In a crowded event hall one August night, the pounding of drums filled the room. Avery Malaythong counted down the beats until her entrance. She was barefoot and, like her teammates, sported a sleek red satin blouse with silver clasps and a long black skirt.
Suddenly, she heard the rattle of the tambourine — it was her cue.
The dancers stepped in front of a crowd of hundreds. They swayed back and forth with each step. In each hand, they held a glowing lantern.
The dance was about more than choreography, it’s a symbol of their community’s survival through war, political upheavals and migrations — including across the Pacific Ocean.
Avery, 16, is a student at East High School in Des Moines. This year marked her third year doing dance.
“It didn’t take me until high school to actually [be like] ‘I want to do this now. I want to be connected to my culture.' Because I don’t know our language and I wanted to be connected in some way, so that’s why I did dance," she said.
Avery and her teammates are part of the youngest generation of the Tai Dam, an ethnic group with roots in southern China and northwestern Vietnam.
In 1975, former Iowa Gov. Robert Ray was the only U.S. governor to respond to pleas to resettle the Tai Dam in one place. The group had undergone multiple migrations over the two previous decades across Vietnam, Laos and finally to a refugee camp in Thailand. In November 1975, 633 Tai Dam refugees arrived in Iowa on the first wave of flights. Within two years, the state had resettled around 1,200 Tai Dam immigrants.
Today, the population numbers in the thousands and makes up the largest population of Tai Dam outside of Asia.
Now, with older generations passing away, and fewer people speaking the language, many worry their traditions and histories are at stake.
Pulled in two directions
Katy Lovan, who is 38 years old and from Bondurant, is Avery’s mom. She considers herself part of the first generation of Tai Dam in Iowa because she's the first in her family to be born in the U.S.
“A lot of people just don’t really know why we do what we do or what any of that means anymore,“ said Lovan, who, like many in her generation, is Tai Dam and Laotian. “I just feel like we’re just going to completely lose who we are and where we had come from."
Lovan said when Avery was born, she wanted to make sure she grew up with close ties to her heritage. It was partly a reaction to how she grew up.
"For a long time, like I felt lost, like, 'Am I more Americanized?' I want to be more traditional. Like, who am I in this aspect of where our family came from?" she said.
Lovan said when she was a child, her dad insisted she and her siblings attend traditional ceremonies and services. He resettled in Des Moines when he was 17 years old and came from a line of Tai Dam shamans. She remembered her father fondly talking about his childhood in Laos, he would even pull up Google Maps to look through his neighborhood.
“He literally was zoning in and being like, ‘This is our house. This is where I grew up,’” she said. “He would just talk about it constantly.”
Meanwhile her mom, who was resettled in Keokuk with her family as a pre-teen, was less open about her life in Laos. She also pushed back on her father's traditional approach. At one point, Lovan signed up for traditional dance classes, but her mom pulled her out after a few practices.
While both of her parents experienced discrimination growing up, Lovan said there were many fewer families of color in her mom's town at the time.
Lovan understood her mom’s attitude, in part, as a way to try and help her kids fit in.
“She was just like, ‘It was hard for me and I don’t want it to be hard for you,’” she recalled.
Lovan said she has tried to take a different approach with Avery.
While Lovan’s parents were strict about her responding in English at home to ensure she grew up fluent, Lovan insisted her parents only speak in Tai Dam to her daughter when she was born. She also made sure she and her daughter attended the Laotian temple to pray and participated in Tai Dam New Year’s celebrations.
When she came across a Facebook post a few years ago looking for students for a Tai Dam dance group, Lovan knew she had to sign her daughter up. At first, Avery had some misgivings.
“I was like ‘Nope,' Lovan said. "We’re doing this because I want you to be involved in this."
Since joining, Lovan said Avery started asking more questions about her family background and took on more leadership roles as the oldest in the dance group. She even invited some of her non-Tai Dam friends to try out dancing.
“I’m just really proud of her, that she’s now diving in and wanting to go and wanting to learn and wanting to be a part of it because it’s something that I wanted to do, but I never really got to immerse myself with,” Lovan said.
Bridging generational gaps
In her own life, Lovan said that she, along with friends and cousins her age, are trying to take a more proactive approach to learning their cultural practices. For instance, they've been trying to speak Tai Dam with each other and asking their own parents about family history and traditions.
But, she said communication issues between older generations gets in the way.
“I feel like that’s the biggest challenge, just having them — anyone that’s older — open [up] and wanting to talk to us about it,” she said.
InNgeun Baccam Soulinthavong, 62, is the executive director of the Tai Studies Center, a group dedicated to preserving and promoting Tai Dam culture. She’s also one of Avery’s dance teachers.
Soulinthavong came to Iowa in 1975 when she was 12 years old.
She said there are a few reasons older generations might hesitate to share with younger generations. The Tai Dam members that fled Vietnam were allied with the French against Vietnamese communist forces. Because of this, she said people of that generation might have feared exposing their families if they talked openly about their history and cultural background.
She said that cultural norms of parents trying to provide for their kids as much as they can — to the point of being "overprotective" — can be an obstacle, too.
“Sometimes, we do not realize that by doing it for them, it's not that you [don’t] love them, you also have to find a way to have what I call a tough love, perhaps share the knowledge and make them do it, too,” Soulinthavong said.
Soulinthavong also said older generations might find it harder to accept change and to have the foresight to see what changes are needed for the culture’s survival.
“They work hard to preserve, and to them, to their eyes, preserving is what they must do,” she said. “And in that definition, it might translate to not changing anything.”
As someone in a leadership position, she said she wants to make sure the Tai Dam community and culture isn't forgotten. In her view, the community needs to find a way to bring the culture forward so future generations can understand it.
Decades ago, like her dance students, Soulinthavong also was a hinge point for passing on Tai Dam traditions. Growing up, she danced in elementary school in Laos and later in a Tai Dam traditional dance group in Iowa.
Her former dance coach led an adult dance group in the state for years. After she died in 2021, Soulinthavong said classes stopped. That's when she decided to step up.
“I was like, 'You know what? I want to be one of the person[s] that make things happen,'” she recalled.
Together, she and another member of the Tai Studies board, Phimmachanh Baacam, started putting out calls for dancers. Any student, regardless of background, could sign up. Only one student showed up to the first practice. Yet, over time, their numbers slowly kept growing.
Today, Soulinthavong said it's important for her that the girls understand the meanings behind the dances — like the lanterns symbolizing the hope the community held onto throughout the years. She also wants the girls to feel comfortable and confident being themselves, something the previous Tai Studies director and dance coach taught her.
“She [was] also representing those who couldn’t represent themselves,” she said. “I also wanted to teach girls that concept, as well. You know, believe that you can do it. Believe you can make a difference.”
Lovan, Avery's mom, had similar intentions. Her one goal for her daughter?
“Just loving who she is,” she said.
By asking questions about her family history, leading younger girls in her dance group and showing off her steps in front of the community, Avery and her friends became part of the younger generation that believes they too have a role in carrying on their traditions.
Back at the event center surrounded by her dance friends, Avery beamed with the rush of post-performance excitement.
“I feel like I’m a part of something really big, especially since it's the 50th anniversary,” Avery said. “Having all those people look and compliment us … I feel really honored to just dance.”
For Avery and her mom, every step is a celebration of their family’s way back to their roots.
