Today we’d like to introduce you to Sai Thao.
Hi Sai, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Hello, my name is Sai Thao. I am a mother, an artist, and a storyteller. I’ve been home-parenting my children with my awesome husband for the last 13 years and I have been creating, producing, and practicing storytelling for the last 30 years.
I am 42 years old today.
I have two handsome sons who are 14 years old and 16 years old. They both are on the autism spectrum and they both are doing spectacular as individuals. Then, I have three beautiful daughters. Tragically, my oldest daughter drowned when she was 6-year-old in a park reserve. If she was alive today, she would be an amazing and very bright 13-year-old. Her death devastated our entire family and changed every one of us. Although she is no longer alive, I am still learning from the 6 long years she lived with us. After my oldest daughter’s drowning, my youngest daughter became the only daughter for a short time. As her mother, I saw that change was very difficult and traumatic for her. As of today, she is standing strong as my 12-year-old daughter and as an older sister to my brilliant 4-year-old daughter.
Currently, I am the board president of an exciting non-profit arts organization called In Progress which I also co-founded more than 25 years ago. In Progress has two studios, one in the north-end neighborhood of St. Paul and the other in the rural community of Crookston, MN. I help oversee the operations of these two amazing spaces that bring the community together to support and grow talented artists. I also use the spaces as an artist podcasting a show called Giving Narration and editing a documentary, I started 20 years ago called Hidden in My Heart.
Besides being a mother, an artist, and a storyteller, I also organize parents and communities to advocate for early learning and family education. I sit on the Hmong Parent Advisory Council at our school district and I have just been appointed to sit on the Community Solutions Advisory Council to help advise the Minnesota Department of Health with the Community Solutions for Healthy Child Development grant program.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The road to get where I am today has not been a smooth one. It has been winding with blind spots, bumps, and potholes.
I am the daughter of refugee parents of the American Secret War in Laos. I was their first child to be born here in the U.S. I grew up with 7 sisters and 3 brothers in public housing on the east side of St. Paul. I went to school not knowing one word of English and I didn’t learn how to write and read until I was around 9 or 10 years old. As I look back, it’s extraordinary that I graduated with a high school degree.
Growing up at home and in my community, I was a daughter first and foremost. Creating art and storytelling as a way to express myself was frowned upon. The expectations for me were to help take care of my younger siblings until got married to a husband.
So yes, growing up socially and economically disadvantaged in America as well as having very restrictive cultural expectations did not provide many pathways to experience success. If anything, it gave way to experiences of loss, grief, and trauma that impact me daily.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
At heart, I am an artist, storyteller, and organizer. I utilize my lived experiences as a daughter, sister, mother, and artist to inspire and uplift myself and others to confront inequity, tragedy, and isolation. As an organizer, I am most known for bringing the community together to share and identify the heart of a conflict or struggle and developing a plan or framework to confront the challenge.
In addition, I am very proud as a parent to have chosen to come home and raise my children. Anyone with a child on the autism spectrum would agree that it is quite a challenge to be a parent. Well, I have two children on the autism spectrum. Not only have I been able to raise my two sons to be bold and independent, but I also have been able to raise all my children to be confident and compassionate leaders in the community. I would have not been able to do this work without an organization like In Progress, and the help of school support staff, medical support staff, and community members.
Parenting has deepened many of my relationships throughout the years from professional relationships to personal relationships and it has shaped how I come to understand not only my Hmong community but the greater Twin Cities community as a whole.
Storytelling has been an essential part of my success because it not only allowed me to identify themes that are consistent throughout the struggles in my life but also connects me to the struggles of those I care for. Storytelling reminds me that I am one part of a greater story that is still unfolding and grounds me in the work that I must do on my part.
What matters most to you?
I appreciate this question.
I had devoted most of my adult life to working for the success of my family before my oldest daughter drowned at the age of 6 years back in 2017. If I was asked this question then, I would have answered that growing my husband and my children mattered most to me. To say I was devastated after my daughter’s death is an understatement. Not only did my daughter die that day in 2017, but that dream I had for myself and my family died as well.
In the years following my daughter’s death, I slowly learned through grief that I was never going to be that mother who had dreamed for her family anymore. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was learning to be the mother who came after my daughter’s death and I was growing my family differently from before.
In 2019, I became pregnant with my now youngest daughter. When she was born, she became the child in our family that I never imagined. When I became her mother, I also became the mother I never imagined myself to be as well.
For most of my life, I have been told that what matters is caring for the well-being of others, marrying a good hard-working husband, belonging to a prominent family, and having a good-paying job that allows me to gain social status and wealth.
While there is value in achieving those goals, through grief and loss, I know now that what is even more important is growing and learning through lived experiences. It was and continues to be the only way that I can be both a mother to the daughter I lost and the daughter I never imagined. It is how I know that I can be the mother my family needs and not what the mother my family imagined.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://givingnarration.transistor.fm/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InProgressMN
Image Credits
Sai Thao, Kristine Sorensen, and In Progress
