Hmong New Year 2007-2008
SubjectPortrait of
May Xiong
(Hmong, died 2015)
Date2007 November 17
Mediumphotographic prints
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
CopyrightIn Copyright
Object number2015.196.1018.1-.13
DescriptionPhotographs from the 2007 Hmong New Year celebration. CCHAP brought a group of visitors to the New Year celebration as part of the Cultural Tourism Bus Tour project.
(.1-.4) Group photos of many of the families attending the Hmong New Year celebration. The people in the photographs are wearing traditional dress. A banner in the background reads: “Happy New Year / Nyob Zoo Xyoo Tshiab / Hmong of Conn 2007-08.”
(.5) Image of some of the participants in the New Year Ball Toss game.
(.6) Image of Hmong women in traditional dress looking at clothing. They were showing Hmong clothes to the visitors from the CCHAP Bus Tour.
(.7) Image of Hmong women in traditional dress. May Xiong is on the left being photographed.
(.8) Image of Hmong women in traditional dress looking at clothing. They were showing Hmong clothes to the visitors from the CCHAP Bus Tour.
(.10-.13) Images of young Hmong people playing the Ball Toss game.
NotesSubject Note: CCHAP documented Hmong New Year many times, as part of fieldwork with this community. The 2007 celebration was held in Enfield at the Elks Lodge on North Maple Street. CCHAP brought a group of visitors to the 2007 New Year celebration as part of the Cultural Tourism Bus Tour project.(.1-.4) Group photos of many of the families attending the Hmong New Year celebration. The people in the photographs are wearing traditional dress. A banner in the background reads: “Happy New Year / Nyob Zoo Xyoo Tshiab / Hmong of Conn 2007-08.”
(.5) Image of some of the participants in the New Year Ball Toss game.
(.6) Image of Hmong women in traditional dress looking at clothing. They were showing Hmong clothes to the visitors from the CCHAP Bus Tour.
(.7) Image of Hmong women in traditional dress. May Xiong is on the left being photographed.
(.8) Image of Hmong women in traditional dress looking at clothing. They were showing Hmong clothes to the visitors from the CCHAP Bus Tour.
(.10-.13) Images of young Hmong people playing the Ball Toss game.
Subject Note: The Hmong community in Connecticut, around 300 in number, is based mostly in the Enfield and Manchester areas. They work in factories and service occupations, as well as skilled manufacturing, often in aerospace industries. The Hmong came to the United States as refugees from the Indochina wars in the 1970s after the Communist takeover of Laos, sponsored by the American government because many Hmong assisted the military and the CIA. At that time the Hmong were persecuted in Laos, and this still continues today with considerable fighting going on. The Hmong are a tribal group originally from Mongolia who migrated to Laos where many still live today. There are also Hmong communities in northern Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, and China (where they are called Miao).
Connecticut Hmong people are both traditional and contemporary. Older women used to make the applique and embroidery work known as paj ndau, and they still create traditional costumes for women and men, albeit with modern shortcuts (traditional dyeing techniques are replaced by printed cloth, for instance). Men who are traditional community leaders, such as Boua Tong Xiong, still perform wedding and funeral rituals as well as conflict resolution according to time-honored practices. Hmong traditions practiced in Connecticut include embroidery and story cloths, funeral and wedding songs, music on the bamboo instrument qeej, ballads and courtship songs kwv ntxhiaj, and social dancing. Hmong leaders started the Hmong Foundation of Connecticut as a way to keep the community together and continue to provide many kinds of needed assistance. The Foundation, which is led by a Board of Directors, is open to all Hmong living in the state. Members provide services such as translation, transportation, family relocation to Connecticut, assistance with finding jobs and access to health care, Hmong language classes, and traditional Hmong advising and dispute resolution. The Hmong Foundation of Connecticut became a separate organization in 1996 after the Connecticut Federation of Refugee Assistance Agencies, an umbrella service group, disbanded. The group sponsors Hmong New Year in November and a celebration for Hmong high school graduates in June.
The Hmong have a number of sub-cultural groups; one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Blue Hmong is their custom of batiking cloth with blue indigo. One specific kind of textile that the Hmong have become known for are the “story cloths”. These are a comparatively new genre first made in the Thai refugee camps around 1975. In these embroidered pieces, direct figurative references are made to folk tales, myths, personal family stories and scenes of village life. These story cloths also depict the turbulence and hardships of the war years in Southeast Asia. Hmong textile works also include many references to the natural world, to the plants and animals, which are native to the hills of Laos. (Winifred Lambrecht, Ph.D, CCHAP project partner, July 2006)
Subject Note: Hmong New Year, Nyob Zoo Xyoo Tshiab, is the Hmong community’s most important annual festival. The New Year festival, always held late in the year, includes the ball toss, a game between young people that is a courtship ritual; a fashion show of different tribal costumes; a cultural presentation of dance and song; and a community-prepared feast with traditional foods. The spiritual connotation of the festival is for thanksgiving and new beginnings, and to honor ancestors. Hmong participants wear traditional dress, make speeches, and sing songs appropriate to the celebration. New Year also serves as a reminder and practice of traditions, as well as a gathering of cultural and social leaders.
Subject Note: In 2008 and 2009, CCHAP collaborated with WNPR’s acclaimed radio discussion show "Where We Live" to document several ethnic festivals across the state. Words and sound were woven together by us to create podcasts and audio slide shows that take viewers and listeners right to the festivals.
Biographical Note: May Xiong was a remarkable and talented seamstress and embroiderer of traditional Hmong textiles and needlework of all kinds: paj ndau, skirts sewn entirely by hand, reverse appliqué, cross stitch, hats, making the entire costume in the different Hmong styles. Like many older Hmong women over 40, their mothers taught them traditional textile skills around the age of 14, in their Hmong villages in northern Laos. First they learned how to make the cross-stitched collars for the back of the shirt, then they learned the rest of the outfit, with the embroidered apron last. They also learned the paj ndau-story cloths from mothers and female family members. May and other women make whatever clothing Hmong people need, especially for the New Year celebration in November. May was involved as a teacher in the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program with other Hmong embroiderers from Massachusetts and Connecticut, from 2006-2008. She was the wife of Boua Tong Xiong. May passed away in 2015.
Subject Note: The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program at the Institute for Community Research collaborated with Manchester Community College (MCC) on a cultural tourism project in 2004-2008. Each year, three or four day-long bus tours visited cultural events and artist studios in ethnic communities living in different parts of the state as a way for new audiences to experience and meet Connecticut’s ethnic and occupational communities. Project goals included 1) expanding awareness of unfamiliar art forms and heritage tourism assets, 2) encouraging access to little-known ethnic or occupational communities, 3) creating audience and artist interactions, 4) stimulating sales and commissions of traditional arts and foods, and 5) developing new partnerships with community organizations and artists. The tours were developed and led by the Connecticut state folk arts program director, Lynne Williamson along with artists from each community. The partnership with MCC ensured that the tours were advertised in the Credit-Free Catalogue each semester. Audiences for the tours were primarily members of the Older Adults Association, a core audience for MCC’s Credit-Free courses.
Each day-long bus tour included a visit to folk artists’ studios or shops to observe them producing or selling their work, while engaging with visitors in discussions on the history of their communities and the background of their art form. Tours stopped at related landmarks and/or restaurants in the artists’ neighborhoods, or attended a local community festival. The artists and community groups visited gave insightful presentations on their cultures and artistic traditions. Each tour included a traditional dinner or lunch where visitors could sit down to eat and talk with the artists and community members. CCHAP received an NEA Challenge America Cultural Tourism grant for a pilot series of bus tours in 2004. Subsequent project funders also included the Greater Hartford Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism.
In November 2007, CCHAP brought a group of people on a cultural heritage bus tour to participate in the celebration of Hmong New Year, the Hmong community’s most important annual festival. The tour gave the group a rare chance to enter into Hmong cultural activities as honored guests. The New Year festival, always held late in the year, includes the ball toss, a game between young people that is a courtship ritual; a fashion show of different tribal costumes; a cultural presentation of dance and song; and a community-prepared feast with traditional foods. Hmong cultural leaders spoke to the tour group about the community’s history, and artists who make the elaborate and distinctive Hmong costumes demonstrated and sold their work.
Additional materials exist in the CCHAP archive for this event and this community.
Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.
Status
Not on view
