Sunisa Lee, the Olympic champion, followed 'her light, her energy.' Her parents raised her differently than many Hmong girls. They all share in Sunisa Lee's success.
Dearest Suni, Yeev Thoj, and John Lee:
The gold, the silver, and the bronze Olympic medals are perfect for each of you!!! You don’t know me, but in that very special Hmong way, we are family, and our immediate relatives probably lived and worked together on the same mountain back in Laos. And for sure, they ate together in the refugee camps, long before being resettled to the United States, or another country. I’m a former St. Paul resident, and I’m writing this public love letter because I want the world to know how truly exceptional your story is, not only for Hmong people, but for refugees, immigrants, and all communities that are still marginalized and little understood.
Kuv zoo siab tshaj plaws thiab thov qhuas txog Sunisa thiab nws niam nws txiv. Lawv tau ua ib tus qauv zoo rau ib tsoom niam txiv thiab tej mi nyuam taug. [My heart is bursting with joy, and pride, Sunisa, for you, and your Mom and Dad. And this is just a simple love letter to mark this moment in Hmong American history.]
I’m writing to you from New York City, where I’m finishing a year-long fellowship at Columbia University. I’m a Hmong Texan, a naturalized American from the Thoj clan, and I’ve been a radio journalist for the past two decades. Now I’m working on my second career, becoming a new author, with a book proposal titled “The Hmong Girl That Survived A Grenade Attack.” I’m also a future teacher, wanting to help young people learn radio, story-telling, and podcasting (Look out for my new audio project–Wakaneja/ Sacred Ones, about Native American youth and the 2016 Standing Rock movement). That’s just a little background for you, so that if we ever meet, and I have a microphone in my hand, you’ll know exactly why!
Suni, I’m celebrating you, not just because you made history as the first-ever Hmong American Olympian, but because the world under-estimated you (and many of us), and when it mattered most, YOU did not give up on yourself, and you showed the world exactly how powerful and beautiful you are. I’m going to write more about your journey, but first, let me take a minute to say something to your parents.
Yeev and John, you both deserve Olympic medals for raising Suni far differently from most Hmong households. John, I spoke to your oldest brother, HeuPao Peter Lee, and he helped me to understand that you both treated each of your children equally, that boys were not prioritized over girls, and one child was not loved above others. He also said your family merged its deep Catholic faith with its important Hmong traditions. And since you were both competitive in sports, and in life, you both blessed Suni, and her siblings, with that spirit, too. I bet Suni was never called a “poj laib” (female gangster) and “niag ruam (idiot or stupid one).”
Those who know our Hmong history already understand that Hmong girls and women have long been undervalued, and mistreated. Most weren’t even allowed to go to school back in Laos. And they were usually married off young, in their teens, sometimes earlier. When Hmong families started to arrive in the United States, in the late 1970’s and 1980’s, because of war and conflict in our homelands, Hmong girls were still being kidnapped in the traditional/ cultural ways, to marry much older men, or to become second or third wives. I had a suitor when I was 15. My older sister was married at 16. My own mother was married “late” at the age of 17. Ask most Hmong women today, and they’ll tell you that they, or their mothers, were married far too young.
Even now, many Hmong girls are still forced by their parents, and relatives, to prepare for that ideal husband, to train to become a good Hmong wife. More modern and less traditional Hmong parents, like mine, have adapted, but most Hmong women in the United States, and every country where we now call our home, have long known that our worth was dependent on our future spouse, because only by marrying did our lives truly begin. At least that’s what they told most of us. As a Hmong woman in my 40’s, not yet married, and happily single, I can assure you that I’ve had a wondrous life so far, filled with much love, the kind that is magical, rare, and lives in you, forever.
Topic: This love letter to Sunisa Lee is accurate from what I've seen in Laos (Read 701 times)