International Lao New Year Festival

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COMMEMORATING INTERNATIONAL LAO NEW YEAR FESTIVAL WHEREAS, during the mid 1970s and 1980s, following the American evacuation of the region and the rise of Communism in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, Southeast Asians, including people from Laos, escaped their homelands to safe havens around the world as refugees; and WHEREAS, people from the Southeast Asian countries of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam constitute the largest group of refugees ever to build new lives in the United States; and WHEREAS, the facilities at Hamilton Air Force Base in Novato, California were used as a Refugee Transit Center by the Switzerland-based Intergovernmental Committee for Migration (ICOM) when they arrived at the Oakland and San Francisco International Airports; and WHEREAS, the Hamilton Air Force Base, also known as Hamilton Field, is considered a historic landmark to thousands of Southeast Asian refugees, including people from Laos, who came through Hamilton Field before being sent to their new homes throughout the United States; and WHEREAS, the United States is now home to almost one million people of Lao descent with an estimated 135,000 living in the State of California, approximately 35,000 of whom reside in the San Francisco Bay Area; and WHEREAS, Lao Americans are an emerging community with rich traditions and cultural heritage that adds to the unique fabric of Asian Pacific Islanders American communities in the Bay Area; and WHEREAS, members of the Lao community in California’s San Francisco Bay Area will join their countrymen throughout the world in observing the community’s largest annual celebration, the International Lao New Year Festival (ILNYF), to be held at the San Francisco Civic Center Plaza on April 11, 2009; and WHEREAS, the International Lao New Year Festival (ILNYF) hosted by the Center for Lao Studies (CLS), the Laotian American National Alliance (LANA), and the Lao Heritage Foundation (LHF) provides a venue to celebrate, collaborate, educate, and advocate 30 years in the United States, bringing together Lao people throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and the world; and WHEREAS, the Lao New Year (Pii May Lao) festivals have been celebrated across the country as part of the rich tapestry of American culture, where the New Year, Pii May or Kut Songkaan according to the ancient Hindu calendar, which falls around April 13th, 14th, or 15th in the Gregorian calendar coinciding with the end of the dry season and the start of the monsoon season, often refer to as the Water Festival, is seen as a day of rebirth and purification. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Board of Supervisors of the County of Marin commemorates the International Lao New Year Festival as an occasion that presents diverse residents of San Francisco and the Bay Area with an opportunity to experience a unique cultural heritage, food, people, and to learn something new about other cultural traditions right here in their backyard. Sabaidii Pii May! .

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