Capt. Sai S. Lee
SGU Veteran
Maplewood, MN
File No.: 16/50
April 2024

Sai S. Lee was born in 1949 in Laos. In his teenage years, he had the privilege of attending school. Meanwhile, many young men his age either worked the fields with their parents or had entered into the military. At school in Vientiane, he excelled in his learning and ranked among the top in his classes. However, there was discrimination against the Hmong and other minority groups by the Lao administrators. The school replaced his top rank with a Lao student’s name, which earned him the opportunity to study abroad or advance their academic careers. Lee left school in 1968 and joined the military to replace his brother, who had been killed in the line of duty. He worked with CIA case officers at the airbase Long Cheng. The US lost the Secret War in 1975 and left its Hmong allies to defend for themselves. Lee became a refugee in Thailand where he also worked to process immigration papers for his war-torn fellow Hmong people. Shortly after, he immigrated to Hawaii. But in Minnesota, there was a demand for Hmong with English skills to assist with the refugees coming from Thailand. In 1979, he moved to Minnesota and began working for Ramsey County to handle refugee cases. He stayed with the county for 36 years and is now retired. ∆

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