I was born in Ban Vinai refugee camp in Thailand in September 1976. I am the oldest of six children. When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, thousands of Hmong families were displaced from their homes. The Hmong people were recruited by the American military to fight in the war against the Viet Cong, and in exchange for their assistance, the United States government granted them asylum and protection in America. When American troops pulled out of the war, thousands of Hmong families were left behind in a war-torn country, often living in the jungles to escape the Viet Cong as they made their way to refugee camps. In 1979, my family was one of the thousands of Hmong families to come to America. We first landed in Iowa, then moved to Wisconsin, California and Rhode Island before making it back to the Midwest. I have lived in Madison for the past 25 years. My husband and I have been married for 29 years and have one adult son who has four kids of his own.
My parents told me and my siblings that they escaped the war and fled to America for us to have a better life. They wanted us to have access to education, job opportunities, healthcare and safety — everything they could only wish for when living in the old country. They had high hopes for us kids to succeed and build a good life in the land of opportunity. But life in America was not easy.
I remember as a kid, when people saw me, I could tell they didn’t like me because I was Hmong. I remember people didn’t want me to associate with their kids. Kids didn’t want to be my friend. It felt very isolating.I couldn’t speak the English language; I sounded funny when I talked; and I didn’t see many people who looked like me. You don’t know you are different until someone tells you that you are or makes it known you’re not welcomed.
I tried really hard to speak English well so I could “fit in,” so I rarely spoke Hmong in public. I thought by doing this, I could assimilate faster into mainstream American culture and be accepted by my peers. I watched television and practiced sounding out words and phrases like the characters on screen.
At the time, I didn’t realize suppressing my Hmong identity would have such a major impact on my adult life. Growing up, my parents spoke to my siblings and me in the Hmong green dialect (Moob ntsuab). In America, Hmong people speak one of two dialects — Hmong green or Hmong white (Hmoob dawb). The difference between the two dialects is that certain words have different intonations. While I grew up speaking Hmong green, my husband grew up speaking Hmong white. When we married, I had to learn how to speak in the Hmong white dialect so I could communicate with his parents and elders.
I struggled a lot with my Hmong-American identity — trying to speak English while also trying to learn how to speak in both Hmong green and white dialects. I felt like I was going through an identity crisis because I wasn’t a proficient speaker in either language. Other Hmong people would look at me and say, “You’re Hmong, but you can’t speak Hmong.” I was constantly judged for not being fluent in my native language.
I have always loved technology. I love creating videos of Hmong recipes and crafts on YouTube and TikTok. When the iPhone first came out, I saw there was so much potential in the world of mobile technology, and that this would be a field where I could build a career.
I taught myself HTML in the late ’90s. When I was 26 I attended Madison College to pursue my associate’s degree in web development. At the time, I was married and had a son in elementary school. Nobody took me seriously because I didn’t fit the mold of a web developer. I knew I had to build my credibility and work twice as hard as the next guy.
HmongPhrases initially started as a class project while I was in college. I created two separate apps that translated words from Hmong to English and English to Hmong. The Hmong language originated as an oral language, so if you don’t have experience sounding out written words, it can be really difficult to learn. When creating my app, HmongPhrases, I wanted it to be interactive. So, I added an audio component so users can see the written word, hear it and practice out loud with the audio recordings. Eventually I combined the two apps into one.
There are Hmong apps that currently offer direct word translations from English to Hmong and vice versa. I love that this is available digitally. To date, I believe my mobile app is the only one that offers phrase translations with audio functionality for both Hmong green and Hmong white dialects. All you have to do is press the play button, and you will hear how it sounds to pronounce a sentence in Hmong. You will also see the way to pronounce it.
Learning how to speak Hmong again was just embracing who I am, where I come from, being proud that I am Hmong, and acknowledging that my Hmong speaking abilities are always a work in progress. The HmongPhrases app was kind of like a gift to myself to celebrate my Hmong identity and to love myself the way that I am.
When I was creating HmongPhrases, I also created cooking videos of Hmong dishes for my YouTube channel. People started sharing my video and posting photos of their dish, commenting, “Oh, I learned how to make sweet pork from you.” And I thought, “That’s great. That’s awesome.” I thought it was really important to share recipes on platforms with high visibility for a greater audience reach, like a mobile app and YouTube, to give people resources to celebrate the richness and importance of the Hmong people and their culture.
It has been my thing to share and educate. Together as a Hmong community, and the larger community in general, there is an opportunity to share knowledge and pass it down to younger generations. If we don’t pass down our knowledge, how will the next generation learn, and how will valued traditions live on? I love when people comment to let me know how my language app or YouTube videos helped them learn how to speak Hmong better or connect with the older members of their family or learn how to make a certain Hmong dish. It makes me feel good knowing I was able to contribute and help them in some way.
Annie Vang’s story was produced by Jesse Yang for Wisconsin Humanities’ storytelling project, Love Wisconsin. You can read more Love Wisconsin stories at lovewi.com/stories.
