Friday, May 9, 2008

Hmong First Baptist Church: Focus on Milwaukee Youth

Description taken from poster on youtube.com:

Hmong First Baptist Youth, the younger years

Found Video

Description taken from poster of youtube.com:

"Hmong rally for peace and justice. Roughly 400 Hmong people came to support. Those who knew and didn't know the victim came to stand by his side. Why? Because no matter what relation if any, they came to support their people. Police brutality is a crime. Something interesting at end of clip. Add your comments/suggestions."

The Hmong Community: Various Found Images












Thursday, May 8, 2008

Hmong Demographics [Part 1]

All information taken from the Hmong Chartbook at:

http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/poplab/reports/HmongChartbook.pdf

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Overall Totals:

• Wisconsin's Hmong population grew from 16,373 in 1990 to 33,791 persons in 2000, a 106%
increase. In contrast, the largest racial group in Wisconsin, whites, increased by only 4.8%.

• The Hmong population in Wisconsin was 0.63% of the state's total population in 2000, compared to 0.33% in 1990.

• Hmong persons represent 32.9% of Wisconsin’s total Asian population of 102,823 persons. This is more than double the proportion of each of the next two largest Asian subgroups in Wisconsin:
Asian Indian and Chinese.

The Hmong population in Wisconsin is concentrated in several regions:

• 23.3% of Wisconsin's total Hmong population resides in Milwaukee County; 13.2% live in
Marathon County.

• Three counties in Wisconsin have Hmong populations that exceed 2% of the total county
population: Marathon (3.5%), Sheboygan (2.4%), and La Crosse (2.1%).

• Seven counties in Wisconsin have more than 2,000 persons of Hmong origin: Milwaukee (7,883), Marathon (4,453), Brown (2,957), Sheboygan (2,706), Outagamie (2,504), La Crosse (2,282), and Dane (2,235).

• Dane County’s Hmong population increased by 298% between 1990 and 2000, from 561 to 2,235 persons, the largest increase among the 10 Wisconsin counties with more than 500 Hmong
residents in 1990. Hmong in Wisconsin are younger than the total population and live in large
families with married couples and children.

• 57.1% of Wisconsin's Hmong population is under age 18 and in all, over 23,000 Hmong (more
than two-thirds of the total) are under age 24.

• More than 98% of Wisconsin’s Hmong population live in family households; and almost 70% of
these family households are headed by married couples with children.

• The average family size for Hmong in Wisconsin is 6.4 persons, more than double the average
family size for the total population (3.1).

● Births to teens are much more common among Hmong females than among the average Wisconsin female. In 2001, 13% of all Hmong births occurred to mothers 18-19 years old, while amongst the total population only 7% did. Another 10% of Hmong births occurred to mothers 15-17 years old.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

The Xiong Family: A Hmong Family Experience

Starring Nhoua Xiong

Monday, May 5, 2008

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Photo Essay Artist Statement

The experience of putting together my photographical essay was a very interesting one. When I arrived to shoot for this project, I didn’t really have an idea of what I wanted to focus on. Then it became clear to me that even though we had a tour of the HomeSource Center, seeing it once again was essential for me to understand just how much it means to the community that L.A.N.D. serves.

I had a long conversation with James, a worker at the HomeSource Center and a longtime resident of this area, in which he told me all about the importance that the center has on the residents that make use of it everyday. He expressed the joy and optimism that he has in his everyday work. He told me that the most rewarding thing about working at HomeSource was the ability to help the community that he is part of and seeing how much the resources available make the community a better place. He referred to the HomeSource Center as “a little gold mine” in order to describe how the residents of his community appreciate and consider the importance of the center in their lives. Being able to document James’s feelings in my essay was a main goal of mine. I chose to title my essay “Little Gold Mine” in order to document one of the most motivating things that James said to describe HomeSource and its value to the community.

The camera, as an instrument of investigation, made it easy to capture the pleasant atmosphere of the Center. It allowed me to document the feelings of accomplishment that the Center has so far in restoring the community.

My essay is put together in the same chronological order as my visit. I chose to present my essay as a combination of a story and strict documentation. I describe the context of the photographs in regards to what James was telling me about the specific objects documented in them. The captions that I included with the photographs have a specific connection to my conversation with James. In this way, I also document what he told me about HomeSource in a direct, but personal level.

Friday, April 4, 2008

"Little Gold Mine"-A Photo Essay


“Little Gold Mine”




“Working In the Community”
Terri, one of the people in charge of running the HomeSource Center, is attentively helping out a community member as we come in.




“James and Terri”
When we first met them, it was obvious that they enjoyed doing their jobs. James very happily showed us around as he told us about his work in HomeSource.





“Entry to Our Homes”
Various kinds of doors




“Patterns, Patterns, Patterns…”
Wallpaper




"Drives to Chicago"




“End of Day”
Terri leaving HomeSource after a day at work.




“Look Into the Cause”
Houses in the area that serve as homes for community members.


Thursday, February 28, 2008

Hmong Community Among Those With Dreams For Lisbon Avenue

While conducting research on the Hmong population in L.A.N.D.'s main focus area, I found that there were people with visions for this area as an "Asiantown" for Milwaukee. The article discussing this area as a possibility for Asian businesses to thrive dates back almost 10 years, to 1999. Da Xiong, one of the people interviewed in the article, stated his dreams for this area as he said that he had high hopes for its development. When he saw the empty, boarded-up buildings, he saw room for revitalization and for positive change. His views of revitalization are very similar to those of L.A.N.D.

While searching further, I found that organizations like the Hmong American Friendship Associations have community partnerships with L.A.N.D.. I believe that it is important to make the Hmong population, who may not know about such organizations, aware that they exist and that they are willing to help them better their businesses, homes, and their well-being in the community.

Full text of article:

Local Hmong entrepreneurs have vision for Lisbon Avenue

The Business Journal of Milwaukee - by Shannon Stevens

The stretch of Lisbon Avenue from 24th Street to 40th Street, where Washington Park begins, is not an area frequented by most Milwaukee-area businesspeople.

The neighborhood is riddled with numerous empty lots, mostly city-owned, overgrown with weeds and decorated with wind-blown trash. Many of the commercial and residential buildings still standing are marked by the plywood-covered windows of abandonment or impending condemnation.

In this forlorn neighborhood, squatters aren't shy, openly taking up residence in those same buildings.

For Da Xiong, those same 15 blocks are a window of opportunity, a chance for self-improvement and a way to provide for future generations of Hmong refugees and their American-born children.

Da's vision for Lisbon Avenue is of a thriving Asiantown, filled end-to-end with little grocery stores, antique shops, Laundromats and offices. He envisions an Asiantown for the some 25,000 Southeast Asians in Milwaukee, as well as other residents who want Asian goods or just a neat outing.

Da wants to start it all off by moving his west side laundry business from 35th Street and Juneau Avenue, where he rents space from Harley-Davidson Inc., to a building on the corner of Lisbon and 30th Street. He also has his eye on 3109 Lisbon Ave., an empty warehouse a block away on 31st Street. He wants to turn that space into a meeting and entertainment hall for the local Asian population, which doesn't have any such facility now.

"As I bring people in for special occasions, it will attract more people there," said Da, laughing as he quoted the famous movie line "build it and they will come."

Da said it is important to attract people to the area, not to tell them to go there. "If I move in there and say come, they may listen to me."

While Da's plans for Lisbon are ambitious, he is not alone in his determination. He is chairing a group of five active members of the local Hmong community, mostly college-educated and close in age to 31-year-old Da.

"My dream is to create an image in Milwaukee where on a nice Saturday, people from all over the state will go shopping in Milwaukee's (Asiantown), not Chicago's (Chinatown)," said Ge Xiong, executive director and project coordinator at the nonprofit organization Hmong Educational Advancements Inc. (HEA).

HEA was founded in 1991 to help young Southeast Asian refugees earn educations and to help them become self-sufficient. The group has since formed the Southeast Asian Business and Economic Development project, thanks in part to a $45,000 grant from the Helen Bader Foundation.

That project has enabled the HEA to help numerous businesses succeed by helping them with loan applications, computer training and writing business plans.

Local businessman Yeng Xong of Xiong Corp. on 2729 W. Vliet St., already is showing his support for the Asiantown idea with his purchase of a 70,000-square-foot building on 27th Street between Lisbon Avenue and Vine Street. The enormous, gray, two-story building, still hung with a Rampart Automotive Products Co. sign, will house Xiong Corp.'s massive wholesale and retail food business on the ground floor, with offices and warehousing planned for above.

Interviewed at his thriving Asian market, which supplies smaller stores from Green Bay to Madison, Yeng was confident that his new location will be a success, though he was cautious in his optimism about a complete altering of Lisbon.

"We need support from aldermen, the city of Milwaukee and the neighborhood," Yeng said. "The most important thing is the neighborhood."

Da agrees that the response from the neighborhood will be an important component in the fate of their plan.

To the west of Lisbon, which Da estimates to be some 90 percent occupied by Hmong and other Southeast Asian refugees, a strip of markets and small businesses is expected to be embraced.

To the east, only about 30 percent Southeast Asian, neighbor relations could be more of an issue.

Although Da says tensions between the Asian and black communities around Lisbon have eased since the mid-90s, he worries that visible signs of Asian success could make life there more difficult.

Da's dream of Asiantown is consistent with the city's overall vision for that area. City officials envision local commercial businesses complementing the residential renovations taking place east of 24th Street where Lisbon becomes Walnut Street.

Taking a gamble on the neighborhood is worth it, Da said, as elsewhere in Milwaukee and the United States, it is difficult for people starting with so little to work their way up to financial independence.

In the neighborhood around Lisbon, houses sell for anywhere from $1,000 to $6,000, he said, giving recent refugees a fighting chance to get on their feet financially and eventually contribute to their community.

Da came to Milwaukee from Laos in 1986 with a clear path in mind: find a place to live, go to school and learn the language. He then intended to go into business to make money, become self-supporting and create more jobs.

"That's the cycle," said Da. "That's how I am supposed to contribute to myself and my society."

Standing on the corner of Lisbon and 24th, with neat rows of new homes stretching behind him on Walnut, Da looks west and sees not litter-strewn lots, but instead nice open spaces. Not boarded-up shacks, but rather affordable sites for corner markets.

He hopes the rows of fragile little trees might be growing toward a new future. A future where instead of scorching alone in the sun by empty walks, they will shade droves of shoppers, laughing children with fresh ice cream in hand or wedding parties in brilliant satins and silks.

Da hopes that if his vision is realized, the stretch of Lisbon from 24th to 40th will be renamed Asian Street.

"This is my dream," he said.


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