Hmong Nurse to return to Laos as part of medical mission
July 27, 2009
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
Hmong Art tells stories
April 23, 2009
Christina Vang and Hua Moua call their project “Hmong -3-2-1,” which like their lives and their art, intertwines with dual meanings.
“It’s like English 101, which means learning,” says Hua. “And in Hmong it stands for the three spirits that come when you die. One spirit goes back to the ancestors or roots. One spirit guards the body. And the third spirit wanders aimlessly in the world.”
That, they say, captures the essence of their senior research and art exhibition project called “The Door in the Mountain,” which caps their four years of study at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. The project, along with 135 other exhibits by senior artists and designers, will be on display at MIAD through May 9.
With the project, Vang and Moua, both born to Hmong parents who immigrated here after the Vietnam War, say they hope to keep alive Hmong culture and spirit that they fear might be slipping away as new generations assimilate here.
The Hmong have passed on history and culture through hand-sewn picture story cloths and storytelling because a written Hmong language wasn’t developed until the 1950s by missionaries.
One of eight children, Vang, 22, was born and raised in Milwaukee and attended Brown Deer High School. She remembers watching her mother sew quilts for Hmong festivals.
Moua, 24, was born in Merced, Calif., also one of eight children. In 2000 her family moved to Madison, where she finished high school at Madison West. She, too, cherishes childhood memories of her mother stitching cloths. Her father played the musical Hmong reed instrument and told the ancient tales designed to entrance and teach.
“All my family worked with their hands and work in artistic ways,” she adds. “My older sister is a fashion designer. My brother works with cars. Once I jumped on the computer and learned Adobe, I was hooked,” she says of her love of graphic design.
The two women found that, although they grew up in traditional Hmong households, the dominant culture pulled them away.
“As we got older we did see that we loved our roots, but that we were assimilating and forgetting because the Hmong have no country to go back to, so it’s hard to hold on to the culture,” says Moua.
At MIAD the two joined their cultural passion with their love of graphic design to create their senior project, which interprets traditional folk tales through design. They made story cloth posters, fabric dolls and sculpture, illustrated folk tale books, and a CD. All are placed in a space that includes a table and bright, comfortable pillows to create a storytelling atmosphere.
The project included research and collecting the folk tales anew. Moua’s father, Chuechoular Moua, was only too happy to assist by retelling the ancient tales. His favorite is “Dao Ton’s Heavy Heart.”
It tells the story of a man who, like himself, plays the reed wind instrument. One day he’s called by the Sky King to play at his daughter’s funeral. “On the way he talks to the others about how much he misses his wife. The spirit, who becomes a tiger, hears his sorrows and captures his wife,” he says. Dao must then go through many adventures with the tiger to finally win his wife back.
“The lesson is that when you go away, you don’t talk about your wife or your family,” he says. “In our culture, it’s a sign of respect not to talk about your family, but to hold them in your heart.”
Other cultural assistance and support were provided by the Hmong Association of Sheboygan and others in the Hmong community. The two would like to see their exhibit live on, possibly at the Hmong cultural center that’s being built in Madison or another venue.
The exhibit’s title, “The Door in the Mountain,” describes the hope for younger generations of Hmong, who came from the rural mountains of Laos.
“There’s a story about a couple that didn’t know how to handle a problem, so they went to a wise man,” says Vang. “He advised them to go to the door in the mountain, which means to return to their roots and culture. That’s what this means to us.”
Source: http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/43321707.html
Hmong Veterans honored
November 14, 2008
SaiLee Thao, a Hmong "Secret Army" veteran, salutes during the playing of the national anthem before speaking in the Veterans Day assembly Tuesday at Appleton's Foster Elementary School. Post-Crescent photo by Patrick Ferron
APPLETON — SaiLee Thao took the microphone at Foster Elementary Charter School’s Veterans Day tribute Tuesday with a deep sense of pride.
To be asked to represent Hmong veterans’ service to the American cause as soldiers in the “Secret Army” during the Vietnam War was a “great honor,” Thao said.
To command respect as a role model in front of three of his own children who attend Foster, and their Hmong-American schoolmates — 33 percent of the student body — well, that was priceless.
The Hmong sacrificed a great deal. As teacher, translator and emcee Anne Vang-Lo somberly noted, every Hmong person in the gym Tuesday had family members who fought and/or died in the Vietnam War.
Thao, coordinator of the Appleton Chapter 26 of the Wisconsin Lao Veterans of America, and five other Hmong vets followed members of VFW Post 2778 into the gym for the assembly that included patriotic songs and lessons in Veterans Day history and how Hmong vets enriched that history.
Both groups retired the colors together.
“Thank you for serving our country,” music teacher Colleen Perrine said as pupils, staff and visitors applauded all the vets, including Emmet Erdmann of Appleton, a Korean War veteran. “This is wonderful,” he said of the tribute. “I think it’s great.”
Foster’s celebration was just one of many Fox Valley salutes to veterans this week, many of them at schools.
Before Foster’s program, Thao said people are still surprised to learn of the significant role Hmong soldiers played in the Vietnam War.
Recruited by the CIA, these mountain tribesmen from Laos rescued downed American pilots and cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the enemy’s main supply route between North and South Vietnam. As many as 35,000 Hmong soldiers died in the war.
As U.S. allies, they faced persecution at the hands of the communist Vietcong afterward and many came here as refugees at U.S. invitation.
Thao, now 63, was 15 years old when he joined Gen. Vang Pao’s Secret Army in 1961.
“We did it because Laos was a war-torn country, and if you didn’t take up arms to protect your border and your people, you wouldn’t survive,” he said.
Thao led more than 100 soldiers entrusted with protecting an American air base in northwestern Laos, along with farmers and villagers living within a four-day’s walk.
He never imagined that fighting with Americans would lead him to the U.S., where Hmong children learn alongside American children and grow up to fight in U.S. wars alongside their peers. “We’re willing to let our children fight alongside other Americans to protect our country — our new home,” he said.
Fifth-grader Lucy Thao, 10, is proud of their father’s service. “He was like a leader and did good things,” she said. “My dad fought for our freedom and peace and so people wouldn’t be mean to each other.”
Source: http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20081112/APC0101/811120505/1003/APC01
Helping Hmong women through scholarships
October 26, 2008
Younger generations of Hmong women are better able to contribute to the community with the ongoing award of an annual scholarship, local educators say.
Since 1995, about 30 female Hmong high school seniors and college students have received the award to help them pay for education-related costs. In turn, they are expected to contribute to the Wausau area in some way.
The fund was established by members of the Hmong Organization for the Promise of Enrichment, or HOPE. Group chairwoman May See Her recently received a 2008 Friends of Education Award for her work with the student group.
“We try to provide them with the best support so they can be successful,” Her, 27, said of the students.
The scholarship helped Manee Vongphakdy attend college and become a counselor at Wausau East High School. Her and Vongphakdy were students in the Early Identification Program, which assists disadvantaged students with their studies and career exploration.
Hmong women face a cultural expectation of helping out with domestic work at home and not going off to college, program coordinator Sharon Hunter said.
Hunter observed Her and Vongphakdy complete the program and continue their education through high school.
“She was one of those young women you knew would go a long way,” Hunter said of Her, who eventually earned two degrees and is a social worker for Marathon County Social Services.
It is important for Her and Vongphakdy to be visible to younger generations, said Nell Anderson, a Wausau School District director of education. She said there are 12 Hmong teachers who serve students in various roles throughout the district.
“If they can see themselves in those roles, oftentimes it enhances their abilities, as well as their desire to achieve,” Anderson said of female Hmong students.
Last year, 1,921 students, or about 22 percent of the district’s student population, were identified as Asian, according to enrollment data. The majority are Hmong.
The Hmong teachers have the lingual and cultural background to assist other staff members with the Asian students, Anderson said.
Recent Comments