Sandra Shackelford in 2023.

Sandra Shackelford has long been a proponent of racial justice. When her art professor chastised a student due to his race, she boycotted the university. When Emmett Till was lynched, she was among the crowds calling for justice. When Shackelford’s newspaper and recreation center were burned down by the KKK, she moved from the frontlines, but she did not stop fighting.

She moved to Green Bay and joined a program to learn about Hmong refugees and their transition to life in America. Again, she found grim and harrowing stories of isolation and destitution. But she also found glimmers of hope, people who fought and struggled to create better lives for themselves and their children.

Sandra Shackelford in 1991.

Sandra Shackelford has compiled the stories of these Hmong refugees in her book, A Portrait of Grief and Courage: Hmong Oral Histories and Folktales. These are the stories as told by the refugees, detailing their previous lives in Southeast Asia, as well as their new  lives in America, as seen in drawings, photographs, and observations by Sandra herself.  

A Portrait of Grief and Courage: Hmong Oral Histories and Folktales, by Sandra Shackelford, with translations by May Lee Lor and transcriptions by Ma Le Lor, is now on sale. Click this link for purchase and pick up information.