Constructing a Pan-Lue World—Community
and Ethnicity among Lao Immigrants in Seattle
Shih-chung Hsieh, Ph.D.
Department of Anthropology
National Taiwan University
Taiwan
The main Tai-speaking peoples distributed in Luang Namtha Province, Laos are
Tai-Lue, Tai-Nuea, Tai-Dam, Tai-Daeng, Kalom and so on. Most of refugees escaped
from northern Laos to Thailand, then moved to western countries such as US and
France are members of those non-Lao Tai-speaking Laotians. At present there are
around 100 Lue families in Seattle area of Washington State in US. They founded
a Lao-Lue Association in 1979, four years after the first Lue had settled down
there. In 1997, the Lue immigrants in Seattle bought a suburban land, and
established a Buddhist temple named Wat Buddharam. They went to Lao temple
usually before the Lue temple had been built up. The appearance of Lue temple
symbolizes the success of practice of ethnicity. This particular group of people
have re-planted “traditional” life out of homeland. One may feel a cultural
atmosphere of northern Laos in the sphere of Lue temple and activities initiated
by the Association. However the Lue organization and people’s grouping are
definitely beyond “pure” ethnic identity, i.e., almost all non-Lao Laotians
originated from northern muangs join the Association entitled by ethnonym Lue.
In this paper I am going to argue that Lue as a symbol of integrating
northerners has become one of the major identities deposited in individual’s
inventory of ethnicities among most of Luang Lamthalites in Seattle. There is a
pan-Lue world in northwest coast of North America that evidently distinguished
from the majority Lao in most arena of daily lives.