Laotian Culture
People from the Southeast Asian nation of Laos have lived in the Acadiana region since the 1970s, mostly settling in and around Iberia Parish and eventually building their own neighborhood community and Buddhist temple called Lanexang Village.
The first generation of Lao people to arrive in Louisiana were initially displaced by the United States’s bombing campaign during the Vietnam War after living in Thai refugee camps. Sponsored by local Catholic dioceses, several hundred Lao refugees came to Louisiana from the mid-1970s to early ‘80s, where they found a similar geography and climate. The 1990 U.S. Census tallied around 700 Laotians living in Acadiana, though scholars agree that this is an undercount. Concentrated in Iberia Parish, many of the men took jobs in the oil and gas industry, while the women worked in a local textile factory and in food processing plants: shucking oysters, peeling shrimp, and sorting peppers for Tabasco.
By the mid-1980s, community members began plans to build a cultural and religious center. Several dozen pooled their savings to purchase a plot of land that would become Lanexang Village, named for the kingdom of Lan Xang, meaning “million elephants,” that ruled the present-day nation of Laos for over four centuries.
Nestled in the cane fields south of Broussard, across Highway 90 from Spanish Lake, Lanexang Village today is a small, mixed-income neighborhood of about sixty homes, housing around 400 individuals. The community’s main street, Champa Avenue, is named for the national flower of Laos, the Dow Champa, a sweetly fragrant bloom often given as a welcome or good luck gift. Three roads radiate from the avenue, each named for a major Laotian city: Luangphabang, Savannaket, and, the capital, Vientiane.
At Lanexang’s center, separated from the village homes by ornate gates, is the Wat Thammarattanaram compound, featuring a gorgeously gilded temple, monastery, and community center built in 1987. Constructed in the style of Lao temples, Thammarattanaram serves the spiritual needs of the local residents who practice Theravada Buddhism, the oldest school in the Buddhist tradition. At the center of the temple grounds resides the Sim, a newer building used for the ordination of monks that is filled with art representing the Buddhist parables. At the Sim’s heart sits a marble statue of the Buddha.
The temple continues to serve as the cultural and religious center for Laotians throughout Southwest Louisiana. This is best evident during Songkran, the Laotian New Year festival that begins on April 13 and extends over the following two days. Upwards of three to four thousand Laotians from across the country descend on Lanexang, joined by non-Lao Louisianians, to wish each other Sabaidee Pi Mai, or Happy New Year.
The weekend-long celebration begins Friday morning with a ceremonial offering at Thammarattanaram, followed by a beauty pageant to elect a Miss Songkran. Saturday brings a parade with pickup truck-hauled floats showcasing Laotian culture and costume, music and dancing around the temple grounds, vendors selling traditional crafts and textiles, and of course plenty of food. Booths sell Lao soup, the papaya salad known as somtam, and khao lam, a dish of sticky rice and black beans stuffed inside grilled sections of bamboo. Throughout the weekend, children (and some adults) spray each other with perfumed water, a Laotian tradition that symbolizes a New Year cleansing.
The Songkran festival at Lanexang Village is open to the public. Guided tours of the Wat Thammarattanaram are often available by contacting the temple.
