Introduction

Some Hmong people have come to Winona from St. Paul, Minneapolis, and La Crosse by cars. Some people have come from Thailand and Laos by airplane to get to St. Paul and then come to Winona by car. Some people came to Winona just to visit their relatives and friends.
Hmong live differently from Americans and our language is different. In Laos we built our houses with our hands but Americans use tools. Our food is different and how we live is different. We need to study hard, but the Americans don't have to study as hard. They know the language, but we do not know that much.

Hmong Stories

The Hmong have a lot of folk tales. The Hmong stories tell about a long time ago when the first people were on the earth and they tell how everything got started. Parents tell stories to the children. They tell stories mostly to the young children. Sometimes they tell them when the children are yelling at each other. They tell the stories to make the children scared. Sometimes they tell stories when we go to sleep. Usually, they tell the stories in the bedroom. The whole family gets together so everyone can hear. Everyone sits on the bed together. Both parents take turns telling stories. Some stories are true. The parents tell things that happened to them in Laos and in Thailand. They tell us a lot of stories now, more than when they lived in Thailand because we are older and we understand better. This is a Hmong story told by one of our parents.

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The Three Sons
Told by Nuu Su Vang A long time ago there was a king. So the king had three sons. One day the king told his sons to go work in China. Their father said, "There are three ways to follow. You will see a peach tree and you will have to eat some peaches and then you can go on three roads."
Then they went and saw the peach trees and they ate the peaches. Then they went on the road. The oldest brother went the first way, then the second older brother went the second way, and the youngest brother went the third way.
Day after day, the three brothers made lots of money. But, the youngest gave all the money to poor people. There was an old man and lady who gave a jar to the youngest brother. The two brothers were waiting by the peach tree for the youngest brother to come. Finally, the youngest brother got there and the youngest brother just had a jar. The two older brothers said, "Where is the money?"
The youngest brother said, "I gave it to the poor people." But the two brothers were not happy. They were mad and then they left the youngest brother behind. He opened the jar. It was a miracle. It had lots of money in the jar and there was a beautiful woman in the jar and some cows, horses, chickens, pigs, and sheep in there, too. Then he closed the jar and walked home. He knocked on the door, but his dad did not open the door and let him come in because the two brothers had told their father that the youngest brother had given all the money to the poor people. So, the youngest brother went to the garden field and he opened the jar again. Then he fell asleep.
The next day the youngest brother woke up. There was a beautiful house. He was so happy. Then his dad went to the garden and saw the bright and beautiful house and went in the house. He saw his youngest son. He was so so proud of him. His youngest son told him to have dinner with him. The father went home. He did not tell his wife.
Then the two older brothers came along and they saw the beautiful girl. They were so jealous. They tried to kill the younger brother. They put some kind of drugs on the food. But, the younger brother knew there was something in there so he did not eat it. The father locked the two older brothers in a cage.
Then the next day, the youngest brother and the beautiful girl got married. They had everything they needed. They had lots of animals and money, a house and a good life. Then they began their life forever.

Hmong Teenagers

Treat people well, help out each other, help out their parents--these are Hmong teenagers. There is a good side to Hmong teenagers, but there is a bad side, too. There are some teenagers who do not help and who have been in fights in Winona.
The good side of Hmong teenagers is that we are nice, friendly and helpful. Hmong teenagers are friendly to all people. Some teenagers make friends with other students and some just make friends with Hmong students. Most Hmong teenagers help their parents with cooking, washing dishes and cleaning the house. Some help in the garden, growing cabbage, corn and other vegetables. Some Hmong teenagers babysit for family and other relatives.We mostly help our parents around the house and garden. Some of the Hmong respect their parents by being helpful around the house, but some also help to translate English to Hmong for their parents at doctor's appointments, teacher conferences and a lot more places. Some Hmong teenagers obey their parents' rules to show respect.
For some Hmong teenagers, family is a big influence on the teenager. The family tries to help the teenagers get on their way in life. But, some Hmong teenagers think there is nothing to do at home and so they go out. Most of the time, their friends do, too. They think negatively about the rules at home and think what is the coolest to do and do not care anymore. They become involved in the crowd and gang-related things. People feel sorry and hurt and sad and sometimes they even get sick. Sometimes they get so sick of it and they forget about their teenager.
Some Hmong teenagers help their parents a lot at home and help their parents with translating English to Hmong. Other teenagers are not helpful to their parents because they are not home much. At our Hmong celebration in Winona in 1995, some teenagers danced traditional Hmong dances and others did a street dance. We all felt so proud and we received many compliments. It's not easy to be a Hmong kid.

Hmong Sports

Hmong like to play soccer, volleyball, kato, and top spinning. In Thailand now they still play all these sports. Soccer and volleyball are the most important sports for Hmong people in the United States. Kato and top spinning are the most important sports for Hmong because they were the first sports that the Hmong had to play. These sports were played in Laos. Hmong people learned to play these sports from the Laotians, Thai, and Chinese.
Soccer is one of the most important sports for Hmong. In soccer, there are 11 people on each side of the field. Mostly people dribble the ball and kick the ball in soccer. Soccer can be fun for younger kids to older adults. Sometimes soccer can be rough, but mostly soccer is fun. Each person that plays soccer has four positions to choose: forwards, mids, defends, and goalie. There is a Hmong soccer tournament in St. Paul. Some people come from other states to play soccer there, too. This is probably the biggest soccer tournament in the United States. In Winona, some people play for the YMCA in the spring and some people play soccer for the Winona Youth Soccer Association in the summer. We can only play if we are 10 years old to 18 years old. Some Hmong people are going to make a soccer tournament in June, 1996, in Winona.

Kato is a very old game. It is a game played with a small woven ball. There are three players on each side who hit the kato back and forth over a net. In kato you can do head spikes and the spinning flying foot kick. You can hit the ball with your head, your legs, your arms, your shoulders, but not with your hands. There are some kato teams in the U.S.A. Toua Xiong from Minneapolis was one of the first Hmong people to play kato in the USA. In Winona, we play kato in the summer.
Top spinning is a game that Hmong adults and young children play. The top is made out of wood. We cut out a thick branch from a tree and carve the top with a knife. It has a flat top and a pointed bottom. A top needs a long strong string about a yard long and a stick to spin the top. More than one player can play at a time. One players wraps the string around the top and spins it hard off the stick. The other people try to hit the spinning top by tossing their tops at it. The person whose top spinning spins the longest wins. Back in Laos and Thailand, the game was played all year round, but people had a special interest on New Year's. People played all day. In Winona, Hmong people don't play all year round, but sometimes we play on New Year's or in summer.
Soccer is a very fun sport. If you have a chance to play it, you will like it. Kato is a game that people enjoy playing. It is a very fun game and it happens at every soccer tournament. Top spinning is a game mostly for young kids, but adults play, too. To play all these sports, you don't need to be good. Which sports do you like to play?

Hmong Celebrations

Celebration is a time for fun, happiness, and excitement. There are many different kinds of Hmong celebrations, such as soccer tournaments, New Year, weddings, and sometimes funerals. New Year is usually in November or December. Almost all Hmong people from Winona also go to New Year's celebrations in St. Paul, Minnesota and La Crosse, Wisconsin. New Year is a time when people toss balls, sing, and dance. It is a time for eating, drinking and socializing.
In Laos, the New Year lasted seven days with soccer, top spinning, games and other different events. It was all held outside in December. For the single men, it was the only time to look at the girls to find a wife.
In Laos when people celebrated, they killed cows, pigs and chickens to eat. When people celebrated they needed a lot of food so other people could eat. In the United States, we usually kill cows, pigs and chickens, too. We cook rice, egg rolls, fry chicken, and cook cabbage, eggplant, broccoli and many more things.

When people play tossing ball, the girls line up on one side and the boys line up on the other side, looking at the girls. The people on one side each have a ball. Someone says, "Start." They toss it underhand so the other person can catch it. If a person drops a ball, the other person has to sing a song like back in Laos about love or sadness, or a song about his or her life. You get to know that boy or girl by singing a song. The person has to sing a song until someone drops a ball again.
The musical instruments we play for New Year's celebration are the kheng (qeej), flute, drum, guitar, mouth flute (ncaas) and mouth harp (ricas). The kheng (qeej) is played by men. While they play, they spin and turn and sometimes stand on one foot. These instruments and blowing leaves play the old songs. The music we play for the 90's is on the electric guitar, the drum, keyboard, flute, kheng (qeej), and mouth flute (ncaas). Sometimes people sing songs about life and love.
We keep having this celebration, so the children will remember the old days.

Hmong Clothes

In Laos, when our parents grew up, their parents made cloth from hemp. Even when we were still in Thailand, we watched our moms and grandmas and great-grandmas make the cloth from hemp. They made the threads from the hemp plant. When it was ready to peel, they cut it and brought it home and peeled it. After, they put it on a wheel and spun it. Then they dipped it into all these colors, like black, hot pink, hot green, hot orange, bright blue, hot yellow, and a yellow-green. They boiled the flower petals to get the colors they wanted.

For one kind of Hmong skirt, first there is a black part colored with indigo. Then they make designs with wax. It takes two or three weeks to do that. Then they make the bottom from a very long black cloth with holes in it. They make a design in the cloth with red thread and add a second color like white and make white color on the outside. Then they choose another color that they want and make more designs so there are no black spots left.
Hmong women in Winona use a piece of material and pull the strings out of that material to make a piece of thread from seven or eight strings. We use the thread to decorate the cloth. We make triangles and diamonds by cross-stitching and add beads or sequins to make it shine. We use this to decorate cloth for the arm bands,the borders of the jacket, sashes, the panel for the front of the skirt, or for hats.
Hmong clothing is very cool, neat and beautiful. We wear Hmong clothing to New Year's. The mothers have to sew new outfits. The men wear black pants. The women's clothing is a blouse tucked into a skirt. The striped Hmong's jacket is black and blue on the arms. There are two lines on the front of the jacket. The White Hmong's skirt is white. The original Green Hmong wear batiked skirts.
We Hmong come from different areas that's why we all wear different kinds of clothing for New Year's. Our clothing is very colorful and we have beautiful designs on it. It's a special way to remember our culture.

Hmong Traditions

The Hmong people in Winona have brought many traditions with them from Laos. They keep doing these traditions, but they've changed some. They follow traditions in gardening, hunting, and preparing and eating food.
How do Hmong get their food? They plant food in gardens and they also hunt animals to eat. In Laos the Hmong people had farmlands to plant rice, cucumbers, corn, wheat, beans, cotton, potatoes, peppers, vegetables like cabbages, squash, sugar cane, watermelons, and tomatoes. In Winona they have gardens. They use a hand hoe to dig out the grass and to dig out the dirt to make it soft. The food we plant in Winona is watermelons, squash, sugar cane, eggplants, hot peppers, cabbages, corn, herbs, onions, garlic, ginger and cucumbers.
For hunting, the Hmong people used a crossbow and arrows, traps, slingshots, and rifles in Laos. They hunted for wild animals such as tigers, bear, fox, deer, hogs, and monkeys and also for birds and lizards. Around Winona, the Hmong people hunt with shotguns, 22 rifles and other guns. They hunt for deer, squirrels, and pheasants. The Hmong people don't hunt for fun or just to kill it. The Hmong people eat the meat they kill.
In Laos, the Hmong people had some animals near their houses, like pigs, chickens, cows, horses, and water buffaloes. They had bulls for fighting to get money or to keep and dogs for hunting or guarding the houses.
Here is some food that some Hmong still eat today. Rice is the main food that we eat everyday, like for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Hmong also cook other food besides rice, like steamed fish, boiled chicken, chicken/broccoli stir-fry. Hmong cook steamed fish for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Some Hmong each day cook something different besides the steamed fish.
Some young Hmong people are following these traditions, but some do these things the American way.