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Abigail | Maggie
| Erika | Dylan
| Christina | Jenny
| Mariah | Sara K.
The first Hmong family came to Sheboygan
in 1976. From a photograph [we were shown], we all figured
that this was a pretty big family but nothing compared to
the 6,500 Hmong there are in Sheboygan now!
–Abigail
An interesting thing we learned was
about Bosnian refugees. Bosnian people are not Hmong people.
They’re totally different, but they went through basically
the same hardships and journeys the Hmong people went through.
They were being bombed out of their homeland and didn’t
come to America because they wanted to—they had to!
–Maggie
In 1982 there were problems with gang
membership [among the youth in the Hmong community. They joined
gangs] because a lot of young Hmong have to live in two worlds:
at home (Hmong) and at school (American). The Hmong often
are torn! They ended up choosing a gang as a way out.
–Erika
Another man taught us how to play tub
lub. It is a game that Hmong people play, often at New Years.
You have a stick with a small rope on it; you wind a top up
in the small rope. Then you hold the top in one hand and the
stick in the other and whip the top onto the ground. Then
you pull back on the string and the top will spin. Other people
will try to knock your top off. They let us spin the tops
in the hall, it was super fun!
–Dylan
Then we went to play Tub Lub. Everybody
went to play but me because I thought I’d do bad, but
when I saw other people playing and making mistakes [so I
thought I would try]. I went up to the line when it was my
turn, I made a mistake but it started to get fun so I went
again and the second time, I did it! It stood up and spun!
I am not lying but I couldn’t try again because we had
to leave.
–Christina
The top game was made for girls because
this man had three daughters and no sons and wanted a son,
so he invented the top game and said whoever beats one of
his daughters can marry her and play tub lub with the dad.
This way the dad would have a son in law and not be lonely
any more.
–Jenny
At the end of our visit the Hmong man
gave us some paper with Hmong designs on them that you can
color. I am coloring my designs for Christmas presents!
–Mariah
The Hmong people said they let the other
refugees work there because they feel they had to go through
the same difficulties as the Hmong.
–Sara
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