Hmong New Year
Nov 18th, 2007 by John Setzler
I had an interesting assignment today. I photographed the Hmong New Year celebration at the local fairgrounds. I really felt like I was in a foreign country, because there were a couple thousand people there and I didn’t hear hardly any English spoken. I met Zoua Lor (pictured above). She’s 96 years old and was enjoying the event :)
Working with family services, I’ve been to a lot of different cultural events and it’s definitely been different. Growing up on the east coast and near Washington DC, there was a lot more cultural diversity than there is in the midwest. Now, I am very rarely in the situation where I am a minority. I’ve been to several Hmong events (there is a large Hmong population here) and others where I’ve been the only one who doesn’t understand the language and felt Very White. Makes me aware of how accustomed I’ve grown to the rather segregated societies we have out here.
And if Hmong people ever tell you that their food isn’t spicy and you should try some, THEY ARE LYING!!