Each of us as individuals has had the spotlight in describing our culture and traditions. We’ve written, read, or at the very least, heard, about how our grandparents barely crossed the Mekong River, barely survived the refugee camps, barely made it to America, barely raised our parents who in the end barely raised us. This repetitive story, in my personal opinion, wasn’t always a story I wanted to share. I didn’t want to tell the settled American world I came to be about from a family that barely scraped by. No one wants to say they’re poor. That they were unwanted, that their blood was once blood perceived equivalent to that of dogs straying the Laotian mountain villages, and thus forced to persevere a genocide leading to a migration across the globe. That story of “barely making it?” That’s not the story. You are here, you made it, you are the representation of survival, the epitome of what is Hmong. The generations before us who sacrificed their all is the story, the story we forget because our education system fails to acknowledge it.Yet, that fact should not minimize our honor because honor and legacy is not verified through the pages of history books but rather in the way we as a people carry ourselves. You can’t say you have pride without searching and discovering the source of such pride you hold, otherwise it’s your ego that blankets your denial. And you can’t have pride without having overcome tribulation. I am Hmong, and I am proud. Actually, no. That’s not enough. I am Ci Yeev Yaj. My dad’s name is Tshaj Yaj. My grandpa’s name is Va Thoj Yaj… and I am his blood; I am his name; I am his granddaughter. I am the product of his sacrifice. His hands that held onto that gun and dragged men across burning fields are the hands that graced my father’s once-youthful hair, the hands that wiped away my young father’s tears as they forever parted ways. His feet that trampled over dead bodies and dodged landmines are the same two feet that fetched water miles away back home so my grandma could cook for and bathe her children. His spirit and his pride that caused him to leave his physical body is the same spirit and same pride that thrives within my very being that screams, “I am Hmong and I am beautiful,” in whatever I do and wherever I go. The beauty of this song recaptures the pain of the Hmong walking away from a familiar love and life to begin anew in places unknown, scarcely surviving on enduring hope within American society. Mongya, Phongsavanh, Luang Prubang, Looj Ceeb, Vinai… these villages and cities we trace ourselves back to without having breathed one breath of the air held so preciously in the hearts of our grandparents. But they made it. And so their lives blossomed even through times of death… and doesn’t that just make you feel like you’re the most beautiful, luckiest person on earth? That’s what it is to be Hmong. So sit there, think about how fortunate you are, and tell me how it feels. HAPPY HMONG AMERICAN DAY
Posted on: Wed, 14 May 2014 14:56:56 +0000
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