Trail of many Tears
Instead of having the usual venue of short skits and performances for HASA’s Hmong Culture Night, Moua and Xiong decided to write and produce a play
about Hmong heritage. They interviewed their parents and others about their stories and wrote ‘Tuav Plig Rawv,’ a story about a contemporary young Hmong
man’s discovery of his own adoption and discovery through a dream sequence of his adoptive parents’ struggle to bring him to America as a baby.
While the present day portions of the play were in English, the dream sequence was entirely in Hmong with English subtitles flashed overhead.
“There are certain words and emotions that we say in our language that are so strong,” Moua said during an interview after the show. “You kind of loose it
in translation. That’s why we chose it. Plus, it is our language and Hmong culture night. So it was obvious to put it in Hmong.”
“I think we did it in the Hmong language because the play felt just about the running and the struggles, I don’t think the emotions could have been
portrayed through English,” Xiong added. “We did have worries about people who were attending who wouldn’t understand what the play was about until we
came up with the subtitling idea. We knew some people might have been disappointed with it not being in English. But I really felt that even if you really
couldn’t understand Hmong, just the emotions portrayed through the acting and the story itself brought out a lot of what it meant.”
Using the Hmong language wasn’t always easy for the actors because many have fallen out of practice. “Some knew more Hmong than others,” Moua
said. “So this was a learning process for them too. Going back and learning more Hmong was helpful for them and for all of us. It was helpful to just speak it. It’
s very important to preserve the language and that is one of the reasons why we chose to do it in Hmong too. I feel like we speak English so much that when
we go back and try to speak Hmong, it sounds kind of choppy. Throughout this whole play, it’s been a work in progress. Speaking Hmong, doing everything in
Hmong was hard, but we got through it.”
And so producing the play ended up being a lot of work for Moua and Xiong. “We wrote the play during the first semester,” Xiong said. “And then during
the whole second semester, we helped the actors with their lines. That took a long time. A lot of the students don’t know Hmong anymore. We know it. We can
understand it. But it is hard for us to speak it. And we can’t say certain words anymore. I’m really proud of all of the actors because a lot of them didn’t know
how to read it. We had a lot of two-hour Sunday practices. I think not only did the audience get a lot out of it, but the actors got a lot out of it too.”
And for Moua and Xiong, it was a way for them to connect to the tales of their parents and to gain an appreciation for who they are. “We are so immersed in
the American culture that we are losing our language and our history,” Moua said. “We’re just assimilating into American society, which isn’t a bad thing. We
have to in order to succeed and move forward. But at the same time, we have to hold onto our roots and really go back and learn everything.”
‘Tuav Plig Rawv’ was a poignant reminder of that history and the trail of many tears that their parents followed a generation ago in their quest for freedom.
about Hmong heritage. They interviewed their parents and others about their stories and wrote ‘Tuav Plig Rawv,’ a story about a contemporary young Hmong
man’s discovery of his own adoption and discovery through a dream sequence of his adoptive parents’ struggle to bring him to America as a baby.
While the present day portions of the play were in English, the dream sequence was entirely in Hmong with English subtitles flashed overhead.
“There are certain words and emotions that we say in our language that are so strong,” Moua said during an interview after the show. “You kind of loose it
in translation. That’s why we chose it. Plus, it is our language and Hmong culture night. So it was obvious to put it in Hmong.”
“I think we did it in the Hmong language because the play felt just about the running and the struggles, I don’t think the emotions could have been
portrayed through English,” Xiong added. “We did have worries about people who were attending who wouldn’t understand what the play was about until we
came up with the subtitling idea. We knew some people might have been disappointed with it not being in English. But I really felt that even if you really
couldn’t understand Hmong, just the emotions portrayed through the acting and the story itself brought out a lot of what it meant.”
Using the Hmong language wasn’t always easy for the actors because many have fallen out of practice. “Some knew more Hmong than others,” Moua
said. “So this was a learning process for them too. Going back and learning more Hmong was helpful for them and for all of us. It was helpful to just speak it. It’
s very important to preserve the language and that is one of the reasons why we chose to do it in Hmong too. I feel like we speak English so much that when
we go back and try to speak Hmong, it sounds kind of choppy. Throughout this whole play, it’s been a work in progress. Speaking Hmong, doing everything in
Hmong was hard, but we got through it.”
And so producing the play ended up being a lot of work for Moua and Xiong. “We wrote the play during the first semester,” Xiong said. “And then during
the whole second semester, we helped the actors with their lines. That took a long time. A lot of the students don’t know Hmong anymore. We know it. We can
understand it. But it is hard for us to speak it. And we can’t say certain words anymore. I’m really proud of all of the actors because a lot of them didn’t know
how to read it. We had a lot of two-hour Sunday practices. I think not only did the audience get a lot out of it, but the actors got a lot out of it too.”
And for Moua and Xiong, it was a way for them to connect to the tales of their parents and to gain an appreciation for who they are. “We are so immersed in
the American culture that we are losing our language and our history,” Moua said. “We’re just assimilating into American society, which isn’t a bad thing. We
have to in order to succeed and move forward. But at the same time, we have to hold onto our roots and really go back and learn everything.”
‘Tuav Plig Rawv’ was a poignant reminder of that history and the trail of many tears that their parents followed a generation ago in their quest for freedom.
Clockwise from upper right: Mai Moua (l) and Kia
Xiong were the main authors of :Tuav Plig Rawv”;
Children join a band of Hmong refugees making their
way across Laos; Tub Npis (r) meets his parents in a
flashback sequence where he is also the baby his
mother is holding.
Xiong were the main authors of :Tuav Plig Rawv”;
Children join a band of Hmong refugees making their
way across Laos; Tub Npis (r) meets his parents in a
flashback sequence where he is also the baby his
mother is holding.
By Jonathan Gramling
While for some of us the end of the Vietnam
War, the fleeing of the Hmong to refugee camps
in Thailand and the emigration of many Hmong
families to the United States seems like it was
only yesterday, for many Hmong children, that
historical upheaval was already a generation
ago and is quickly fading into history and out of
the collective memories of an entire Hmong
generation.
Mai Moua and Kia Xiong, members of the
Hmong American Student Association (HASA),
wanted to capture some of those memories and
remind their fellow students about the price their
parents paid for them to be at the UW-Madison
today.
While for some of us the end of the Vietnam
War, the fleeing of the Hmong to refugee camps
in Thailand and the emigration of many Hmong
families to the United States seems like it was
only yesterday, for many Hmong children, that
historical upheaval was already a generation
ago and is quickly fading into history and out of
the collective memories of an entire Hmong
generation.
Mai Moua and Kia Xiong, members of the
Hmong American Student Association (HASA),
wanted to capture some of those memories and
remind their fellow students about the price their
parents paid for them to be at the UW-Madison
today.