Hmong Story Cloths
In 2010, I had the privilege of interning with MCC’s Refugee Sponsorship Program, collecting oral histories of former refugees and their sponsors. Through this work I became aware of Hmong Story Cloths — quilts (many from the refugee camps) that told their stories of suffering and survival. I wrote this blog post at the time, but since then a Master’s thesis and a PhD dissertation took my focus. I would still like to research these more, but until then, here are my 2010 archival thoughts.
By far, one of the coolest things to come out of my internship this summer with Mennonite Central Committee is this: Hmong story cloths (pronounced “mong” – the “h” is silent). First, a little bit of background. This summer, I have had the great honour of serving with MCC by spearheading a pilot project to collect oral histories of former refugees who came to Canada through the MCC private sponsorship of refugees program (find out more here). Because MCC Ontario has sponsored 15,000 refugees since the program began in 1979, I clearly had to narrow it down. I decided to focus on the first group, the people from Southeast Asia, more commonly (and inaccurately – not to mention less-than-sensitively) known as the “Boat People.”
When images of the humanitarian crisis in Southeast Asia in the late ’70s started flooding televisions in the west, Canadians began insisting something be done. That something took the form of sponsorship. In Canada, MCC became the first signatory with the Canadian government, creating the world’s first private sponsorship of refugees program. Important side note: to this day Canada is the only country in the world that has private sponsorship of refugees – O Canada!
Anyway, because this wave of immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were the first to come, they were the ideal group for several reasons. First, practicality. In trying to find participants for oral history projects, you have to be able to actually find them. I had a stack of Notice of Arrival forms, housed in the MCC archives, that listed the person(s) sponsored, the church/business/group that sponsored them, and the person who was point of contact. I then contacted the sponsors in order to track down the contact in order to find the people sponsored. Phew. Thankfully, helping this along, were many commemorative celebrations in the last year or so. See, many of these people came to Canada 30 years ago, and had celebrations with their sponsors to commemorate that.
Well, interviewing these people over the past summer has been one of the most rewarding and challenging projects I’ve undertaken. Even more than that, though, having the opportunity to speak with these people has truly been a great honour. The stories are incredible (update: these stories are now archived in the Mennonite Archives of Ontario).
The Hmong are an ethnic group from Southeast Asia who have no homeland.
To get a quick idea of what their history has been like, think of the Kurds in Iraq, or the Jews in Russia. Not a happy history. After the Vietnam War and the Secret War in Laos, the communist regime and the Viet Cong targeted the Hmong for retribution. The Hmong had worked with the American forces and so were ruthlessly hunted down as a people. (Side note: while the situation is not as dire as it was in the mid-70s, life is far from safe for Hmong people in Laos and Vietnam today). It is estimated that upwards of two-thirds of the Hmong population in Laos was killed.
Not surprisingly, many Hmong fled to neighbouring Thailand, where they landed in refugee camps such as Nong Khai and Ban Vinai. To read an excellent Hmong family memoir, I highly recommend Kao Kalia Yang‘s The Latehomecomer. For those who don’t already know, refugee camps are not happy places. They are filthy, overcrowded, unsanitary, undersupplied prisons.
Many Hmong spent several years in these camps. In order to whittle away the time, but even more importantly, in order to make sure future generations would not forget what had happened, Hmong women turned their tradition of needlework to recreating their own stories. Hmong women would embroider intricate pictures on wholecloth quilts, illustrating their escape from Laos into Thailand. Some quilts are small, and some are quite large. This had a practical element, too. Once completed, the Hmong would sell these quilts to foreigners working in the camps, and to friends or family who were already overseas, in order to create an income for themselves and their families. The quilts display images of village life, warfare, escape across the Mekong River, and life in the refugee camps.
I’m just so thankful they were brought to my attention by one of the women I interviewed.