• Tweet
• Email
• Sharebar

• Tweet
• Email

by Erik Hare

Thanksgiving is a day for all of us to remember what we have to be thankful for.  It all started when a small and pious group managed to survive the crossing of the ocean to a distant land where, with a lot of hard work, they were free.  In Saint Paul, the festivities continue in a more immediate celebration of culture, freedom, and thanksgiving for the safe delivery of a people in the annual celebration of Hmong New Year, held each year the after Thanksgiving at RiverCentre.  This year, the festivities run from November 27th to the 29th.

The Hmong (pronounced with a silent “H” in English) are a people who lived in the remote parts of Laos until war came to their part of the world.  As they became swept up in the conflict that fanned out over southeast Asia, they became fierce fighters for freedom and independence, siding with the US.  When we withdrew from Vietnam, the Hmong found they could not go back to the lives they once led.  As they were hunted down for their role in the war, most made a perilous escape to refugee camps in Thailand, huddling in tents awaiting some kind of salvation.

Many groups in the US understood our obligation to these brave people who were caught up in a conflict they didn’t start.  A trickle and then a flood were offered asylum here in the US.  The warmest welcome for many was here in Saint Paul, a city with a long heritage of welcoming people from distant lands seeking freedom and a chance to start over. 

This year we celebrate the 33rd Hmong New Year in Saint Paul.  It’s a celebration of culture, including music, crafts, food, and a thick helping of warm community spirit.  A generation on from the initial deliverance, some of the people who arrived with nothing have become successful business owners and community leaders, including two legislators and a School Board member.  The strong community of the Hmong is critical to the process of lifting an entire people out of the poverty as they continue to achieve more and more. 

The most visible part of Hmong New Year are the those who arrive in colorful traditional costumes, decorated with coins on strings and complicated handcrafted fabrics.  The next generation of kids born here happily wears the heritage that was delivered to a land that, in the end, did its best to make good with the promise of freedom to the people that have suffered so much.  The Hmong are strong and united, wearing the clothes of both worlds well in their daily lives – but Hmong New Year is the time when they are proudest in their traditional robes.  The heritage of a people from rural, tropical hillsides can remains intact in the urban, chilly prairie.

There are still many Hmong stuck in refugee camps in southeast Asia, but a few are able to make the journey over to deliverance all the time.  There is always a new story of thanksgiving every year as families are reunited and the community gradually lifts itself out of the stark poverty of refugees.  For those of us whose only role in the stories is to be as welcoming as possible, what we get in return is a deep inspiration.

To know the Hmong is to know what we have to give thanks for. Each year, at Hmong New Year, we are blessed with the stories that make our native traditional Thanksgiving all the richer for the renewal.