Hmonglish

Welcome back to Hmonglish! This is a bit of a bittersweet episode because this is the last episode of season 4. We are currently working through the next steps for the podcast and we will keep you posted, seeing as though we don’t have additional material after today’s episode. Any updates will be shared here and on our Instagram @hmonglishpod. As for today’s episode, we have a really good one, fe...

Today we have Mai Vang with us. She’s Founder and Executive Director of the Hmong Museum based in St. Paul, MN. She has over a decade of experience in the museum field as a registrar, curator, and collections manager. Her full-time job is as a Volunteer and Intern Program Manager at the Minnesota Historical Society and she has her master's in anthropology. The Hmong Museum is the first and cu...

Hey everyone! On today’s episode, we have Pheng Her. Pheng is an interesting guy because he has lived a very long life and he’s only in his early 30s. He was pursuing bodybuilding at one point and then he spent most of his 20s chasing the most prestigious position at his office job. He became so burnt out that he just decided to, well, become a farmer. He lives on a homestead with his wife and two...

Today, we have a pair of sisters on the show, Molly and Grace Vang! Molly is the older of the two and a stay-at-home mom who runs a ridiculously beautiful clothing and lifestyle brand on Etsy . Her sister, Grace, is a content creator who focuses on her successful Instagram page. She also does some freelance modeling on the side. This was the first podcast they’ve ever done, and so they were a litt...

Today, we have the pleasure of bringing the Atlanta-based filmmaker Jeremy Thao on the show. He is the director of an excellent short film called Wokman, which is about a single day in a Chinese restaurant. Now, Jeremy is Hmong. Why did he choose a Chinese family? Well, you’ll have to wait and see. What you need to know about Wokman is that it’s totally blowing up right now. It was in the Atlanta...

Hey, folks! We are thrilled to be back for season 4 of Hmonglish, and we’ve got a lot of great conversations coming your way. You’ll hear from Hmong entrepreneurs, Hmong influencers, Hmong veterans, and Hmong scholars. But today, for this first episode, Yia isn’t speaking to a Hmong person at all. He’s speaking to a Chinese American man named Ming-Jinn Tong. If you’re a regular listener of the pod...

This episode is a recording of our September 19th live show, which was filmed at the Union Hmong Kitchen on Lake Street in partnership with SPAM. We are so grateful to everyone at SPAM and Hormel who supported this event.  Everyone in attendance was treated to goodie bags and delicious appetizers, which came in the form of SPAM fried rice and SPAM musubi. both of which were made with their new map...

Hey, folks! We're back to bring you a very special episode. On May 23rd, we held our first live show at Yia Vang’s Hilltribe popup space in uptown Minneapolis. It was a resounding success and we are so excited to share it with you here. Before we get into that, please know that we are working hard on creating future seasons and events for Hmonglish. Please sit tight, but in the meantime, keep...

Hey, folks! You’re about to listen to the last episode of season 3. Don’t worry, we are already working on the foundation of season 4 and we’re even planning a live show in late spring. We’re going to be taking a break from regular episodes for a while, but we will drop bonus content in the meantime. And be sure to follow us on social media for updates.  Today’s episode is one of our personal favo...

Hey, folks! Today we have Judge Sophia Vuelo as our guest. This incredible woman was the first Hmong American judge in Minnesota and the second to be appointed in the country. She arrived here over 40 years ago when her family fled Laos due to the Vietnam War. Her father died before she was born and her mother, with 7 children in tow, came to Eau Claire, Wisconsin to start a new life. Her story is...

Hi, folks. Welcome to episode 4 of season 3. Today we have Tou Lo with us, who is an incredible individual. Listen to this: the guy is both a former marine and a former firefighter. You don’t meet many of those! Today, he is the owner of Yelo Autosports, which is an auto detailing service based in Little Canada, Minnesota. He is a wonderful human being and he shared a lot with us during this episo...

Hey folks, welcome back to Hmonglish. This is episode 3, which means we are halfway through the season because we typically record the show in batches of 6 episodes. As you know, we release the show on Wednesdays, so that means the next two episodes will be released on March 8th and March 15th. Today’s episode is with Sheng Elizabeth Lor. It is just about impossible to describe this woman because...

Hey, everyone! We’re hoping that you enjoyed last week’s episode and we’re super excited to bring you another one. Today, we’re featuring Brian and Pahoua Yang Hoffman. Brian is an entrepreneur who currently owns Yeah Yeah Taco in Minneapolis. Pahoua is the Senior Vice President of Government & Community Relations for HealthPartners, which is a massive nonprofit healthcare provider based in Mi...

Thank you for stopping by to listen today! We are thrilled to be doing a third season of this show. We have been fortunate enough to step things up on the production side and we now film and record at an actual studio, called Muze , which is in St. Paul, Minnesota. The studio is run by two Hmong women, Milly and Elmo, and they have been a major help in making this season look better than ever. Spe...

Hey, folks. We're excited to bring you another segment of Hmonglish Shorts as we continue to work on season 3. For those of you who don’t know, Hmonglish Shorts is a segment we created to give you some extra content in between full episodes. These were all recorded over the summer with our previous co-host, Gia Vang, and they are meant to capture the thoughts and opinions of Hmong people, out...

Hey folks! Welcome back to Hmonglish. We are currently hard at work on season 3, so in the meantime, we wanted to release another segment of our Hmonglish shorts segment, which is an interview series conducted by our previous co-host, Gia Vang. We spoke with a Hmong immigrant from Thailand, currently raising her family in Minnesota. She is also joined by her adorable daughter, who you can hear in...

Hey, folks! First of all, thank you for your patience in waiting for this one. You’re about to hear the sixth episode of season 2, which marks the end of this season. We’ll be taking a short break after this but, don’t worry, we plan on being back for a third. The second thing you should know is that today’s episode features one of the finest Hmong chefs in the Twin Cities: Thony Yang . He is the...

Hey folks! Welcome back to another Wednesday. Right off the bat, we have some great news. We finally scheduled a shoot date for season 2 episode 6 of the podcast, and we’re expecting to release it a week from today. This will be the final episode of season 2 and we're very excited to put it out because it’s gonna be a good one. So in the meantime, we have another segment of Hmonglish shorts....

Introducing our new series: Hmonglish Shorts! At this very moment, Yia is overseas working on a few projects, so we aren’t able to release any new episodes right now. But, lucky for you, we have some stuff in the vault that you haven’t heard yet. Back when we still had our co-host, Gia Vang, she and the producer would periodically interview Hmong people at HmongTown Marketplace in St. Paul to get...

Hi all! Welcome back to Hmonglish There are two quick things I want to mention before we start. The first thing is that we are VERY excited about this guest. Her name is Pahoua Yang Hoffman and she is the Senior Vice President of Government & Community Relations for HealthPartners, which is a massive nonprofit healthcare provider based in Minnesota. She is a good friend of Yia’s and she came t...

Today we have one of the greatest, contemporary Hmong authors with us: Kao Kalia Yang . Kalia was born in December 1980 in Thailand’s Ban Vinai refugee camp, which is the same camp where Yia was born. Her family came to Minnesota in 1987. In 2003, she graduated from Carleton College and then received her Master's in Creative Nonfiction from Colombia University soon after that. Kalia has publi...

Hey everyone, welcome back to Hmonglish. We brought on a phenomenal guest today, her name is Kashia Moua, and she is the Founder of Hmong Women’s Circle and the Chief Sustainability Officer at FM Global. Before that, she worked as the Director of Sustainability for Allstate and has an extensive background in civic engagement and public defense. Kashia has always been attracted to policy, politics,...

If you like the show, remember to give us a 5-star review and tell us why! Also, make sure you subscribe and tell a friend! - Hey, folks. Welcome back to Hmonglish. Today’s episode is with a repeat guest: professor Lee Pao Xiong from Concordia University in St. Paul. Lee Pao was the very first guest on the show back when we started season 1 and we are thrilled to have him back. Lee Pao runs the Ce...

Welcome back to Hmonglish! This is our second season and things will be a bit different this time around, especially the structure of the show. You’ll notice that these episodes will be much more casual. We provide Yia and the guest a very, very rough outline of what to talk about and they usually don’t even look at the outline anyways. We know a lot of you will miss our old format with Gia, but w...

Welcome to the season 1 finale of Hmonglish! In this episode, we're talking all about the future of Hmong culture, language preservation efforts, and the education of our youth.  To discuss these things, we brought in a Hmong language educator, Pang Yang, who just received a grant from the Bush Foundation to deepen her studies. So, about the show. Yes, we are bummed to see Gia leave us, but w...