Janes Lee,
Minneapolis, MN.
I am a Hmong American male, residing in the most Hmong populated state though we are still very unseen. The service our people provided during the Vietnam War, known to the Hmong people as the Secret War, has been invisible to the public eye. How fitting of it for the invisible people to serve in a secretive war.
But our invisibility ends now. We will make ourselves be known to the world and showcase what we’re capable of. Not in a way like that of the movie Gran Torino where for the first time the Hmong people made it into mainstream media only to be portrayed as gangsters and thugs or shy and timid.
We are more than that. We are educated, athletes, teachers, doctors. We are people who have survived genocide and will overcome oppression. We are a strong people. We are resilient. We muaj lub siab tawv (have a willful heart).
