I have close to 60 years of experience in Hmong paj ntaub design and making. I created my own designs and won prizes for them as a young student in Laos. During my year in the refugee camp in Thailand, during the Vietnam war era, I co-created a paj ntaub design with a friend and called it the friendship paj ntaub. We had limited supplies in the camp and asked people around for thread strings, or whatever they could share with us. The piece eventually became a colorful designed pillow reflecting the different relationships we built around camp with other paj ntaub makers. As a Hmong White woman, I expanded my own paj ntaub learning and techniques when I got married. I began to learn from my husband’s aunt about the paj ntaub designs and techniques they used in their Green Hmong family, and made my first Green Hmong skirt for my oldest child. I continued to create and learn, as well as share my knowledge with others in our Hmong community, including my children, for the next twenty years. In the last several years, I have led monthly Project Paj Ntaub classes, through Hmong Museum, and taught an annual average of 85 students from all ages and backgrounds.

As an elder in my community, I understand that it is my role now to share and teach the art of paj ntaub to younger generations. If I don’t offer that opportunity for our young people to learn and practice this art, I am concerned that it will die. I do not want Hmong paj ntaub to die. It is important that we learn, share, and create together. I want to teach any of our community members (men and women, young and old, Hmong and non-Hmong) who are interested and willing to learn about our Hmong paj ntaub.

For all of us to see and understand one another, we first need to understand our own history and heal our roots. When people come to the workshop and learn how to make paj ntaub, they see themselves in the needle, thread, and fabric. When they design Hmong paj ntaub, they remember a part of themselves. They remember their grandmothers sewing paj ntaub by the living room window, they remember their mothers working late at night on their Hmong new year outfits so they could be ready for the New Year celebration, they remember making paj ntaub during the weekends with their moms.

Remembering is the first step to seeing and healing ourselves, so we can reconnect to our identity. For a long time, our Hmong community has stopped teaching and sharing knowledge on how to make paj ntaub, because we were trying to forget the Vietnam war. Unfortunately, we also stopped sharing the generational knowledge that lived in us before the war too, and instead told ourselves to focus on being “Americans”. Now, we are realizing that if we don’t teach it, we will lose it and ourselves. That is why by teaching Hmong paj ntaub, I hope that Hmong and non-Hmong communities will realize that we each have beautiful stories and art that stem from our ancestors and we need to revive them because they hold an important part of our identity. I want every young person to be proud of who they are, where they come, and what their ancestors have fought hard for them to bring to this country. Paj ntaub is an important part of my identity as a Hmong woman, and I am committed to ensure that future generations can learn and connect with the art of paj ntaub.