Women’s History Month: Cultural Preservation and Celebrating HERstory

As we celebrate Women’s History Month and reflect on this year’s theme of “Leading the Change: Women Shaping a Sustainable Future”, I’m honored to share this blog on culture sustainability through Minnesota Humanities Center’s program From Mountains to Lakes.  But first, a little bit about me and why this program is important.

I came to America when I was a toddler and have an advantage of witnessing and being responsible for passing down our culture.

Growing up, I was taught to introduce myself to elders by saying, “my name is MayKao Fredericks, I am a daughter from the Vu clan, my father is Va Neng Vue, are we related?”  Fifty percent of the time, the answer was yes resulting in a bond with another auntie or uncle in the community. Now a days, many of our children keep quiet when they are around their elders because they don’t know the language.

For the Hmong people, cultural preservation has always been fragile. Unlike many cultures, the Hmong have historically existed without a nation state, monarchy, or religious structures that could safeguard our traditions. We have often lived as ethnic minorities in the countries where we settled such as Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and China, and much of our history has been preserved through oral storytelling, textiles, songs, rituals and lived experience.

In other words, culture for the Hmong has always lived in people and when the people forget, the culture disappears.

This is why Minnesota holds such a special place in the Hmong diaspora. The Twin Cities are home to the largest urban concentration of Hmong people in the United States and one of the most significant Hmong populations in the world. There are many factors that contributed to this phenomenon to include the fact that when Hmong families first resettled in Minnesota after the war, many were placed in concentrated housing communities such as the iconic McDonough housing project. While those conditions were not always ideal, they allowed something important to survive: our village mentality. I never lived at McDonough but we all hung out there because we had relatives there. I still remember seeking out the auntie who sold eggrolls for $1 and the chunks of garlic that made her eggrolls memorable to this day. I also recall seeing police cars and officers talking to-would-be gang members encouraging them to take a different path.

Families lived near one another. Clan networks remained strong. Elders could guide younger generations. Community celebrations, weddings, and funerals continued as collective experiences. Together we rebuilt.

Our parents and grandparents were not seeking a better life because they believed their life in Laos was poor, it was their fate as ethnic minorities. Many would describe those years as a time of humble means but deep connection to land, family, and culture. What they sought was an easier life for the next generation, one where their children could pursue education and opportunities without the shadow of war or oppression, and America became that hope.

Today we see the results of those sacrifices. We celebrate milestones such as college graduations, thriving businesses, and moments of history like Olympian Suni Lee.  The most significant transformation is gender equality.

And yet there is also a growing concern within our community. As Hmong Americans become more contemporary and mainstream, the memories that fueled our resilience, our connection to where we came from, can fade if they are not intentionally preserved.

The COVID 19 pandemic made this painfully clear. Across the Hmong diaspora, we lost many elders and knowledge keepers. With each passing elder, we risk losing stories and cultural knowledge that were never written down.

It was in this moment that From Mountains to Lakes began, focused on bringing culture bearers, community leaders and historians together.

In 2021, during the height of the pandemic, the Minnesota Humanities Center partnered with St. Catherine University, Dr. Pa Der Vang, and Concordia University’s Center for Hmong Studies Executive Director Lee Pao Xiong to host the first From Mountains to Lakes Educational Forum in honor of Hmong American Day on May 14 and Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Scholars and community members gathered to reflect on Hmong history, diaspora, identity, and contemporary issues, including the impact of COVID and the importance of accurate data representation for Hmong communities.

Since then, the series has continued through collaborations with community partners including Hmong Women Achieving Together. Programs have explored themes such as Hmong women’s stories, cultural memory, and the knowledge we carry within our families. More recently, Celebrate HerStory honored Hmong women trailblazers who have made Minnesotan history, including the first Hmong appointed judicial judge, Judge Sophia Vuelo, and the first Hmong founding College Dean and first woman and Hmong President of Amherst Wilder Foundation since the organization’s establishment in 1906, Dr. MayKao Hang, along with the historical election of Saint Paul’s first woman and Hmong mayor, Mayor Kaohly Her.

These programs are part of a broader effort to preserve and share cultural knowledge across communities as well as inspire the next generation.

In December 2025, MHC convened From Mountains to Lakes: The Museums We Carry, a gathering that brought together cultural bearers and scholars to learn from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community members. The convening reminded us that cultural preservation is not only about protecting our own stories but also about learning from one another. This unique culture sharing resulted in a Senate Resolution recognizing the program.

In America, people sometimes say someone was “born with a silver spoon,” meaning they began life with privilege already in hand. The spoons my mother carried were not silver. They were made from the remains of warplanes, and she brought them to America because she was not sure if the people in America eat with spoons and needed to feed her children. This story of the spoons she carried is about sustaining family, life, culture and the determination of a mother who believed her children could build a better future. Those spoons remind me that our greatest inheritance is not wealth. It is memory, resilience, and the stories we choose to carry forward and is what inspired the title From Mountains to Lakes as well as the program image created by artist Pang Foua Xiong.