For unrecognized minority, temple brings sense of community

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October 24, 2011 | Patricia Leigh Brown, California Watch

To watch elderly women in hand-embroidered robes sip coconut drinks while sharing news is to marvel that there is yet to be a category for “Iu Mien” in the U.S. Census.

The feeling of being an unacknowledged minority within an Asian minority was a major impetus behind the building of the King Pan Community Center and Temple, a hidden Oakland treasure and center of Iu Mien life tucked into an unassuming side street of East Oakland.

“We don’t have a country,” said Seng Fong, a 39-year-old social worker. “So this is a place to feel a sense of ownership and belonging, a place we can talk and celebrate.”

The Iu Mien, an ethnic minority from southeast China, were among thousands of Laotian mountain peoples who were forced to flee their villages after aiding the CIA during the Vietnam War. The first generation of refugees settled mostly on the West Coast – the majority in California – after surviving harrowing escapes across the Mekong River and years of squalid conditions in Thai refugee camps

http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/unrecognized-minority-temple-brings-sense-community-13156