Eat.Move.Connect. Tip: Connect with others through One Book, One Community
This year’s selection, “The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father” by Kao Kalia Yang Yang, recounts the story of her father, a Hmong refugee in Minnesota driven from the mountains of Laos by America’s Secret War, an unknown part of the Vietnam War.
Once the shame of the suburbs, Maplewood quiets its critics
About a third of its residents are now non-white, including sizable Somali and Hmong populations. Tou Xiong’s parents spent 15 years in a Thai refugee camp before making it to St. Paul. They saved to buy a home in Maplewood, telling young Tou they wanted …
MSAD girls basketball wins fifth straight in rout of Hiawatha Collegiate
MSAD returns to the hardwood 5:30 p.m. Tuesday to host conference foe Hmong Academy. The Trojans beat the Warriors 52-25 Dec. 20 in St. Paul. MSAD statistics — Points: Kayla Mitchell 28; Dalina Schwartz 9; Konyabayo Omot 8; Precious Puente 2 …
Reclaiming member John Slade seeks party nomination to run for state office
About 2 percent identified as multi-racial, Native American, or some other racial or ethnic group. He also noted that the Hmong, a Laotian refugee group, has formed in St. Paul and is the city’s largest Asian group. In the US, only Fresno, California has …
Minnesota Book Award winning author visits Buckham Memorial Library
Kao Kalia Yang is the author of “The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir” and “The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father.” “The Latehomecomer” won the 2009 MN Book Awards in Creative Nonfiction/Memoir and Reader’s Choice. It was a finalist for a PEN USA …
State’s 1st Hmong-American Judge on Journey from Laos to Minnesota’s Judicial System
“I am just a former refugee kid who wanted to make a little difference in our world.” – Ramsey County District Court Judge Sophia Vuelo. The reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous words, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” are …
A Minnesota health advocate’s crusade brings harmful skin lightening out of the dark
They have been found in Somali, Hmong, Mexican, Dominican, and West Indies communities from California to Minnesota to New York. Users, and even sellers of the creams, are often unaware that they are harmful or illegal. “We can’t address this issue …
And the most popular baby names in Minnesota are…
(Plus, the whole being-white thing.) The Asian category was the only one where splitting off a nationality didn’t change the stats: Olivia and Aiden were the top name choices, whether Minnesota’s Hmong population was included or not. Mila was the most …
Charting a course
The inauguration ceremony reflected the city’s diversity, beginning with a blessing delivered in Ojibwe, and continuing with traditional Hmong music and a poem recited in Somali. The executive director of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota …
Brigadier General David D. Hamlar Jr. promoted to lead Minnesota National Guard
We kind of took the road show and went out and started going out to the community to recruit in our Hispanic, our African American, our Hmong and our Laotian communities. How successful has that campaign been once you pushed them out of their comfort zone?
St. Paul prioritizes adding female officers with first recruiting event Saturday
Female St. Paul police officers, plus two young women in the St. Paul Police Explorer Program, recorded invitations in five languages: English, Spanish, Hmong, Somali and Karen. Overcoming stereotypes When Nash became a St. Paul officer in 1989 …
Minnesota swears in state’s first Hmong-American judge
Sophia Vuelo was born in Laos during wartime and raised in Wisconsin by a widowed mother who could barely write her own name. On Thursday, she became Minnesota’s first Hmong-American judge, and only one of a few in the country. “Never let your …
Memorial grad makes Minn. judicial history
Minnesota’s first and the country’s second Hmong-American judge has deep roots in Eau Claire, where she was class president and homecoming queen of Memorial High School’s class of 1990. Sophia Vuelo was publicly sworn in on Thursday as a district …
Eau Clare Memorial High School grad makes Minnesota history
Eau Claire (WQOW)-A former Old Abe is now making history across state lines. This week, Sophia Vuelo will become the first Hmong-American judge appointed in the state of Minnesota. Before she started breaking down barriers, she graduated high school at …
Minnesota Daybook
Thursday, Jan. 04 8:30 AM St Paul Mayor Carter’s inauguration week daily schedule – Saint Paul Mayor Melvin Carter holds public meet-ups with community members, Golden Thyme, 921 Selby Ave, St Paul (8:30 AM CST); Hmong Village, 1001 Johnson Pkwy …
Teachers are going to extraordinary lengths for St. Paul’s Hmong children
Twelve years ago, St. Paul Public Schools established a first-in-the-nation Hmong immersion program. Hmong parents wanted their American-bred children to read and write in their own language, to speak with their grandparents, to think in Hmong. There was …
Snowy pines hold the past, Minnesotans decide the future
He was an advocate for peace, the environment, health care and victims of domestic violence. He also worked closely with Minnesota’s Hmong community, and with veterans. The implication I’ve gotten when I hear people talk about Wellstone is that we …
Minnesota courtrooms become more diverse
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Veteran lawyer Sophia Vuelo has made history in her own right, becoming Minnesota’s first Hmong American judge in December. Governor Mark Dayton appointed her to fill a vacancy in the Second Judicial District, headquartered in the Ramsey …
