Sheila Terman Cohen - Mai Yas Long Journey

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Mai Yas Long Journey

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Mai Yas Long Journey

by Sheila Terman Cohen

Wisconsin Historical Society Press

Published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press
Publishers since 1855

2005 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin

E-book edition 2014

For permission to reuse material from Mai Yas Long Journey (ISBN 978-0-87020-365-7, e-book ISBN 978-0-87020-538-5), please access www.copyright.com or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400. CCC is a not-for-profit organization that provides licenses and registration for a variety of users.

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Photographs identified with PH, WHi, or WHS are from the Societys collections; address requests to reproduce these photos to the Visual Materials Archivist at Wisconsin Historical Society, 816 State Street, Madison, WI 53706.

Publication of this book was made possible in part by a gift from Highsmith Family Foundation.

Design by Jill Bremigan

13 12 11 10 09 2 3 4 5 6

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Cohen, Sheila, 1939

Mai Yas long journey / by Sheila Cohen.

p. cm.(Badger biographies)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-87020-365-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Xiong, Mai Ya, 1980Juvenile literature. 2. Hmong American womenWisconsinMadisonBiographyJuvenile literature. 3. Hmong AmericansWisconsinMadisonBiographyJuvenile literature. 4. RefugeesWisconsinMadisonBiographyJuvenile literature. 5. RefugeesThailandBiographyJuvenile literature. 6. Hmong womenThailandBiographyJuvenile literature. 7. Madison (Wis.)BiographyJuvenile literature. I. Title. II. Series.

F589.M19H55 200

305.4896914092dc2

2004028570

Thanks, as always, to the Highsmith Family Foundation for its generous gift and continuing support of our publications.

This book is dedicated to the
memory of Mai Yas mother,
Xai Thao, who helped to
mold Mai Ya into the young
woman that she has
become. There is no doubt
that Xai Thao would feel
great pride in knowing that
Mai Ya has lived her life
with the strength and
courage modeled by her
Hmong ancestors.

Southeast Asia

Contents

This story cloth or paj ntaub depicts the Hmong journey from Laos and Thailand to Madison, Wisconsin.

Many Hmong (mong) people believe that the word Hmong means free people or free. Throughout their history, the Hmong people have struggled to be freeoften risking their lives in the process. Yet they survive. In many ways, the survival of the Hmong people has come from a feeling of connection as one family. Hmong stories, carried from one generation to the next, teach that all Hmong people are born of one mother. It is in that spirit that generations of Hmong have helped and supported one another, each like a separate thread sewn into a strong fabric.

Meet Mai Ya

now she was flying halfway around the world. What a long time to be in the air! And when she stepped off the plane, she entered a new country and a new life.

These documents helped the Xiongs travel to the United States.

roof of a traditional Hmong house, built in Madison, Wisconsin

Wisconsin must have seemed like a very strange place to Mai Ya. In Ban Vinai, most of the people around her were Hmong, just like her family. In Wisconsin, people looked very different from her, and they spoke English, not Hmong. This new place was going to take a long time to feel like home! But Mai Yas long journey really began many years before she stepped onto the bus that took her from Ban Vinai. The Xiong family story began in Laos (lah os), the country in Southeast Asia where Mai Yas parents were born.

Mai Yas Parents Grow Up in Troubled Laos

When Mai Yas mother, Xai (sy tao), was a young girl, the rooster was her only alarm clock. It crowed every morning at 3:00 a.m. to tell her that it was time to get up and prepare the meals for her family to take to the fields. She would light the fire in the deep pit that occupied the middle of the central room in the house. Then she would go outside to collect water from a nearby stream. Soon others in the family would get up from their bamboo and grass beds that were stretched out on the mud floor along one wall. All began their own early morning tasks.

In the mountain villages of Laos, men built their own homes out of bamboo, wood, and thick grasses called thatch. They fit each part carefully together without using nails. Girls like Xai Thao and boys who were old enough to help their parents worked in the fields tending to crops of corn, rice, and sugar cane. Often they worked from early morning until the sun began to sink low in the sky. Others tended to the chickens, pigs, and cattle that were raised on their land.