Transcripts

DONNA NICHOLSON: The science museum exhibit is a symbol of the strong presence of the 17,000 Hmong people who live in Minnesota. The exhibit will provide museum visitors with a visual history of who the Hmong are, where they came from, and what their life was like. The main feature of the exhibit is a Hmong house, standing 16 by 28 feet, that was common in Northern Laos before the Vietnam War. The wooden house has no windows and contains a large area for cooking and other activities, a bedroom, and a loft area for storage. Melissa Stoddard is the curator of the Hmong exhibit.

MELISSA STODDARD: We'll have a few more things in here. We don't quite have all the furniture in, but there'll be tables, and benches, and chairs, as you would find in a Hmong house in Laos. This is the altar, an altar that you would find in an individual's house. Each Hmong house of an animist Hmong family would have a Hmong altar. And it's decorated with a paper spirit money, and rice, and incense, eggs, other offerings.

DONNA NICHOLSON: The house was built last summer at Wilder Forest by a crew of Hmong men from the Twin Cities. As Melissa Stoddard points out, the house was built without blueprints or nails.

MELISSA STODDARD: The house is actually pegged and lashed. It's lashed with bamboo or rattan strands. And then everything else is either pegged or fitted into slots of boards. So it really is a house that's made to be taken apart. If you were to move, for example, to a new village for new farmland, you could disassemble it and take it apart. Because the preparation of the material takes a lot longer than putting up the actual house.

DONNA NICHOLSON: Staff from the science museum videotaped the construction to document how a home would have been traditionally built. The house was then taken apart and reconstructed in its permanent home in the museum. The exhibit also features costumes, jewelry, tools, and intricately sewn pieces of cloth that tell the history of the Hmong's journey from China, where they are originally from, to the United States where, many resettled after the Vietnam War.

Su Tau is a 22-year-old student from Augsburg College in Minneapolis, who worked as an intern on the exhibit. He migrated to the US from Laos with his family 10 years ago. Tau has fond memories of his life there, such as hunting in the jungle or taking care of his family's pigs and chickens. Tau says working on the exhibit has helped him reconnect with his roots.

SU TAU: Yes, I learned to respect my culture. I see how important it is to keep your identity, and your culture, and your roots. So this project is playing a big part in my life and also the Hmong community.

DONNA NICHOLSON: Older people in the Hmong community say the exhibit will help preserve their way of life for the younger generation of Hmong who grew up in America and are often sandwiched between two distinct cultures. Su Tau says he hopes the exhibit will also serve as a bridge that helps Minnesotans better understand the Hmong people.

SU TAU: A lot of people don't know about the Hmong people because there's so many group of Southeast Asians. And it doesn't matter if you're Hmong, Lao, Vietnamese, or Cambodian, you're just another Southeast Asian. But in each group, they have their own culture. And this house and this whole exhibit just provide to non-Hmong community to find out more about the Hmong people.

DONNA NICHOLSON: I'm Donna Nicholson, reporting.

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