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This profile of Kraken videographer Austin Ratanasitee and his Asian heritage can only begin the same way his father, Phaeng, urged during a three-way phone conversation earlier this week: “Let me tell my story, then,” said Phaeng, politely but firmly after opening remarks about how much the Kraken organization appreciates his son as both a highly creative visual storyteller and cherished colleague.

“My name is Phaeng Ratanasitee [pronounced “Pang” “Rah-tain-ah-sit-eee”]. In 1978, August, I was a young man, 19 years old ... I did not like the way the ‘Cong’ [referring to the victorious North Vietnamese army in its takeover of Laos in 1975] came and treated the people. My uncle [technically an older cousin] and I decided we couldn’t stay because there were too many rules we didn’t like. We decided, ‘Why don’t we skip?’ Ok, we made a plan and one night, I said let me go steer a boat from a neighbor.”

The boat would carry his uncle’s wife and four children plus an older niece (with a small hole in the bottom that needed constant plugging) across the Mekong River from the Laos shore to Thailand. Phaeng and his uncle planned to swim across. Phaeng was an able swimmer, but his uncle was not. Both swam tied to empty 5-gallon gas cans that would help keep them afloat. Thailand was visible across the river. The boat and two swimmers started at about 9:30 at night.

‘And They Start Shooting’

“We go about half [the] Mekong River and they start shooting,” said Phaeng. “I guess it was the Cong people. The girls and boat were way out. Swimming with the gas cans, we can’t go that fast ... They keep shooting ... I had to let go of my t-shirt and pants to swim faster. Just had my underwear on. I was pretty lucky I knew how to swim. I wouldn’t be here today without it. ... They shoot close, either past my head or behind it. You can feel it. You feel it is literally going to kill you.”

Phaeng made it to a small island in the river between Laos and Thailand. Because of monsoon rains just days earlier, the island had “maybe five, 10 feet of land” poking out top, said Phaeng. He took refuge in the minuscule patch. The uncle and his niece, meanwhile, were getting the kids and uncle’s wife ashore on the Thailand side using crude, homemade paddles.

“They [cousin and niece] decide to come back to look for me,” said Phaeng. “I was way outside of the island [not easy to see]... we couldn’t call to each other loud; they were scared the communists would come and keep shooting.”

Phaeng stops and goes quiet. “Every time I think about it, talk about it, it’s kinda emotional. That’s why I never go back home.”

From the Mekong to Missouri

Home for the Ratanasitee family these days is Maryland Heights, a suburb of St. Louis, where son Austin and his sisters grew up with hard-working parents, his dad, a recently retired custodian and mom, Manivanh, a seamstress who also fled Laos via a boat, though a couple years later, one in which she paid money for safe passage.

Now 29, our so-admired colleague Austin Ratanasitee makes videos that evoke all sorts of high points and emotions (and achieved the same in 2019 when his employer, the St. Louis Blues, won the Stanley Cup with a couple of guys named Schwartz and Dunn after coming back from owning the worst record in the NHL at the New Year’s mark). Is it any surprise, given his dad Phaeng’s dramatic escape? Gratitude for a close-knit family life is in Ratanasitee’s every effort.

His father’s river crossing was just the start, followed by 23 weeks in a local Thai village holding zone (a best try at description), then a year and a half in a Thai refugee camp with a population of 40,000 (“as a single man, I received a half-fish a week for food, who can get by on a half a fish?” noted Phaeng, not complaining). From there, Phaeng first tried Boston, then San Diego, as possible settlement cities, finally joining his uncle/cousin and family in St. Louis. There, he met his wife and raised “three beautiful children” and “I’m still here.”

The More Usual-Than-Not Question

Like any number of Asian-Americans in their 20s, when people ask the only son and youngest child of Phaeng and Manivanh Ratanasitee where he’s from, he answers his birthplace, in this case, St. Louis and sometimes adds the suburb, Maryland Heights. Some questioners then, typically without any harm intended, say, no, what country of origin? Rather than be stubborn and answer the U.S., Ratanasitee concedes, “I’m from St. Louis, my parents are from Laos.”

That answer can still throw off some of the curious since Laos is even less familiar than Cambodia, which is certainly not as commonly known as other nations such as China, Vietnam and Thailand on the Laos border. Austin and his sisters, Debbie and Kelly, grew up attending some five hours of Buddhist temple services on Sundays and enjoying mom’s pho (pronounced with a short “fah ” sound, no long “oh” involved) as a common family meal. For the Ratanasitee family, Lunar New Year marks a time to appreciate heritage and enjoy favorite Laotian foods.

All told, the Ratanasitee America is likely very much like your America.

Debbie is a St. Louis pharmacy technician with a son, Gavin, who has decidedly become Grandpa Phaeng’s “favorite kid.” Kelly is a pediatric pharmacy resident at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. There is lots of parental pride involved.

Truth be told, Phaeng Ratanasitee doesn’t talk much about swimming for his life, though he occasionally mentions friends from the Thailand refugee camp who settled in certain cities, including one here in Seattle and another, a monk living in Denver. When Austin moved out West to start working for the Kraken in the early days, Dad and sister Kelly flew out with him, not because the son wasn’t capable but more from curiosity and support. Personally, I’ve always savored meeting colleagues’ families and the love in the eyes and faces of Phaeng and Kelly that day still gives me the goosebumps.

“I’ve poked and prodded my dad a bit to keep the culture relevant,” said Austin Ratanasitee this week, sitting in a chair usually occupied by players in the video interview room of the team’s locker area. “Sometimes, my cousin [the very same one from the Mekong River, who now lives three doors down in Maryland Heights] will make a comment at a barbeque, and my dad will dive into a teeny, tiny bit [about the escape] before the conversation sidetracks.

“I know the most out of the three of us [siblings]. Probably just from where I was the last one to leave the house. I grill with him. We can have beers together, and as I get older, talk a bit ... When he first flew to Boston [from the Thailand refugee camp], he was on a 747 and got upgraded to the upper deck. He's very proud to mention that, right? That was his first plane ride.”

Holding on to Heritage

Ratanasitee said he is motivated to keep the family ancestry going. He said he doesn’t know the language very well; he suspects his mom talks to him in simpler Laotian so he can understand it more. Wisely, he has focused on learning his mom’s recipes, even if she writes nothing down.

Intimate note to all of us: Do the same, learn the recipes, pore over recipe boxes or favorite cookbooks, whatever connects you to those you love the most – and someday will miss the most. I’ve been doing so lately and, well, I do cry, but I feel closer to those I’ve lost every time I make a dish.

“I think, when that time does come, like, nobody lives forever,” said Ratanasitee. “When they're gone, I feel like the food will be one main connection left.”

We both pause over his comment, then Ratanasitee lightens our brood: “But the hard thing is there are no measurements. So I take videos of my mom cooking [naturally – as a son who won awards in high school for his videos and short films, inspiring his studies at local liberal arts-driven Webster University]. I watch her making chicken wings, and there are no exact measurements; it's more like, OK, three dollops of oyster sauce and so on.”

Ratanasitee is engaged to be married in August and beams about it every time the subject comes up, which tells you volumes about his heart. There is a similar “reveal” (to use a video storytelling term) when the son talks about personalizing his version of pho (remember, short-burst “fah” sound) without losing the Manivanh Ratanasitee in the broth and ingredients.

“I've made it probably now for a year myself,” said Ratansitee. “Each time, I don't think I've made it the same each time because I'm just trying to keep it true to my mom, but I'm also trying to, like, yeah, add a little bit more to it. The basis of it is what my mom has told me, and I'm pretty sure my mom probably does extra things, but she probably dumbed it down for me, knowing that I'm not the best cook,” said the son who will be working Tuesday when Kraken fans celebrate Lunar New Year Night. “I plan to keep working on it."

The Ratanasitee America? It is likely very much like your America. Soup’s on.