
