This weekend Rhode Island’s Hmong community will celebrate the New Year.
The Hmong people are an ethnic group that can be traced back to ancient China, but today, the group has a diaspora reaching across the globe.
Ahead of the festival we spoke with Johnny Kue, whose family has long been leaders in Providence’s Hmong community, to learn more about his family’s astonishing story of survival.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. For more, watch our story for “Rhode Island PBS Weekly.”
ISABELLA JIBILIAN: What was your family’s journey like?
JOHNNY KUE: My mother and father grew up in Laos, around the time the Vietnam War happened. My father was recruited by the CIA to be part of the U.S. Secret Army in Laos. He helped the U.S. navigate the jungles and rescue prisoners.
But when the United States pulled out of the war, a lot of the Hmong troops were left to fend for themselves. They were persecuted by the Laotian government, and sent to reeducation camps and concentration camps. A lot of them were scared for their lives, because there were orders to kill the Hmong. So it was at that time that my family went on the run.
IJ: What were your family’s struggles along the way?
JK: When my family was in the concentration camp and they were slated for either reeducation or to be executed, my oldest sister was so skinny that she was able to get a hand untied from the ropes. And after she got her hand free, she was able to untie my family and they were able to escape those camps.
Then they decided to flee Laos, but the only way was to cross the river that was adjacent to Laos and Thailand. There were soldiers that were guarding the rivers and those soldiers were armed. They had orders to kill families trying to cross the river. And my second-oldest sister was on my mom’s back and she slipped off. My father said that if we go back for her that there’s a chance that we all might be dead. But my mother was able to rescue her and thankfully they were able to get across the river safely.
So eventually they did settle into Thailand where they were helped by some monks to feed them and give them clothing and provide some housing. And eventually, they had villages set up in Thailand where they stayed for a while until the United States offered them political refuge.
IJ: Where were you born?
JK: So my family got into the United States around 1980. There are seven of us. Four were born in Laos or Thailand, and three of us were born in the United States. I was born in 1983. I am the last of seven siblings. I am the baby of the family.
When we first came to the U.S., a lot of Hmong families were sponsored by the Catholic church. They helped us with clothes, food, getting an education, teaching us English, helping us find jobs. So some of us who were born here have middle names that were named after Catholic saints.
IJ: Does your middle name reflect that?
JK: My middle name is actually Johnny. My Hmong name is Sao, but I’ve been called Johnny my whole life. So it stuck.
IJ: When your family moved to the U.S., what did your parents do for work?
JK: My father was an immigration caseworker and he would help get a lot of immigrants into Rhode Island. At that time, there were a lot of African families coming into the country. And so many of the families loved and appreciated what my father did, that they would give him traditional African outfits. So my father would wear those traditional African outfits walking in the middle of the street in South Providence.
As for my mother, there were seven siblings, so she was caretaker for the most part. But she also did a lot of work at the farms. A lot of the Hmong ladies worked in farms at the time because traditionally they were farmers in Laos and Thailand.
IJ: Your family has a number of handmade tapestries. What are they for?
JK: In the Hmong culture, a lot of our history is passed down through oral history or through tapestry. In our culture, we call this a pandau. To an outsider looking at this, they would be like, “Oh, this is nice. What is this?” But to a Hmong person, it is telling a story.
In some of them, you’ll see traditions, some of them you’ll see folklore, some of them you’ll see the journey of the Vietnam War, going to Thailand, coming to the United States. So it was a way for us to pass down our history.
The Hmong New Year Festival will take place at Mickey Stevens Field in Warwick on Saturday, Oct. 12, and Sunday, Oct. 13. For more information, please visit the event’s Facebook page.
For more of the Kue family’s story, watch our “Rhode Island PBS Weekly” segment here:
