Jun 16

Written by:
6/16/2011 9:17 PM 

This year has been an odd year. Hmong activities were very much like the Minnesota weather. It changed frequently and some times unpredictable. Minnesota Hmong politics was very much under the weather this year. First was the lost of the Minnesota Senate seat of Senator Mee Moua, the flawed and chaotic Lao Family election and followed by the death of Gen. Vang Pao. This year should be a great opportunity for Minnesota Hmong leaders to come together and rally behind someone to take on vacant leadership roles. Yet, we are back to the same old "Hmong" style politics. Politics where if we were not in the US, we might have started a civil war with each other. Clan vs clan and I am ashamed at our Hmong leaders.

Instead of uniting behind one potential candidate for Senator Moua's seat, we splitted the votes between four candidates. It's the old saying, "United we stand, divided and we fall". It was foolish for all of the candidates who ran  for her seat to think that they could win by having multiple candidates. Hmong people tend to vote for their clan name first. This makes it harder for the candidates to win votes. Senator Moua won because of the united votes she received from all of the clans and other voters who supported her. The only flaw I see here is that before leaving office, Senator Moua failed to find a successor or to endorse one candidate who can represent the Hmong.

Next was the Lao Family election last December. One that I found flawed to begin with. Our election process was so flawed, it makes you wonder who came up with the idea. The election was meant to be open to the Hmong public. I don't know what they mean by open, but if you didn't registered, you were not allowed to vote. To me, this was a private club or membership vote. If you were a Hmong and showed your residency in Minnesota, you should be allowed to vote. Instead, they passed out voting registration forms. You had to fill out this form before you can vote. The form included all of the information that was on your driver's license or MN ID card. The main problem here was that the candidates and their workers were recruiting people to sign up for the vote. Yang workers recruited Yang clan, Lee workers went to recruit Lee clan and so on. This election was not about who was the best candidate, it was about which clan was going to be in power. God must not have  wanted this election to take place, since on the day of the election, it was one of the worst Minnesota snow storm. Lao Family should have postpone the election, but they did not. Many Hmong drove through almost two feet of snow to get to the polling place. This posed a hazardous condition for the people who stride out to vote. To add salt to injuries, once you passed through the blizzard, many found out that they could not vote because their names were not on the "allowed to vote" list.

Lastly, the death of Gen. Vang Pao was probably the biggest lost. Many people disagree with his ideas and process, but if it were not for him, many of the Hmong would not be in the US today. He was the most well known Hmong leader. With his death, the leadership role has been lost and I do not think we will fill that gap any time soon. The General was charismatic, intelligent and he was able to bring all the clans together to fight in the Secret War. With the constant contest to see who is going to be the strongest clan, it will be hard for someone to stand up and unite the clans. It is this problem that the July 4th soccer festival is in jeopardy.

Leadership within the Hmong community has fallen to its lowest point. Leadership is not a continue fight to see who can become the President of Lao Family, it is to be able to lead the Hmong in a respectful and dignity way. Someone who can stand up and represent us all in times of need. Compromise is the biggest asset to any political figure. If you cannot compromise, you are not a leader and everything around you will start to fall apart. Perfect example is the way how the battle over the Lao Family president. This battle has gone for months now and the casualty are slowly starting to show with the potential lost of the July 4th and possibly the November Hmong New Year as well. These are the two most well known Hmong activities in the US and it also shows how dysfunctional our leaders are. It is ashame that it has come to this.