Hmong Nurse to return to Laos as part of medical mission

Syracuse, NY.—–Vonn Lee was 12-years-old when she watched her mother, oldest sister and two younger brothers drown in Asia’s Mekong River in 1975, during their escape from Laos at the end of the Vietnam War.

A year later, Vonn immigrated to America where she helped raise her three younger siblings, translated for Hmong refugees, married and started her own family and began a career in nursing.

She always thought about returning to Laos for a visit, but never got around to it.

Sunday, Lee will travel to her homeland on a two-week medical mission with the Hmong District of the Christian and Missionary Alliance based in Thornton, Colo. Read my full story in today’s Post-Standard.

She is a part of a 12-member team that includes a doctor and nurses, all of them Hmongs. The team will provide basic health and dental care to people in Laos and northwestern Thailand.

Lee is making the trip to fulfill field requirement for her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Keuka College, but it’s also personal.

She wants to help her people and put to rest the nightmares that have haunted her for 34 years.

“It will be emotional,” said Lee, 45, a registered nurse at St. Joseph Hospital North Surgery Center in Liverpool. “We’re going to be crossing the Mekong River into Laos. Half my family drowned in the escape from Laos. I think we had too many people trying to escape.”

The Hmong District has done medical missions in China, but this is its first mission in Laos and Thailand, said Xing Kue, who is organizing the mission with his wife, Dr. Ia Kue. The team includes Dr. Kue, six nurses and a dental hygenist, he said.

“We will provide medical service to the needy and by doing so we’re hoping to witness the Gospel,” he said.

For Vonn, the trip will fulfill her personal and professional dreams. She’s always wanted to return to Laos, but never got around to it. Now, she’s going on a medical mission to help her people and put to rest some of the nightmares that have haunted her for 34 years.

It also fulfills field requirement for her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Keuka College. Vonn decided to go back to school last fall after she and her husband became empty nesters. The couple have three children—– BoNhia, 28; Bobby, 23; and Mike, 20.

Source:  http://blog.syracuse.com/metrovoices/2009/07/syracuse_woman_returns_to_her.html

Concordia - St. Paul to host Culture camp

 

ST. PAUL, MINN. (07/21/2009)(readMedia)– The Concordia University, St. Paul Hmong Culture and Language Program and Dual Language Learner Academy will host its sixth summer camp with a current registration of over 600 students from local metro, state-wide and students from at least five other states, with over 20 language groups represented. The day camp which becomes a mini-United Nations runs July 27-August 7, 2009, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., on the university campus and in an inter-district partnership as a means of forwarding its mission of preserving Hmong and other cultures through storytelling, gardening and the arts, and planting the seeds of academic achievement and higher education attendance for k-12 students. Students will be involved in literacy, science, computers, tennis, heritage music, dance and historical simulations as a means of strengthening ethnic identity and bridging to American culture. We will have local storytellers, musicians, writers and artists as part of our program this year, including: Dyane Garvey, Diego Vasquez, Seexeng Lee and Jen Yang, Bounthavy Kiatoukaysy and Tsong Sawh Lo, as well as Lee Pao Xiong, Director of the Center for Hmong Studies and Dr. Paul Hillmer, Director of the Hmong Oral History Project.

Recently, the program was listed in the Johns Hopkins University National Center for Summer Learning’s excellent summer programs. President Obama’s proclamation and the information regarding the summer programs are on the John’s Hopkins University website.

Our program is funded through the Travelers Foundation, Minneapolis Foundation, the school inter-district partnership and general registrations, as well as having food provided by SODEXO through the USDA Summer Food Program, and directed by Professor Sally Baas and Nao Thao, SEAT Program Associate.

Concordia University, St. Paul is a comprehensive, private university of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and one of 10 schools that comprise the Concordia University System. Established in 1893, Concordia offers more than 40 liberal arts majors, including business administration, education, fine arts, the sciences and church professions. Concordia is a regional leader in accelerated, cohort-delivered, undergraduate degree-completion and master’s degrees in business administration, organizational management, criminal justice and human services. Concordia is the only private university in Minnesota to offer NCAA Division II athletics for men and women. On the Net: www.csp.edu.

Source: http://readme.readmedia.com/news/show/Concordia-University-St-Paul-Hosts-Culture-and-Language-Camp/899167

Asian American Sports Festival

American-style sports mania will mix with an Asian sense of community and culture this weekend at Marathon Park.

About 1,000 athletes — mostly Hmong, but with all races participating and welcome — are expected to compete in the ninth annual Asian American Sports Festival, organized by Toulee Moua of Wausau. The festival will feature competition in flag football, soccer and volleyball for males and flag football and soccer for females.

There also will be Asian food and merchandise sold at the festival, an event that’s part of a national trend.

“These Hmong sports tournaments are becoming a huge part of what it means to be a Hmong-American,” said Noah Her, 24, of Wausau. “You pick up chicks, meet with friends, shop at different stores and vendors. A lot of it has roots way back in Thailand, where we come from. It’s just a sense of community and bringing the community together again.”

The Wausau tournament is small by national standards. Tens of thousands of athletes, including Her, competed in a tournament over the July 4 weekend in St. Paul, Minn.

But it’s growing.

“When I started, it was slow,” said Moua, 35. “I guess it has grown about 30 percent.”

There’s a low-key, backyard/street vibe to the tournament, but the competition is serious. Moua said first-place teams can take home as much as $2,000.

“I have some friends who play volleyball every night, training,” Her said. “I have friends who have ruined their shoulders from spiking the ball.”

The best athletes become national stars in the Hmong community, he said.

Sports festivals help younger Hmong-Americans bridge the gap between the old life of Laos and Thailand and the new life in the United States, said Thomas Lee, director of the Wausau/Marathon County Diversity Affairs Office.

“The younger generation are more Americanized. They participated in those sports in school,” Lee said. “And now, they’re able to compete at the festival as well.”

Source:  http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/article/20090721/WDH0101/907210427/1981

Sheboygan Hmong Summer Festival: Flag Football

Hundreds of Hmong team members will rush to Kiwanis Park next weekend to kick off a flag-football competition, something new being added to the Hmong Summer Festival’s lineup of athletic competitions that already includes basketball, soccer and volleyball.

More than 3,000 Hmong will flock from across the state and as far as St. Paul, Minn., to compete in the games, Chue Neng Lee, chairman of the festival, said.

“This generation, there is much more interest in basketball and football,” Lee said. “We would have included them in the last couple of years, but for some reason we couldn’t find a person who could coordinate. This year, we’re lucky.”

He expects to see as many as 15 teams, with 30 to 50 players each, compete in flag football, a popular twist on football in which players pluck flags from opponents instead of tackling them.

Teams can register until the day of the event, but will pay registration fees from $50 to $100, depending on the event, unless they decide on advance registration.

The Hmong Mutual Assistance Association, which hosts the festival, will hand out more than $10,000 in cash prizes to winning sports teams.

Any remaining proceeds from the festival will be donated to the association, which provides services to refugees and the Hmong community of Sheboygan with English, citizenship and Hmong music classes, educational workshops and cultural displays.

Merchants will also be on hand to show off their Hmong clothes, food and homemade jewelry.

“The whole event, it’s fun,” Lee said.

In another nod to the changing tastes of the younger Hmong generation, the festival will drop its traditional top-spinning contest this year. In years past, festival-goers have faced off to spin wooden tops and see whose top spun the longest. Interest has dwindled, Lee said.

The Hmong Mutual Assistance Association, a nonprofit that was created in 1980, has run the Hmong Summer Festival for nearly its entire history.

The Hmong New Year, celebrated near Thanksgiving, is the only other major Hmong celebration.

Reach Kate McGinty at kmcginty@sheboyganpress.com and 453-5125.

Source:  http://www.sheboyganpress.com/article/20090719/SHE04/907190336/1097/Athletics-playing-a-big-part-in-Hmong-Summer-Festival