she and her friend/colab ray to are creating theater pieces and films to reexamine their history andre. >> the first hmong american theater somebody has created, right? we don't historically have a practice of theater in laos or thailand. so in 1994 a bunch of college students put on a show. let's keep doing this. >> children of parents of refugees are expected to achieve a lot of academic and professional success. i'm wondering if your families are like oh, great, the arts. >> we're former refugees and our parents lost so much during the war. we came here empty handed so it's just important to just exist. you can exist. >> as somebody that's worked in a lot of theaters like this and came to theaters like this to start my career. >> it's a catch phrase. >> it does. >> it does. >> i loved it. >> every single time you saw an asian woman on the screen she was either a prostitute, she was killed, she didn't speak english. i think art making has been an opportunity to try to live in my own skin unapologetically. >> but also we just like talking about ourselves a lot and wanted people to p