Brenda Yang Was the First Hmong Elected to the Dane County Board: Voices at the Table (Part 2 of 2)
Brenda Yang was elected Dane County Supervisor for District 19th in 2022, the first Hmong American elected to the board.
by Jonathan Gramling
Brenda Yang hears from a lot of people as a community activist. She works full time at UW-Madison College of Letters & Science as an assistant director with SuccessWorks helping students transition into careers. She is also a member of the YWCA board and SHRAC, the Superintendent’s Human Relations Advisory Committee. She also does some consulting work with the city of Madison on language access.
Yang had her hands full with the work that she performs. But she wasn’t satisfied that the voices of the people she worked with and interacted with were being heard in the formation of public policy. And so in 2022, Yang ran to be the Dane County Supervisor for District 19 and won, becoming the first Hmong American elected to the board.
Vang feels very strongly about bringing different voices into decision-making bodies. And that begins with understanding who people are.
“Our story is a little unique to the Latin American narrative in immigration,” Vang said. “So we are refugees. Because we fought in the Vietnam War — what we call the Secret War — and we died for American GIs and we fought for America. We were given refugee status as a result of that. And so our story is a little unique. And our status and how we got here is different. My father was recruited at an early age to be a part of General Vang Pao’s army. He doesn’t have any veteran resources for support like regular veterans do. He has no benefits. But that needs to change because we were veterans. My dad was. A lot of Hmong people died during the Secret War. They were also not given the same salary as American GIs. Their pay was abysmal compared to the American GIs. So that also caused the gap. I would say understanding people groups and their narratives and their Diaspora will help us understand the nuances that circle the challenges and the barriers that exist in people’s stories. Because if you don’t understand that and we don’t remain curious in understanding it, then we are only going to walk into those spaces with a Messiah complex where ‘I want to solve everything.’ But we don’t know how to solve things unless we understand the complexities first. But I think with a lot of Progressives, typically right Progressives, they move into spaces trying to solve the problem without understanding the context and that creates more barriers for people.”
And then the people representing these different voices need access to the system to make their voices heard. This has been an important issue for Vang.
“I would say that the most impact that I have done on the county board would be language access,” Vang said. “Doing my work there, I’ve actually created two positions that are directly impacting language and language civil rights and language being seen as a fundamental civil right. Through my work there, I as able to add into the budget a line item for a Spanish-speaking language coordinator and then after that, we added a Hmong -speaking language coordinator. And so then I worked directly with former interim director Iheukumere on specifically what it would look like to have the person in the role, how would they serve the whole department of DCDHS and how they could bring more language access. Mostly it’s not just language work and translation. It’s really about building that community trust and bringing the community to the county to say, ‘We see you. We want to know more about your struggles and we want to make sure that you are a valuable part of our county. We want to make sure that we are changing our support services to meet your needs specifically.’ I would say that our language access people have done a lot of work in that. They have also helped access on a legislative and policy level to make sure we have different people who come to board meetings, that they have language access services so they can come and share their narrative and share their opinion because that is part of the public process in local government. We need to make sure that everyone who has a voice and wants to be heard can have access through that.”
As the first and only Hmong American elected official in Dane County, it would be all too easy to become THE Voice for Southeast Asians. That is a trap that Vang has worked hard to avoid.
“I think the problem is that when you are the only person on the board, I don’t take advantage of that because I know that my voice is particular to my lived experience in the Hmong Diaspora and the Southeast Asian Diaspora,” Vang said. “There are many different lived experiences and opinions. I don’t want to assert that my voice is the only narrative that exists out there. Through that, I try to collaborate with different people and their opinions. I try to highlight their narratives into that and not so much my own personal although my own personal does relate to them because we have a shared narrative. I intersect my lived experiences with their own shared lived experiences. But I don’t go into that situation thinking that I know everything or I know exactly what they are feeling because that also leads to a lot of stereotypes and myths that are perpetuated.”
Yang is one of the most visible Southeast Asians in Wisconsin. And so circumstances and her position place a special responsibility on her shoulders. Especially in the era of immigrant deportations and ICE, there is a lot of fear, even among people in the U.S. legally. And so Southeast Asians from far and wide ask her for assistance in these matters.
“What I’ve been doing is using my power and my position to highlight the stories of people who have been detained and deported and helping them through the pardoning process through Evers’ office and also helping them understand civic engagement,” Vang said. “Who are the representatives who live in their area? Who are their senators and connecting them with them on a state level and also a federal level. And I’ve been writing letters of support for people to get meetings with their representatives and calling their offices myself. So I spend a lot of personal time in that component just because the need is so much right now. And there really isn’t anyone who is at this political level who has a spot at the table who is advocating for these voices. And so I do it on my own free time, not connected to the board. But a lot of constituents who live in Dane County do email me. The thing with the Southeast Asian and Hmong community is we are a close-knit, very close community. We’ll have a first cousin or second cousin in Eau Claire or Manitowoc or Green Bay. They’ll connect with us. ‘Hey, I have a situation. I have to check in with ICE in a month and I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. Do you know anyone…?’ And then they will email me their family member who lives here in Dane County. They will email me and ask me. Typically I know that I am elected by District 19 and I represent the voices of District 19. But also because I am the only person of Southeast Asian descent on the board, I know that I do probably three times the work as my colleagues on the board because I am the only Southeast Asian on the board. And so they contact me for stuff like that. It’s impossible for me to turn away from them even though it’s not my responsibility to serve everyone in Dane County. But I do. And I can.”
Vang entered the political arena to make a difference so that many people’s voices can be heard. It’s not about status or position. It’s about making a difference.
“I don’t think that it is in my future to run for any mayoral position,” Vang said. “My perspective on politics is I don’t want to run just for the sake of moving up, just to gain a position. I really assess the needs. If there is a specific need that a representative doesn’t know about because their lived experience doesn’t actually translate into that or they’re not really being proactive or including people or there is something that they lack that there is a huge gap for, then I will run for that office. But it would only be to fill that need and make sure that there is equal balance of power at the table. I will consider it. But so far, I think I have my hands full with the county board at the moment. And I’m still learning even though I’m in my third term now. There is so much to learn because it’s such a large county and there are so many departments to absorb and learn more about so that I can impact those narratives and help provide a different view into that. I would say that I don’t have any plans at the moment to run for anything like mayor.”
Brenda Vang will remain true to herself and the many voices that need to be heard so that all people’s needs are served by county government.