Unapologetically Lao'd w/ Catzie Villayphonh

(S4, EP 7) Award winning Lao-American artist and poet Catzie Villayphonh joined me as a guest for this week's episode.  Catzie spoke about her work with fellow Lao artists on amplifying the voices and history of the Lao American experience through her organization, Laos in the House.  Catzie shared about the challenges that Laos in the House, and other nonprofits in refugee / immigrant communities have faced since the pandemic. To learn more about Laos In The House, visit www.laosinthehouse.com and to check out Catzie's work on her IG @catzuella . 

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Bio:

Catzie Vilayphonh is a multimedia artist with a background in writing, spoken word poetry, photography and filmmaking. She runs Laos in the House, a project that promotes storytelling in the Lao American refugee community, and is a founding member of the group Yellow Rage who were featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. Through her work, Catzie provides an awareness not often heard, drawing from personal narrative. She has worked on various artistic projects with partners such as Mural Arts Philadelphia, Asian Arts Initiative, Smithsonian APIA Center, The Moth, Philadelphia Assembled and Legacies of War.

Throughout her artistic career, Catzie has been a recipient of awards from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts as well as the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. She has been a 2012 Creative Capital finalist, a four-time Leeway Foundation honoree, and was named a 2016 Woman Non-Profit Leader by Philadelphia City Council. She is a co-founding chair of the national Lao American Writers Summit, and was recently appointed to the Mayor’s Commission on Asian American Affairs.

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Season 4 is sponsored by Red Scarf Revolution (RSR).  RSR aims to bring awareness to the tragedies, atrocities and cultural destruction the Cambodian people endured from 1975 to 1979 under the communist Khmer Rouge regime and how that period impacts us today.  With that awareness, Red Scarf Revolution advocates the silenced art, music, culture,  and language, with designs that incite the resiliency of the Cambodian people.  Visit their website at  www.redscarfrevolution.com to check out their merch line and to learn more about their work, or follow their Instagram at red_scarf_revolution or on their Facebook.