Hmong Heritage Month

The first cookbook of Hmong-American cuisine, filled with unique recipes and stories Simple, earthy, fiery, and fresh, Hmong food is an exciting but still little-known South Asian cuisine. In traditional Hmong culture, dishes are created and replicated not by exact measurements but by taste and experimentation--for every Hmong recipe, there are as many variations as there are Hmong cooks--and often served to large, communal groups. Sami Scripter and Sheng Yang have gathered more than 100 recipes from Hmong-American kitchens, illustrated them with color photos of completed dishes, and provided descriptions of unusual ingredients and cooking techniques.

The first scholarly work to come from inside the Hmong community, Hmong America documents Chia Youyee Vang's own migration from Laos to Minnesota at age nine and the transformations she has witnessed in Hmong communities throughout the migration and settlement processes. Vang depicts Hmong experiences in Asia and examines aspects of community building in America to reveal how new Hmong identities have been formed and how they have challenged popular assumptions about race and ethnicity in multicultural America. Combining participant observation and archival research with personal experience, Vang constructs a nuanced and complex portrait of the more than 130,000 Hmong people who came to the United States as political refugees beginning in the mid-1970s. Her critique of previous representations of the Hmong community provides the sociological underpinnings for a bold reassessment of Hmong history in the greater context of globalization. This new understanding redefines concepts of Hmong homogeneity and characterizes ordinary Hmong migrants not as passive victims but as dynamic actors who have exercised much power over their political and social destinies.

Unknown to many Americans at the time, the Hmong helped the US government fight Communists in Laos during the Secret War of the 1960s and 1970s, a parallel conflict to the Vietnam War. When Saigon fell and allies withdrew, the surviving Hmong fled for their lives, spending years in Thai refugee camps before being relocated to the United States and other countries. Many of these families found homes in Wisconsin, which now has the third largest Hmong population in the country, following California and Minnesota. As one of the most recent cultural groups to arrive in the Badger State, the Hmong have worked hard to establish a new life here, building support systems to preserve traditions and to help one another as they enrolled in schools, started businesses, and strived for independence.  Told with a mixture of scholarly research, interviews, and personal experience of the author, this latest addition to the popular People of Wisconsin series shares the Hmong's varied stories of survival and hope as they have become an important part of Wisconsin communities.

This guide to Hmong language collects the most common Hmong phrases and expressions as well as an English-Hmong/Hmong-English dictionary. This phrasebook includes greetings, food items, directions, sightseeing and many other categories of expressions that will help anyone wanting to learn Hmong. This phrasebook is a must for anyone wanting to learn Hmong.

Presents the journey from refuge camp to America and the hardships and joys of a family's struggle to adapt in a strange culture while holding onto traditions that are passed down from her beloved grandmother.

As a five-year-old boy, Pao Lor joined thousands of Hmong who fled for their lives through the jungles of Laos in the aftermath of war. After a difficult and perilous journey that neither of his parents survived, he reached the safety of Thailand, but the young refugee boy's challenges were only just beginning. Born in a small farming village, Pao was destined to be a Hmong clan leader, wedding negotiator, or shaman. But the course of his life changed dramatically in the 1970s, when the Hmong faced persecution for their role in helping US forces fighting communism in the region. After more than two years in Thai refugee camps, Pao and his surviving family members boarded the belly of an "iron eagle" bound for the United States, where he pictured a new life of comfort and happiness. Instead, Pao found himself navigating a frightening and unfamiliar world, adjusting to a string of new schools and living situations while struggling to fulfill the hopes his parents had once held for his future. Now in Modern Jungles, Pao Lor shares his inspiring coming-of-age tale about perseverance, grit, and hope.  Included are discussion questions for use by book clubs, in classrooms, or around the dinner table.

Starting in 1960, Hmong guerrilla soldiers, under the command of General Vang Pao, functioned as the hands and feet of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's secret war against communist forces in Laos. Operating out of Long Cheng, the Hmong soldiers allowed the CIA to accomplish two objectives: to maintain the perception of United States neutrality in Laos and to tie up North Vietnamese troops in Laos who would otherwise have been sent to fight in South Vietnam. The U.S. government had quietly pledged to General Vang Pao and the Hmong that the Americans would take care of them in the event that Laos fell. In May 1975, this promise was redeemed when the CIA generated an air evacuation that moved more than 2,500 Hmong officers, soldiers and family members out of their mountain-ringed airbase. Fifty or so Hmong and Americans involved in the evacuation provide herein a firsthand account of the 14-day evacuation and the events leading up to it. Their accounts document both the political and human aspects of this unusual historical event.

When three-month-old Lia Lee Arrived at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents nor her doctors would ever recover. Lia's parents, Foua and Nao Kao, were part of a large Hmong community in Merced, refugees from the CIA-run "Quiet War" in Laos. The Hmong, traditionally a close-knit and fiercely people, have been less amenable to assimilation than most immigrants, adhering steadfastly to the rituals and beliefs of their ancestors. Lia's pediatricians, Neil Ernst and his wife, Peggy Philip, cleaved just as strongly to another tradition: that of Western medicine. When Lia Lee Entered the American medical system, diagnosed as an epileptic, her story became a tragic case history of cultural miscommunication.

Afterland is a powerful, essential collection of poetry that recounts with devastating detail the Hmong exodus from Laos and the fate of thousands of refugees seeking asylum. Mai Der Vang is telling the story of her own family, and by doing so, she also provides an essential history of the Hmong culture's ongoing resilience in exile. Many of these poems are written in the voices of those fleeing unbearable violence after U.S. forces recruited Hmong fighters in Laos in the Secret War against communism, only to abandon them after that war went awry. That history is little known or understood, but the three hundred thousand Hmong now living in the United States are living proof of its aftermath. With poems of extraordinary force and grace, Afterland holds an original place in American poetry and lands with a sense of humanity saved, of outrage, of a deep tradition broken by war and ocean but still intact, remembered, and lived.

In this groundbreaking anthology, first- and second-generation Hmong Americans -- the first to write creatively in English -- share their perspectives on being Hmong in America. In stories, poetry, essays, and drama, these writers address the common challenges of immigrants adapting to a new homeland: preserving ethnic identity and traditions, assimilating to and battling with the dominant culture, negotiating generational conflicts exacerbated by the clash of cultures, and developing new identities in multiracial America. Many pieces examine Hmong history and culture and the authors' experiences as Americans. Others comment on issues significant to the community: the role of women in a traditionally patriarchal culture, the effects of violence and abuse, the stories of Hmong military action in Laos during the Vietnam War. These writers don't pretend to provide a single story of the Hmong; instead, a multitude of voices emerge, some wrapped up in the past, others looking toward the future, where the notion of 'Hmong American' continues to evolve.

How Do I Begin? is the struggle to preserve on paper the Hmong American experience. In this anthology, readers will find elaborate soul-calling ceremonies, a woman questioning the seeming tyranny of her parents and future in-laws, the temptation of gangs and drugs, and the shame and embarrassment of being different in a culture that obsessively values homogeneity. Some pieces revisit the ghosts of war. Others lament the loss of a country. Many offer glimpses into intergenerational tensions exacerbated by the differences in Hmong and American culture. How Do I Begin? signifies a turning point for the Hmong community, a group of people who have persevered through war, persecution, and exile. Transcending ethnic and geographic boundaries, it poignantly speaks of survival instead of defeat.

Contributors celebrate the power of bonds between daughter and mother, sister and sister, and grandmother and granddaughter. Only after climbing a mountain in Nepal can Kia M. Lor finally understand her mother's life. Pa Xiong provides a recipe for squirrel stew, remembering in telling detail the gender roles that mark each step--and how her mother broke those rules. Kao Kalia Yang sketches the extraordinary everyday achievements of a Hmong leader, her older sister, Dawb. Contributors to this volume bring life and character to the challenges of maintaining identity, navigating changes in gender roles, transitioning to American culture, and breaking through cultural barriers. These pieces were brought together through the work of Hnub Tshiab: Hmong Women Achieving Together, an organization founded in St. Paul to be a catalyst for lasting cultural, institutional, and social change to improve the lives of Hmong women. Contributors: MayKao Y. Hang, Npaus Baim Her, Gaosong V. Heu, Linda Vang Kim, Dee Kong, BoNhia Lee, Duabhav BJ Lee, Tou SaiKo Lee, Kia M. Lor, Kia Moua, Mai Neng Moua, Mainhia Moua, Douachee Vang, Gao Vang, Maly Vang, Talee Vang, MaiThao Xiong, Pa Xiong, Renee Ya, Boonmee Yang, Kao Kalia Yang, Lyncy Yang, Nou Yang, Song Yang

A reinvestigation of chemical biological weapons dropped on the Hmong people in the fallout of the Vietnam War In this staggering work of documentary, poetry, and collage, Mai Der Vang reopens a wrongdoing that deserves a new reckoning. As the United States abandoned them at the end of the Vietnam War, many Hmong refugees recounted stories of a mysterious substance that fell from planes during their escape from Laos starting in the mid-1970s. This substance, known as "yellow rain," caused severe illnesses and thousands of deaths. These reports prompted an investigation into allegations that a chemical biological weapon had been used against the Hmong in breach of international treaties. A Cold War scandal erupted, wrapped in partisan debate around chemical arms development versus control. And then, to the world's astonishment, American scientists argued that yellow rain was the feces of honeybees defecating en masse--still held as the widely accepted explanation. The truth of what happened to the Hmong, to those who experienced and suffered yellow rain, has been ignored and discredited. Integrating archival research and declassified documents, Yellow Rain calls out the erasure of a history, the silencing of a people who at the time lacked the capacity and resources to defend and represent themselves. In poems that sing and lament, that contend and question, Vang restores a vital narrative in danger of being lost, and brilliantly explores what it means to have access to the truth and how marginalized groups are often forbidden that access.

The Hmong language is one of the most musical languages in the world. The language can be compared to a do re mi music scale. One word can have eight different meanings depending on the tone or pitch that is used. This is a bilingual English and Hmong book intended to teach beginning skills in reading Hmong. In addition, this book includes lessons about the Hmong people and their culture.

Jouanah's story takes readers to the remote mountains of Southeast Asia, to the traditional home of the Laotian Hmong. All essential Cinderella elements are here to enthrall readers of all ages. Gorgeous artwork remains faithful in the depiction of the Hmong lifestyle and the high mountain villages.

A warmhearted and tender true story about a young girl finding beauty where she never thought to look. Drawn from author Kao Kalia Yang's childhood experiences as a Hmong refugee, this moving picture book portrays a family with a great deal of love and little money. Weaving together Kalia's story with that of her beloved grandmother, the book moves from the jungles of Laos to the family's early years in the United States. When Kalia becomes unhappy about having to do without and decides she wants braces to improve her smile, it is her grandmother—a woman who has just one tooth in her mouth—who helps her see that true beauty is found with those we love most. Stunning illustrations from Vietnamese illustrator Khoa Le bring this intergenerational tale to life.

A children's book of animals in Hmong and English language with vibrant and high quality images.

We Can All Be Friends shows how much we have in common even though we are all different. Illustrations include diverse characters and settings from around the world, allowing children to see themselves in the book and learn about the world around them. This multicultural book, part of the Language Lizard Living in Harmony Series, includes access to free lesson plans and fun activities to support diversity education.

Award-winning author Kao Kalia Yang delivers an inspiring tale of resourceful children confronting adversaries in a refugee camp.