by Staring Down the Tiger- Stories of Hmong American Women (retail) (epub)
Like our people, both women were flowers ripped out of their ancestors’ gardens and thrust into foreign soil, leaving behind tangled roots. Here, at the mercy of white-gloved hands, they were directed to flourish among flowers that feared them as an invasive species. With our roots having grown forty years strong and three generations deep, perhaps now we can afford to linger a moment. May it be used to remember the grandmothers we love, freed from the restraints of labels.
Boonmee Yang often turns to writing to avoid completing other responsibilities, including writing itself. He has hundreds of half-finished stories saved as drafts on his old Myspace account that he would like to (but no longer can) access, as well as on his Tumblr, Facebook Notes, and Macbook that will likely never see satisfactory conclusions, much like life itself. His author crush is Viet Thanh Nguyen.
The Chicken in the Airport
MaiThao Xiong
My mom used to say, “Peb ruam ruam,” meaning “We are stupid,” to describe herself and my father. At the time, I wasn’t aware that she didn’t mean this literally—it was her way to motivate us to work harder than her and to be more than she could be. Her encouragement and love are not expressed through her words but through her actions—and, of course, through food.
A few years ago, we arrived exhausted at Denver International Airport to visit one of my sisters. My older sister, Vai, was busy keeping track of her four- and five-year-olds, Madelyn and Adam, both restless and jubilant after their first-ever airplane ride. Panou, MaiYang, and MaiVue—my other sisters—directed their attention to complaining about our ride being late. My younger brother, Chong, the only adult male on the trip, sat outside of our circle, thumbs attacking a phone screen.
As we sat waiting, Mom pulled a lump of aluminum foil the size of a soccer ball from the plastic bag that she had stowed into her carry-on backpack. Slowly, she peeled back the layers of foil, revealing the center of the lump—a white, unchopped, full-sized, boiled chicken, seasoned in black pepper and salt. The aroma of moist meat permeated the arrival area.
“Nej puas noj?” “Do you want to eat?” she asked loudly. Non-Hmong passengers arriving from baggage claim slowed down and cast glances toward the Hmong woman in a leopard-print blouse and black dress pants that clashed with tennis shoes and a fake leather cross-body purse, fat protruding like a pregnant woman’s belly, waving the naked chicken at our faces. Tall, smartly dressed men and women hurried away from our group of eight spread out across the floor, smelling like chicken. But Mom wasn’t concerned with anything but her chicken and the thought of feeding her children.
“Nej puas noj?” Mom asked again. We shook our heads no to eating boiled chicken at the airport.
“Suit yourself,” Mom said. Her hands, wrinkled and calloused from too many hours in the garden, tore a leg from the chicken. A satisfying snap of the bones. She grinned. “Mmm, so good.”
I don’t know why I felt self-conscious to eat Hmong food in that public space. I had learned to embrace my Hmong American identity, but I guess Denver was not like Minnesota, where most folks knew about Hmong people and our foods. Maybe it was the day—people had been staring at our group, the flight took longer than expected, it was 4 PM and we had not eaten since 10 AM, our ride was late, people were still staring at us. And there was Mom, who had casually packed a full boiled chicken for a two-hour flight.
Mom, whose own mother passed away when she was a young girl, took care of her siblings until she married. She, along with my father, was a slash-and-burn farmer with land and livestock in Laos but fled due to threats of Hmong genocide after the Vietnam War in 1975. She was pregnant with her first child at the time. Later, she came to America with my father, my five older sisters, and me in 1992. Whenever things went wrong, she relied on what she knew in order to survive a situation. She always packed boiled chicken to travel because that was the food she could rely on.
I realized my mother was used to this process because she had flown by herself many times. She was able to navigate airports without knowing how to read or speak a single word of English. And she knew the pitfalls of traveling: it drains energy, and if you don’t know how to order food in that country, you starved. If you did manage to order, you might struggle with the price. It was much like that when she first arrived in America.
At the Denver International Airport, even when we refused her offer, we watched the boiled chicken. The first leg found its way into the hands of Madelyn, who took it without a second thought. Another snap, and Mom shoved a leg into Adam’s palms. His teeth shredded the meat, lips smacking in satisfaction. Keeping her eyes on her children’s reactions, Mom said, “I also brought kua txob,” producing a snack-size Ziploc bag packed with a red and yellow Thai pepper sauce that had been ground and seasoned with salt, lime juice, and fish sauce.
That was when we gave in.
Vai fetched her children and ushered them to the bathroom across the hall to wash their hands. Nou, MaiYang, and MaiVue abandoned their conversation, my brother joined the group, and we assured each other that we would only eat a little because Mom had already pulled it out and we didn’t want her to feel bad for eating alone. We sped to the bathroom, washed our hands, and raced back. All five of my siblings, hands vigorously traveling from all directions, dismembered Mom’s boiled chicken. As the meat was furiously stripped from every bone, Mom laughed. She passed out purple sticky rice, already packaged in individual, snack-sized Ziploc bags. She couldn’t stop grinning, amused at her stupid children for refusing a meal when they were starving. “I thought you guys didn’t want to eat?”
I had grown up on the taste of plain, boiled, organic chicken dipped in Thai pepper sauce. Living away from home for the last two years, I’d been eating frozen Tyson chicken strips without the pepper sauce. There’s a joke in the family—and maybe among other Hmong families, too—that lazy people don’t have freshly ground Thai pepper sauce because it’s a dish you have to put a lot of effort into. First you have to use a mortar and pestle to smash the peppers. Then it requires little amounts of ingredients—garlic, lime juice, salt, sugar, and whatever other seasonings—that, added carefully, make a big difference. The cleanup can burn your eyes if you are sensitive to the sting of pepper, and the essence of garlic pulp remains on your fingertips for days.
I smeared breast meat with Thai pepper sauce. It tasted like heaven.
It reminded me of when I was nineteen and I studied abroad in Seoul, South Korea. Before I left, Mom bought some beef jerky from an Asian grocery store and tucked it into my check-in luggage, also stuffing a plastic bag loaded with sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves into my carry-on. I thought it was a bother and unnecessary because I imagined that after I arrived I would be grilling barbecue beef and slurping on kimchi jjigae. I traveled with four other classmates and carried the stench of the banana leaves and sticky rice onto the twenty-hour flight. I didn’t dare open my bag because doing so would contaminate the airplane with the sweet, overly ripened banana smell. My classmates and I became separated in Seoul, resulting in a whole afternoon searching for each other. By the time we finally regrouped, most shops were closed. The few that were open didn’t have menus, and we didn’t know how to ask for food. That evening, starving at our hostel, I unpacked Mom’s smelly sticky rice and rubbery beef jerky to share with the group. My travel companions squealed with excitement upon seeing the food and asked whose smart idea it was to have brought it. I ballooned with pride and said, “My mother.”
That day at the Denver airport, I swelled with the same pride. The frustration and fatigue had melted away with each bite of chicken. I don’t know how Mom had the time to boil a chicken, make the pepper sauce, and steam fresh sticky rice—enough for eight travelers—all within the morning before the flight. She’s resilient and unapologetically herself. I can’t imagine why I believed her when she called herself stupid.
MaiThao Xiong is a writer in St. Paul, Minnesota. She was born in Ban Vinai refugee camp in Thailand and moved to Minnesota wit
h her family of nine when she was a year old. She graduated from St. Catherine University with a bachelor of arts in English and communication studies. She wrote and collected stories for nonprofits, including Mary’s Pence and Prepare + Prosper. She is currently pursuing a master of fine arts in writing at Augsburg College.
In Her Death, My Mother Came to Life
Linda Vang Kim
She Was My Mother
Our son, Elliot, was born on January 3, 2017. Only about a week later my mother, Chia, passed away. As Elliot continues to age, adding first days and months and, later, years to his life, I will be reminded of the days, months, and years since my mother has left us.
When she was alive, I never fully understood the degree to which she made sacrifices for our family. Perhaps as children we take for granted the love a mother gives without asking for or taking anything in return. I incorrectly believed a mom does what she does because she has to. She works tirelessly into the night while her children sleep soundly because she must. Plus she is superhuman anyway and incapable of having the usual emotions the rest of us do, feelings such as fear, frustration, and fatigue. These beliefs kept my view of her simplistic—she existed to take care of me and would not spare any expense or effort because to me she had an abundance of both.
However, at her funeral and in conversations with my siblings after her death, I finally began to see her complexity and dimensionality. Ironically, in her death my mother came to life.
I could finally imagine that she, too, probably got tired after working twelve grueling hours in the hot sun (but never showed it). She, too, was probably scared of taking public transit in a foreign country where she did not speak the language (but remained calm so that her children would as well). This realization, much too late, gave me great sadness, knowing she probably felt many of these emotions in isolation. While it is too late for me to ask, Mom, why are you sad? or Mom, are you tired? I want to remember my mother for her leadership as the fierce matriarch of our family.
Among her greatest attributes, my mother was resilient, fearless, resourceful and hardworking, and generous.
She Was Resilient
Chia lost her mother at a young age, around eight years old I am told, and so was thrust prematurely into adulthood. Unable to fully and adequately grieve the loss of her mother, she was expected to welcome her new stepmother into the family soon after. As the eldest in her family, she also carried the heavy burden of caring for her younger siblings. This early painful experience must have helped grow and fuel her inner fight. This fight would serve her well as throughout her life my mother had several serious medical emergencies, yet she survived them all. She never gave in or relented in even the most hopeless and dire situations.
One summer, as a day laborer for a local farmer, she was riding in the vehicle that transported workers to the field when it got involved in a serious car accident. I remember visiting her in the hospital after her surgery and seeing the four-inch scar in the shape of an elongated “C” on the right side of her face, stretching from forehead to cheek. To a twelve-year old, the stitches seemed to be all that was holding her face from splitting apart. Luckily, she made a full recovery, and the lingering “C” on the side of her face was the only reminder of that fearful day.
A few years later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Choosing to forego chemotherapy treatment, she opted instead to remove her left breast. Post-mastectomy, she always seemed to hide her entire left side behind others when posing for photos. Yet, at that time I never imagined she would or could have been self-conscious. Believing so would have reduced her to a level of vanity I simply did not believe mothers were capable of having.
In 2008, she suffered an aneurysm that required extensive brain surgery, six months of rehabilitation in the hospital, and years of recovery at home. The first days after she was admitted to the ICU, both close and distant relatives visited her and us in the hospital. Many returned to the waiting area after viewing her, shaking their heads vigorously in disbelief. Most had already resigned hope and immediately got to work convincing us (her children) that “pulling the plug” was a viable option when even her doctors had not yet considered this. Much to everyone’s surprise, she survived this episode as well, and we had our mom for another nine years. In this extra time she got to see me get married, complete my master’s degree, and bring three children into this world.
She Was Fearless
She had a difficult marriage, arranged by the fathers of two people who could not have been farther from being in love. As a result, she described instances where she often parented alone, which meant there was no room for fear and doubt.
One story she frequently told during the last two years of her life happened back in Laos. She would recall this story especially during the times my two daughters accompanied me on a visit to see her. They were the same ages as my two older sisters were at the time the story took place, so seeing my girls seemed to transport Mom back as if it was yesterday.
One day when she was returning from her family’s field, she had an extremely close call with a tiger. Before continuing with the story, she would point out that my father was not with her, as usual, so the lives of her two young children lay solely in her hands. Xyo, my oldest sister, was sitting on the back of their horse while my mother carried Maika on her back. The horse was secured by a rope around its neck, which my mother held onto tightly. However, the horse became spooked by a wild animal (my mom believed it was a tiger) and broke free. It bucked my sister off its back and took off running down the path in the opposite direction. Frantically, my mother caught up to the horse and returned to find Xyo in the ditch calling out, “Kuv niam, kuv poob tom nom lawm-os!” After securing Xyo back up on the horse, my mother quickened her pace, her radar for danger operating at maximum strength for the duration of the trip.
Many years later, in America, my mother would demonstrate her fearlessness many times over. In one instance, she mastered the city’s public transit system even in the time before there was Google or the internet. In the early 1980s, Asian grocery stores were few and far between, so we traveled the extra distance from the east side of St. Paul to the Midway area to buy rice. We did not own a car, so low rice supply in our house meant the four of us younger children would tag along with my mother to catch the bus bound for Kim’s Grocery on Snelling Avenue. How she managed to navigate the transit system without speaking or reading English remains a mystery to me. If she was fearful, she never showed it; as a child, I found these trips to be a great adventure and I never feared for my safety or security. What a sight it must have been for the driver pulling up to the bus stop to let a mother and her four young children board with a very large bag of rice and multiple gallons of milk.
She Was Resourceful and Hardworking
Growing up, I knew we were poor, but I never worried about an empty stomach or having a warm bed to sleep in. Sure, we lived in the projects and received food stamps, but the miracles my mother performed in stretching her limited income meant we received the things we needed and often even the things we wanted. This is a testament to her resourcefulness and hard work, and when it came to her children these skills especially seemed to kick into super high gear.
When my sister Xy graduated from high school, my mom threw her a graduation party like many parents do. The difference in this party was how she managed to negotiate with local Asian grocery store owners to provide supplies needed on credit. She did not postpone or delay the celebration until the government assistance she heavily relied on paid out on its own inconvenient schedule. That my mother pulled it all together quietly and discreetly represented her selflessness in never expecting or wanting recognition for the things she did. Her own happiness seemed tightly bound to the happiness of her children.
Whether it was moments of celebration or times of difficulty, we could rely on our mother to come through for us. Believing education was the ticket for her children to escape poverty, she supported each and every one o
f us who went off to college. When my older brother Kageh found himself short by several thousand dollars when his tuition bill came due one semester, my mother did not let pride keep her from calling every relative in her phone book. She only stopped when someone agreed to give my brother a loan to cover the difference so he could continue his studies.
She also used her agricultural knowledge and skills to secure summer income opportunities such as picking cucumbers for the Gedney Corporation and selling vegetables at the St. Paul Farmers’ Market. While two-parent households boasted extra earning potential and support of each other, my mother had legally (not just culturally) divorced my father by that time, and so she seemed to compensate by working twice as long and twice as hard. Working alongside her, I tired easily and was frustrated by the amount of manual labor we had to endure. It was especially difficult when I knew many of my classmates spent their summers traveling, going to camp, playing with friends, and riding bikes around their neighborhood. Yet, I never imagined then that my mother would feel the same sense of tiredness and yearning for an easier and more leisurely way of life.
She Was Generous
Above all else, my mother was generous. My fondest memory is triggered by vanilla ice cream, the kind that comes in the large plastic gallon container. Whenever we went grocery shopping, my mother always let us pick out our favorite foods. She may have been tightening her wallet all the while but never told us “no” as we took turns grabbing our favorite treats from the shelves and throwing them into the shopping cart. My favorite treat was vanilla ice cream, and because our family was big, we had to buy the gallon size. As soon as we got home, I would volunteer to scoop out the ice cream into cones and pass them out to my family. I always gave my mom the first cone and served myself the last, yet she would eat hers so slowly (or I inhaled mine so quickly) that we would end up in a stare down. I must have been salivating as I watched my mother eat her cone, because inevitably, without any words, she would extend it in my direction. I would be so happy to savor this second helping of ice cream. She never hesitated in giving to her children the things they most desired or wished for.
