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The Vice President, Shri Mohd. Hamid Ansari and the Vice President of Lao PDR, Mr. Bounnhang Vorachith. Photo by Vice President’s Secretariat. .

10 Most Famous People from Laos

Laos is a Southeast Asian country traversed by the Mekong River and known for mountainous terrain, French colonial architecture, hill tribe settlements and Buddhist monasteries.

Vientiane, the capital, is the site of the That Luang monument, where a reliquary reportedly houses the Buddha’s breastbone, plus the Patuxai war memorial and Talat Sao (Morning Market), a complex jammed with food, clothes and craft stalls. Here is a list of the 10 Most Famous People from Laos.

1. Bryan Thao Worra

Bryan Thao Worra. Photo by English Wikipedia. .

Bryan Thao Worra is a Laotian American writer. His books include On The Other Side Of The Eye, Touching Detonations, Winter Ink, Barrow and The Tuk Tuk Diaries: My Dinner With Cluster Bombs.

He is the first Laotian American to receive a Fellowship in Literature from the United States government’s National Endowment for the Arts. He received the Asian Pacific Leadership Award from the State Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans for Leadership in the Arts in 2009. He was selected as a Cultural Olympian representing Laos during the 2012 London Summer Olympics.

2. Lee Lue

Captain Lee Lue was a Laotian Hmong fighter bomber pilot notable for flying more combat missions than any other pilot in the Kingdom of Laos. Lee Lue flew continuously, as many as 10 missions a day and averaging 120 combat missions a month to build a total of more than 5,000 sorties.

Lee Lue was the leader of the special group of Hmong pilots flying T-28Ds out of Long Tieng against the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese positions. He was shot down by anti-aircraft fire and killed over Laos near Muong Suoi on July 12, 1969. A motto attributed to him was “Fly ’til you die.” He was posthumously promoted to Major.

3. Mai Neng Moua

Mai Neng Moua is a Hmong writer and a founder of the Paj Ntaub Voice, a Hmong literary magazine. She is also the editor of the first anthology of Hmong American writers, Bamboo Among the Oaks. She resides in Minnesota. When Moua was diagnosed with endstage renal disease as a junior at St. Olaf College, she searched for inspiration and comfort in writing by her fellow Hmong-Americans.

This experience inspired Moua to publish the first edition of Paj Ntuab Voice and to edit Bamboo Among the Oaks. Predominantly a creative non-fiction writer, she has been published in How do I Begin?, Where One Voice Ends, Another Begins, Healing by Heart, Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and We Are the Freedom People. Her literary awards include the Bush Artists Fellowship, the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant, the Jerome Travel Grant, and the Loft Literary Center’s Mentor Series.

4. Chai Vang

Chai Soua Vang is a naturalized U.S. citizen and a Hmong immigrant from Laos. While on a hunting trip in northern Wisconsin, Vang shot eight people, who were also hunting in the area, on November 21, 2004. Six were killed and two were left wounded.

According to court proceedings prior to his conviction, Vang acknowledged shooting the people, but challenged the chain of events that caused a dispute over a deer stand to become violent and escalate into multiple deaths. Vang, who lived in Saint Paul, Minnesota at the time of the shootings, is currently being held at Iowa State Penitentiary.

5. Sisavang Vatthana

Photo by National Bank of Laos. .

Sisavang Vatthana or sometimes Savang Vatthana was the last king of the Kingdom of Laos. He ruled from 1959 after his father’s death until his forced abdication in 1975. Savang Vatthana proved unable to manage a country in political turmoil.

His rule ended with the takeover by the Pathet Lao in 1975, after which he and his family were sent to a re-education camp by the new government.

6. Chloe Dao

Chloe Dao at the BlogHer 2007 Chicago. Photo by Elizabeth/Table4Five. .

Chloe Dao is an American fashion designer of Vietnamese descent who lives and works in Houston, US. She was the winner of the second season of the reality show Project Runway with a collection of women’s evening wear. Many of the pieces in her finale collection featured billowing, voluminous sleeves, removable shrugs and strong brocade prints.

7. Jerry Yang

Xao “Jerry” Yang is an ethnic Hmong poker player from Temecula, California and the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event champion. Yang started playing poker in 2005. An amateur player at the time, Yang entered the 2007 World Series of Poker after winning a $225 satellite at the Pechanga Resort and Casino in Temecula.

Prior to the World Series, he had four cashes in local California events. At the final table, Yang went from starting eighth in chips to holding a big chip lead that he never relinquished. The process of accumulating this chip lead involved Yang knocking out seven of the eight other players at the final table.

8. Kaysone Phomvihane

Kaysone Phomvihane was the leader of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party from 1955, though Souphanouvong served in a figurehead role. He served as the first Prime Minister of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic from 1975 to 1991 and then as President from 1991 until his death a year later, in 1992.

9. Mee Moua

Photo by Calebrw. .

Mee Moua RPA: Qaav Ruom, who was born in Laos, is an American politician, and is the former president and executive director of the Asian Americans Advancing Justice -AAJC (Advancing Justice-AAJC) She served as the vice president for strategic impact initiatives at the Asian & Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF) from 2011–12, and as a member of the Minnesota state senate from 2002-11.

On February 3, 2017, Moua announced her departure from AAJC to “spend more time with her family, for her children and their future, and being the right kind of mom for them.”

10. Lormong Lo

Lormong Lo (1959-2011) was the first Hmong American to be appointed to a city council in the U.S, in 1994, to manage the largest metropolitan city (Omaha—480,000 people) of a state like Nebraska.

He was re-elected in June 1997 to a second full-term from 1997 until June 2001. In June 1997, Lo is the first Hmong ever to become president of a city council in the U.S., Omaha City Council, who presided over the official meetings of the council. He is the first to ever hold the title of Acting Mayor of the City of Omaha starting in June 1997. He has a lot of the glass ceiling breaking for Laotians.