A dimly lit room at the Tempe Historical Museum holds artifacts and memories of the refugees and their families who left Southeast Asia after the Vietnam War.
The exhibit began as a class project for recent ASU graduate Tony Thipdavong. The assignment turned into a collection of stories and personal items from local Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian refugees and their families.
Thipdavong, who graduated in December 2004, said the exhibit started as a final project for an Asian American studies class he took his last semester.
"I thought, if I'm going to leave ASU, I may as well do it with a bang," Thipdavong said.
The Cambodian, Vietnamese and Laotian communities in the Valley had not done anything as a whole to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.
Thipdavong acted as curator of the exhibit, which included oral history accounts from refugees and displayed some of their belongings.
They included a communist government-issued shirt worn by a Cambodian man, modern items such as different foods unique to the cultures and a Vietnamese-language magazine for young adults published in Chandler.
Excerpts of the oral histories were displayed on signs throughout the exhibit.
Scott Hayward, fine arts coordinator for Tempe and former exhibits coordinator for the Tempe Historical Museum, said Thipdavong easily convinced museum staff to help with the project.
"He told us this wonderful story about his experiences and these three communities," Hayward said. "We were ready to jump on board."
The ASU Program for Southeast Asian Studies helped raise funding for the project through grants.
There have been many events and projects related to Southeast Asian studies at ASU through the years, said Jacqueline Butler-Diaz, outreach coordinator for the Southeast Asian Studies program.
But this exhibit was created specifically to commemorate the end of the Vietnam War, and bring together the Laotian, Cambodian and Vietnamese communities, she added.
The exhibit was based on oral histories collected from Southeast Asian refugees by students in an undergraduate Asian Pacific American Studies class called the Southeast Asian American Experience, Hayward said.
John Rosa, an assistant professor in the Asian Pacific American Studies department, said 20 to 30 students, including Thipdavong, worked on the required oral history projects.
Other students served on the advisory committee that oversaw the creation of the exhibit, including Sambo Dul, who graduated in May with degrees in political science, economics and Spanish.
The exhibit was also about the experiences of refugee children who had to adapt to American culture, Dul said.
"What I came home to was completely different from what surrounded me," she said.
Dul said she and her family fled Cambodia in the aftermath of the Kmer Rouge regime when she was 1 year old. They went to a refugee camp in Thailand, where they lived for four years before coming to Arizona, she added.
"I've been here ever since," Dul said. "[The experience] was one of the biggest influences on who I am.
"I still am spending a big chunk of my energy learning to balance those two cultures [American and Cambodian]."
As a member of the advisory committee, Dul said she helped find and select artifacts for the exhibit and conducted and transcribed oral history interviews with refugees.
Dul said the opening ceremony, which included a blessing by Buddhist monks, was "phenomenal" and touching.
Museum officials said about 100 people attended the event on Oct. 22.
"I'm sure we were over fire hazard capacity," Dul said.
Reach the reporter at emilia.arnold@asu.edu.
