Hmong New Year

While the rest of America was busy with Black Friday shopping, the St. Paul River Centre's Roy Wilkins' Auditorium was bursting with the three day Hmong New Year celebration.  My first awareness of the Hmong New Year came about when I was circling City Hall downtown.  Crowds of Hmong women, young and old, were making their way to the River Centre garbed in ornately decorated traditional dress.  The men were not so ornately attired but obviously has spit shined their hair for a special occasion.  It was very apparent, even to the uninitiate (me), that something wonderful was going on at the River Centre.  I promised to check it out when I got home.

Sure enough, the Minnesota Hmong population (I was told the Twin Cities is home to the largest Hmong population in the US but could not verify that today), was celebrating their most important holiday, the New Year.  The history of the Hmong New Year celebration is superficially described on websites, but it was enough for me to fill in the lines and realize this is a big deal, a really big deal.  In the various lands of origin, this was not only a deeply spiritual celebration connected with shedding the old and putting on the new, but it also was a time when new marriages were arranged and the agricultural community took a rest from their long months of labor in the fields.   

The tinkling of silver decorations as the women walked was fun to hear and as I reviewed the websites, I wondered if the silver "bell" sounds came from the silver coins used in the traditional ball toss.  The celebration fascinated me and I wondered if outsiders would be welcome to come and observe.  Maybe  by next year's celebration I will have done a little more research to find if visiting would be respectful or not!

Comments

[Pat Kitano]

I'm surprised Minneapolis has the largest Hmong population in the US... http://www.hmongcenter.org/top50metarby.html

I have several Hmong acquaintances and they said the Hmong liked living in the agricultural Central Valley of CA because the weather is mild and they are close to their farming roots... in fact 4 of the top 10 cities are in the Central Valley and the rest are scattered around the Great Lakes states.

Makes one wonder why immigrants settle at certain places...

[Bonnie Erickson]

Pat, Thanks for finding the facts for me and on one of the very websites I kept checking. I don't know how I missed it! I, too, am surprised that our area would be chosen, especially as our temps are dipping from 60's to below zero in windchill overnight! We are "Minnesota nice", have the fourth lowest poverty rate in the nation, our educational system is excellent, and we're rated in the top 10 best cities to live. Maybe some of the people moving here are doing their research!