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. 

Interviewer’s note: Sandra’s written responses have been edited to include further details and quotes that she provided during our verbal interview. Interviewer’s notes have been marked in brackets. All other words, while occasionally adjusted for flow, are Sandra’s own.

You’ve been fighting for civil rights for decades — a battle that continues even now. What drew you, a white woman from Green Bay, Wisconsin, toward amplifying marginalized voices?

I was a junior in the Academy, an all-girl high school in Green Bay. I was popular. I was invited to so many dances and proms I ran out of space filling up my many dance cards. What I wasn’t was your standard “smart.” I hadn’t been able to read until the seventh grade. [Interviewer’s note: At the behest of her trained ballerina and cosmetologist mother, Sandra’s early education lay primarily in the performing arts — dancing and singing — for which she received both acclaim and the disapproval of the nuns at her Catholic school.] Later on in my educational sojourn, I had a surprise.

That’s when my Latin teacher called me aside after class. I expected to be reprimanded for something.

Instead, she said this: “Sandra, you’re not very bright, but you’ve got a nice personality. I know a place that could use a girl like you.”

My life changed forever. Continue reading