Passage IV

Expanding the Chorus of Voices

In 2002, Minnesota writer and editor, Mai Neng Moua, created a new literary tradition, with the publication of the first-ever anthology, of Hmong American writers. This collection, Bamboo Among the Oaks, features the fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama of twenty-two Hmong Americans. May Lee, a writer from St.Paul, Minnesota, has two essays in the anthology. Most of the featured writers are in their twenties and thirties and live in the Midwest. Many are first-generation Americans who were born in the mountain regions of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, the traditional home of the Hmong.

The works in Moua's anthology records the challenges of adjusting to a new homeland while preserving the writers' ethnic traditions. The voices in the collection are vibrant and new, from writers who are grounded in Hmong culture. A common theme in Moua's collection is the search for identity. Specific topics include assimilation, group identification, and gender and generational conflict.

[1] Before publishing Bamboo Among the Oaks, Moua founded the first Hmong American literary journal. [2] To fill this gap, she decided to nurture the talent of Hmong American writers by creating Paj Ntaub Voice, a bilingual publication in Hmong and English. (53) [3] The idea came to her while she was recovering from surgery. [4]To pass the time, she spent many hours reading, and she discovered that Hmong writers were missing from Asian American anthologies. [5] The first issue, produced in 1994, was a simple collection of pages printed in black ink and stapled. [6]Today, Paj Ntaub Voice is published in full color with standard book binding. [54]

Moua is proud of her accomplishments and those of other Hmong writers in the United States. [56] Believing that many more voices need to be heard, people in the Hmong community are urged to write, to add their voices to the literary community. She is pleased that, within her anthology, readers nationwide are being introduced to the writing of Hmong Americans. Her hope that college courses in Asian American studies soon will include at least one selection from Bamboo Among the Oaks.