Nyingv Jae

Nyingv Jae Saechao is an artist, storyteller, community educator and culture worker. They were born and raised on occupied Ohlone lands (East Bay Area) as the first child of Iu Mien + Khmu refugees from the U.S. Secret War, and currently based on Nisenan territory (Sacramento, CA) while calling Laos their motherland. As an intergenerational bridge-builder, artist-apprentice to the ancestors and a word-weaver of divine, diasporic wisdom, Jae’s art/work centers around belonging, culture-keeping + culture-shaping, ancestral healing, and community liberation with emphasis on fat, queer, Indigenous Southeast Asian femme and gender-expansive issues. Through art, poetry, teaching and advocacy, their practice and full breadth of offerings reflect their belief in the power of creativity x culture as direct catalysts for community healing, autonomy and overall social change. Jae’s work is guided by their dreams for a future that sees our collective communities safe, abundant and free.




Home is an experience to me, a feeling, sometimes a memory. As someone whose reality is significantly shaped by complex trauma, I’ve found that home is wherever I can actually be present without the itch to escape or tune out my immediate surroundings. Some days home feels quiet, uncrowded, a space where I can be with just me, the sky, feel the wind on my face and the ground beneath my feet. Home is also in all the moments, places and people that offer me the safety to be soft, go slow, breathe deep, have fun and allow me to take off all my masks and hang up all the hats I have to wear to survive in this world. As I’ve grown, I’ve learned that there is a difference between belonging and familiarity– that just because places or people feel familiar, that doesn’t mean they’re inherently safe. In every form, home is sacred to me, so I fiercely protect them.



Lost Lake - Hood River, Oregon 

Swimming far out into beautiful blue waters of Lost Lake while the sun kisses my skin with majestic Mt. Hood watching over me in the background. I will never forget how free and unburdened my body + spirit felt just floating there on the surface.  I’d always look forward to munching on homemade snacks post-swim and sketching under the towering trees lining the lake. Whenever I meditate on home, this is one of the first moments I return to. 


May Valley - Richmond, CA 

This is the neighborhood I spent the first decade of my life in - we were the only multigenerational, loud Southeast Asian refugee family in a middle-class suburban, predominantly white neighborhood. I was raised by my young mom, my ong dae + guv maa, and guv taaix – three generations. The house I grew up in is still home to my grandparents. I learned to ride my bike and rollerblade from my neighbor/friend next door. Our back yard was a jungle full of herbs, trees, flowers and so much fruit, becoming a sanctuary to chickens, a rabbit, the local deer population and a long list of birds and other wildlife. Spending early evenings being surrounded by the green rolling hills dotted with old oak trees, watching the bay fog creep in has always been magical to me.



Being Iu Mien and Khmu has shaped my understanding of home from the beginning. 


I feel most connected to my queerness and gender expansiveness as well as my fatness and chronically ill body. I think a part of this is because I’ve been able to shape my relationship to these identities on my own terms. I also have a strong community of lifelong friends, loved ones and chosen family who see, affirm and share these lived realities with me and have grown alongside me through all of the transformation, learning, and messiness I’ve moved through to accept myself as all of the above. On the other hand, my cultural identities of being Iu Mien and Khmu have always felt a bit elusive to me even while I now believe that I am and always will be both. 



I hope that simply through living my life in alignment with my dreams and what brings me joy, purpose, pleasure, ease, I can offer an example of what can be possible for others like me.



My art and creativity have been foundational in helping me to establish a strong relationship with my own self-knowing and intuition. My artistic vision is what brings beauty, curiosity, play and purpose into my life. All these things inevitably inform how I show up in the world and how I engage in every aspect of my life from my relationships to my home, to my passions and heartswork. Creativity keeps me alive.




I dream of artists and creatives being completely sustained, supported and celebrated for the gifts we contribute to our communities through our unique perspectives and experiences. I dream of queer, trans, gender expansive people to be safe, seen and honored in full. I dream of deep, loving community connection for all of us that extends beyond the confines of imperialism, toxic patriarchal tradition and cultural gatekeeping, and further holds space for every variation of Mien-ness and Khmu-ness to belong. 



It's shown me that these are all things that I have the power to shape and create for myself, just like my art. If something doesn't yet exist, that in itself bears the magic of possibility and how exciting that I get to bring it to life -- we all do. This project has also connected me to a web of fellow community artists and educators. For a lot of my young adulthood, I felt alone and struggled to envision a reality where I could be sustained by my creativity. This project has definitely offered some significant healing around that for me.




There’s always something forthcoming – keep up with me at nyingv-jae.com

round like the moon, ancient as my ancestors, 2024

mixed media, clay and yarn on canvas

submerge me in softness
in deep celestial divinity
when I close my eyes
I sink into the expanse of my inner infinity
from emergent to ancient, every prism of possibility
reflecting the endless universe within me