Tiger Balm

By: Konto Southisombath

It was a summer night, and I was ten years old. I sat on the living room floor, rubbing my mother’s tense shoulders and sore back. It must have been a particularly grueling day at the farm because the Tiger Balm, a topical pain reliever balm and Laotian household staple, was immediately brought out after dinner and put to good use. It was my job to make sure that the aches and pains born from my mother’s twelve plus hour workday in the fields didn’t seep into the next day. Even though I knew that doing this wasn’t much, I always made sure to do the best I could.

Despite the nightly shoulder rubs being a fairly regular occurrence, the heartbreak that came from seeing my mother in such a state knocked me out every time. On this particular night, I remember making the comment, “Ma, your shoulders are really tense tonight and you’ve been complaining about your back for a while now. Can’t you just take a break from the farm?”

My mother, my beautiful, stubborn, amazing, sharp-tongued firecracker of a mother, threw her head back and laughed. I’m not talking about the “wow, that’s a pretty funny joke” type of laugh you give after your friend says something witty. I’m talking head thrown back, tears in her eyes, needing to take a moment to catch her breath type of laugh.

After finally regaining her composure, she said to me, “Baby, the last time I had a break was when I was in your grandma’s tummy! Do you think your father and I put food on the table by taking breaks? We work hard for the sake of you and your siblings so that you can focus on school and not have to do what we’re doing when you get older…now put more pressure on the left side please.” And that was the end of that. In typical Southeast Asian mother fashion, a genuine and earnest question from my end got me a nice and fiery little lecture, but did I learn from this? No.

Over the years, variations of the same conversations would happen over and over again. Some responses I got were:

• “Don’t worry too much about me, and focus on school.”

• “Your father and I went through so much in order to come to America to provide better opportunities for you kids.”

• “Your education is so important. Your life would be so different if we were back in Laos.”

My personal favorite was, “Just work hard in school. I can get hit by a car and die, but I’d die happy knowing that my kids have a college degree.”

Ah, my mother and her flair for the dramatic. Jokes aside, I do recognize the sacrifices that my parents have had to make in order to ensure that their kids have a fighting chance in this country. They worked so hard to provide for us, and I will always be indebted to them for that.

The importance of education and how necessary it is for everyone has been instilled in me ever since I can remember. My parents have always been vocal about the privilege that comes with having the opportunity to learn, as well as the beauty of learning something new. This belief is largely held due to the fact that they weren’t awarded this freedom growing up in Laos.

My parents were the first in their family to have any sort of formal education. However, my father, being the eldest son of seven, stopped going to school in the sixth grade in order to work and provide for his family. My mother, in a relatively similar situation, had to stop going to school in the eighth grade. The act of sacrificing something important in order to ensure the well-being of the family is an arrangement that my parents know well. They had to flee their home country, which was decimated by war, and spent years in less than ideal refugee camps. They left everything they know and love to immigrate to a country whose culture is a complete 180 degree change from their own — these are just some of the major things that my parents have had to go through in order to ensure that my siblings and I don’t.

Very often, I find myself thinking about my role as an Education Advocate: how I got here, and  why I continue to do what I do. Interestingly enough, this also happens to be a relatively common ice breaker question in this field of work. Every time I’m asked this, I never know how to answer because there’s so much that goes into it. There’s no doubt that my dedication to racial equity and social justice, especially in education, stems from my experience as a low income, first-generation, WOC navigating a system not made for me. And that this personal experience is a huge driving force behind why I am so committed to supporting and advocating for folks who might find themselves in a similar situation.

But more than that, it also has to do with being able to come into the hopes, dreams, and prayers of not only my parents, but my grandparents, and their parents as well. Being able to say, from the bottom of my heart, that the difficulties and strife my forefathers have had to endure was not in vain is something I will forever take pride in.

And so now, every time I am met with the question, “Why do you do what you do?” I answer, with the heart, soul, and voice of my parents and our ancestors. “We do it for the ones we love.”

Konto (right) and her mom, Chanhsouk, in Seno, Laos.

Konto’s parents with friends at the Phanat Nikhom Refugee Camp in Thailand, 1990

Konto's parents experiencing Seattle snow for the first time.

Konto’s mom preparing seedlings for an upcoming harvest.