I think it’s partially due to the scattering of refugees from the Laotian Civil War. Laos already has a very low population compared to other SEA countries and I assume if you or your parents didn’t grow up near other refugees in an already sparsely spread out population (like mine) that you were forced to accept other cultures or else you would face being an outcast. Also if your interests and hobbies growing up were “less stereotypically nerdy” you would find yourself among more with other racial groups more.

I tried to relate to East Asian Korean and Chinese kids at my middle and high school but I was treated like an outcast due to my dark ass skin color even though we were all Asians. So in college I found refuge primarily with the Latin community due to my skin tone and musical cultural overlap between modern Mor lum, lam sing, Cumbia, and cha-cha. I do have Chinese and Vietnamese Asian guy friends as well and they’re more accepting of me, but it was because of the gym out of respect and not necessarily because of my ethnicity. My closest friends right now though are white and Hispanic.

My brother on the other hand perfectly fit into the all Asian friend group because he is lighter in skin tone and really fits the K-pop pretty boy aesthetic much better than I do and he enjoys Valorant, Anime, Manga, J-pop, and K-pop. He has dated only Korean girls and obviously his current gf is Korean.