This oral history interview with Soulayvanh Beisel was conducted by Sankar Raman and Samuel Chapman on February 2, 2020. The interview was recorded for The Immigrant Story, an organization that documents and archives the stories of immigrants and refugees in the United States.

In this interview, Beisel discusses her early life in Tha Ngon, Laos, and shares the reasons her family fled the country in 1976. She shares her memories of her family’s escape, and talks about her life in the Nongkai refugee camp in Thailand in the 1970s, including living conditions in the camp, the death of her father in 1978, and tensions between the Laotian and Hmong people living in the camp. She describes the process of immigrating to the United States as refugees, and talks about growing up in Wichita, Kansas, in the 1980s. She talks about her family life in the U.S., about her education, and about moving to Hawaii in the early 1990s. She also recounts an incident in which she was hit by a bus during the time she lived in Thailand as a child. She speaks about working as a make-up artist for the Paul Brown Salon in Waikiki, Hawaii, until 1996. She discusses moving to Portland, Oregon, and she speaks about her marriage and the photography studio she opened in 1999. She also talks about the lives and careers of her brothers. She closes the interview by describing the temple in Thailand where her father was buried.