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Hmong seek symbol of progress

Building a cultural center would allow their group to stop holding events, such as the New Year's festival, at rented venues.

By VANESSA DE LA TORRE
Published January 9, 2006

CLEARWATER - The predictable New Year's resolutions, with calls to lose weight and refrain from wine before lunchtime, are fine for much of the general populace.

But when hundreds of Lao-Hmong immigrants converged recently at Joe DiMaggio Sports Complex for a New Year's festival, they aimed much higher: to build a cultural center so they can stop renting out the Joe DiMaggio Sports Complex.

"We'd like to have our own place," said Shawn Yang, a Clearwater Realtor.

For three years, Florida Hmong Community Inc. has planned a traditional dance show, exhibitions of spicy cuisine, and competitions in soccer and top spinning, a favorite Southeast Asian sport, to celebrate the Hmong people's most revered holiday.

And for the past two years, the nonprofit organization, which started in 2002, has used the aging DiMaggio complex at a frustrating cost of $3,000 for two days.

Last year's festival was held during Christmas weekend and drew about 650 people, many from Florida and Georgia, though some came from as far away as Minnesota and California.

Midway through the revelry this year, Yang, who is also president of Florida Hmong Community, took a microphone and laid out their new year mission:

--Share their culture. (The festival was a prime example.)

--Encourage higher education and recognize children when they do well in school.

--Find ways to spur social service in the Hmong community.

It's been three decades since Hmong villagers started migrating from Laos to the United States. The CIA recruited the Hmong to fight alongside Americans in the Vietnam War, but when the United States withdrew its remaining servicemen in 1975, thousands of Hmong were subjected to bloody reprisals at the hands of North Vietnamese communists.

Those who escaped fled to refugee camps in Thailand, and some moved to the United States soon after.

About 200 Hmong families have bought homes in Central Florida, where the climate is similar to Laos and more suitable for their seniors, Yang said. Instead of farming, many are now business owners, lawyers and chiropractors. Yang said building a cultural center could be a symbol of their economic progress in America.

The project, now just a sparkling vision, could get started with an initial pot of money that people could add to over several years, he said. In 10 or 20 years, they could have singing and top spinning at their own site that wouldn't be named after a baseball slugger.

But first, Yang said the Florida Hmong Community needs enough money to set up and operate a Web site.

"Our mission is to share and exchange cultural heritage with other communities," said Yang. "Can be either Russian, or Hispanic, or Cuban, or Indian. Or even the Laotian and Vietnamese. We are here, this is our culture, and we'd like to learn about you, too."

--Vanessa de la Torre can be reached at 445-4167 or vdelatorre@sptimes.com

[Last modified January 9, 2006, 00:56:11]

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