By Bryan Thao Worra, Minneapolis

One of the most well-known pictures of me is the one of me holding the American flag as a child in 1976, and I often get asked what the story is behind that. This is the very first picture of me as an American.

It may be helpful to appreciate that many of our families who came to the United States as refugees from Laos didn’t have the chance to take pictures with them of who they were or their lives before the end of the wars in Southeast Asia. I was among the first Lao to come to the US, arriving earlier than most in 1973 as the adopted son of an American pilot and his family who’d been flying for Royal Air Lao at the time. 1973 was the year most Lao remember as the end of the controversial secret US bombing and the year most Americans left the country.

1976 was the American Bicentennial. As our country marked its 200th anniversary, my family was living in Missoula, Montana and I was finally eligible to become a citizen. I was three years old at the time, and my naturalization ceremony was June 14th, Flag Day, so they gave everyone an American flag for the occasion. Standing on the courthouse steps after this picture, everyone asked me what I wanted to do next. I wanted to get a hot dog and some apple pie with mom and dad. Which wasn’t as grandiose as “Live the American Dream,” but was pretty good and easy enough to make it happen for the time.

I’d like to think in the 40 years since, I lived up to the ideals of being a good citizen while remembering my roots, and the importance of helping others on similar paths who didn’t have it quite so easy. 20 years ago, I came to Minnesota in 1998 searching for my long-lost family. I found a place to call home and rebuild our community. There’s still challenges for many of us as we approach four decades in Minnesota as we try to remember our journey and to envision a shared future we see ourselves in, but I’m optimistic.

Last year, I was passing through Montana following the 4th National Lao American Writers Summit in Seattle, so I decided to take a stop once more by those old courthouse steps. As you can see, a few things changed in the meantime. If there’s anything our community’s journey teaches me, it’s that together we can build so much. I often think back to the words of the late Senator Paul Wellstone, “We all do better when we all do better.” They were true then, and they’re true today.