Carleton College Senior Receives $60,000 echoing green Fellowship

Teenage Hmong girls struggling to strike a balance between traditional Hmong values and the pressures of today’s popular culture in America will soon have another outlet for discussing their concerns. So hopes Carleton College senior Mary Moua, who has been awarded a $60,000 echoing green Public Service Fellowship to found an after-school program titled “Hmong Women’s Circle,” which will be offered in three St. Paul-area schools starting next fall.

Moua, a sociology and anthropology major from Eau Claire, Wis., received one of 19 fellowships awarded this year by the echoing green Foundation, which supports early-stage public service ventures, encouraging social change through a variety of programs in the arts, education, health and human/civil rights.

Moua’s mother is partly responsible for Moua’s proposal to create an outlet for Hmong girls. She credits her mother for inspiring her, noting that “she’s a very assertive and vocal Hmong woman who speaks out.” Her mother has published a book chronicling her experiences as one of the earliest Hmong refugees in America, and recently discussed her life with Carleton students during a visit to campus.

Moua also is motivated by her feeling that the needs and concerns of Hmong female teenagers are growing. “I think it’s important that these girls have someone to talk to, someone they can trust,” she said. “‘Hmong Women’s Circle’ will provide that.”

Moua’s program will offer teenage Hmong girls a three-part curriculum-“although not in a book sense-we’ll have no formal workbooks. This is an oral project, much like Hmong culture, which is an oral culture,” she said. She intends to keep an open-door policy-the girls can come and go, attending only those parts of the program that interest them.

The first part will focus on Hmong women in history. Moua hopes to introduce the girls to elderly Hmong women who can discuss the importance of traditional customs-folk songs, tapestries and dress. “Hmong girls wear traditional costumes on holidays. I have a dress that weighs about 20 pounds, and I need my mother’s help to put it on. I’m hoping these women can teach us how to wear these, and what they symbolize,” Moua said.

A critical part of the curriculum will be understanding Hmong women in present, or how the pressures faced today by all teenagers affect these Hmong girls in particular. Moua will focus on discussing such concerns as AIDS, pregnancy and drugs, which are topics Hmong girls often can’t talk about at home.

“It would be considered inappropriate to bring these subjects up with your parents,” Moua said. “The Hmong culture puts a lot of stock in reputation, and a lot of assumptions are made. If your daughter wants to talk about pregnancy, it must mean she’s having sex, and to talk about that is considered shameful.”

The third part of the curriculum will look at Hmong women in the future. Moua hopes to present role models for the girls and show them some of the
opportunities available to them. She’ll conduct tours of local colleges and universities and introduce them to Hmong women in successful careers, as well as arrange leadership workshops.

“Hmong Women’s Circle” will meet after school once a week in three locations-Roseville Area High School, Como Park High School and Washington Technology Magnet Middle School. Every month, Moua will gather the participants from each school together as a group, in an effort to give the younger girls an opportunity to mix with the high schoolers and form mentoring partnerships.

The echoing green Fellowship will fund the program for two years. Beyond that, Moua hopes that it will be such a success that copycat programs will occur at other schools. “I think it’s extremely important for Hmong girls to have this outlet, to have the opportunity to talk about these kinds of issues,” she said.

Moua is the third Carleton student to receive an echoing green Fellowship. Tou Ger Xiong, a 1996 graduate, was awarded the grant in 1996 to fund his program of educating youth about the Hmong experience through rap, folk tales, drama, and comedy. In 1997, Alana Feldman Soler, a 1995 graduate, received funding to provide affordable veterinary care and information about animal population control in her hometown of San Juan, Puerto Rico.