Community celebrates Hmong culture and education program

A group of Hmong boys participate in a musical performance of a traditional Hmong woodwind instrument called the qeej. The performance consists of playing the instrument as well as dancing. (Laura Grulke/Madison Commons)

A gala Saturday benefited the fourth year of programming of the Hmong Language and Culture Enrichment Program at the Badger Rock Center Saturday night. The one-of-a-kind program to engage in their culture, history, community and citizenship.

Mai Zong Vue, intercultural program coordinator at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, impressed the importance of the program for Hmong youth in Madison during the event. The six-week intensive summer program teaches Hmong children about their culture, history and language through immersion.

Vue said the process of learning more about their roots and gaining confidence in their culture would go on to encourage leadership and community engagement.

“All of us should be proud of ourselves as a community, that we made a program like this happen to help children who are going to benefit, and who are going to someday give back to our community,” Vue said.

In his keynote address, Dr. Nengher Vang, an associate professor of history at UW-Whitewater, stressed the importance the program will have in fostering academic success and civic engagement.

Guests bid on paintings done by Hmong artists, among other items like jewelry, hats and books, at the evening’s silent auction. (Laura Grulke/Madison Commons)

The program’s inception several years ago was in response to academic achievement statistics, which showed that 93 percent of Hmong American children’s reading proficiency was below their grade level and 74 percent were below their grade level in math proficiency.

Vang said HLCEP is exactly the kind of program that will combat those statistics and make up for the struggles Hmong students face in the classroom.

“We have a lack of multicultural education in our public schools … Students can’t identify with a curriculum that is predominantly a white-studies curriculum,” Vang said. “We need to emphasize the importance of multicultural education that is going to help give our young people that particular cultural confidence to excel in school.”

Vang went on to discuss the Hmong community’s early political presence in the U.S., boasting record voter turnouts and political organizations that have been around for decades. This activism is something Vang said the program can instill in participants by creating a larger picture of community, involvement and a push toward higher education.

Dane County Executive Joe Parisi stressed the importance of the Hmong community in Madison and the surrounding area, commending the program and its coordinators for the work they do.

“I consider us very fortunate in Dane County to have a vital and active Hmong community,” Parisi said. “We are very appreciative of the history of the Hmong community, from standing beside us when you were still in southeast Asia to the many different ways that you contribute to our community. The fact that your community is part of our bigger community makes us all richer and stronger.”

Cultural performances near the end of the event captured the diversity of the Hmong culture and included a poetry song performed by Chia Moua and a group playing traditional Hmong woodwind instruments called qeej.

According to Vue, the gala had raised about $25,000 for the program, which is set to run June 20-July 29.