Today the Isan region remains part of Thailand, and has developed a distinctly different historical identity which has been the result Thai policies which began during the 1930s and sought to assimilate these people within the dominate culture of the central Thai. During the Vietnam War, and the period of the Khmer Rouge, the influx of Lao and Khmer refugees to the Isan region revived cross cultural communications. The importance of this history to Lao literature and culture is that Thailand is now home to an estimated 30 million Lao speakers, while Laos has an approximate total population of 6 million.
