Name: Pao Lor Sharing Bamboo Son: A Hmong Refugee’s Search for Identity and the American Dream
Start: 2026-05-23T16:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-05-23T17:00:00-05:00
Location: 211 N. Washington Street, Green Bay, WI, United States, Wisconsin 54301

$Pao Lor Sharing Bamboo Son: A Hmong Refugee\u2019s Search for Identity and the American Dream$

Join us for a special evening author talk with Pao Lor, author of Modern Jungles, former UWGB professor & current Associate Dean of the School of Education at UW La Crosse. Pao will be sharing Bamboo Son, a follow-up to his previous memoir, expanding on his experience building a new life in Green Bay after fleeing his homeland to escape the violent aftermath of the Vietnam War.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
In this stirring follow up to Modern Jungles, Lor picks up his story as a teenager building a new life in his new home in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and his ensuing journey into adulthood.
Lor’s transformation from an insecure but determined high school student to a husband, father, teacher, administrator, and author is marked by triumph and defeat, trauma and joy, and always hope and optimism. As he navigates school, first loves, family relationships, and a career, Lor must contend with language barriers, discrimination, and his own inner demons stemming from feelings of inferiority. Threads of his identity—Hmong, American, and Wisconsinite—intersect and occasionally come into conflict.
Lor’s search for belonging comes full circle when he travels to Laos and Thailand with his wife, Maya, in 2022. Seeing his birthplace for the first time in forty-five years, he revisits the isolated mountain villages where he spent his early childhood; the places where his parents and sister died as the family fled the region in the violent aftermath of the Vietnam War; and the two refugee camps where Pao and his siblings lived before being relocated to the United States when he was seven. As he reexamines these memories and reconciles his past, Lor finds peace and the freedom to move forward with his soul renewed.
In Lor’s story, readers will find both an uplifting journey of resilience, adaptation, love, and forgiveness and an examination of the meaning and accessibility of the American dream.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pao Lor is Associate Dean of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse. Lor is also the author of Modern Jungles: A Hmong Refugee’s Childhood Story of Survival, published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press. He enjoys spending time with family, playing soccer, doing house chores, biking, motorcycling, and relaxing. He currently resides with his family and their two cats in Kimberly, Wisconsin.