quiltersmuse.com Blog

Hmong-made baby hat from Thailand

One of the most charming ideas I have learned, during my study of Hmong people, is that they hold a traditional belief that all babies live in the clouds before descending to earth. In the world of the Hmong, there are myths that are retold from generation to generation, as is the same in our own American culture. The Hmong also very much believe in the Spirit World. Babies are prized possessions.

I don’t plan to get into a total discussion of that here. Suffice it to say that the colorful and well-decorated hats made for Hmong babies are intended to trick the dabs or evil spirits from snatching the baby’s spirit away. The hats disguise the youngsters and make them appear like little flowers from above or from a distance.

I feel very lucky to have procured this antique example of such a hat. My studies of the Hmong people have not ended with the three major articles I wrote (one of which is present on our website). I still have additional books to read.

One of the most interesting books I have read is centered around an epileptic child and her treatment in California, and how that treatment did not coincide with traditional Hmong approaches or thought. The book portrays a total culture clash and lack of understanding by the medical community, and their insensitivity, and the medical staffs’ notion that the family was being non-compliant with their prescribed treatments.

Monica Chiu, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English at the University of New Hampshire, and editor of Asian Americans in New England, wrote a lengthy analytical, scholarly paper in the Hmong Studies Journal about the Fadiman book that is well worth your time to read.

Having already read Anne Fadiman’s book, described above, called, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, I found Dr. Chiu’s paper to be most enjoyable and found myself agreeing with her, on every point.

Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications

Hmong Hearts bed quilt made by Pat Amundrud of Canada, with squares purchased in N. Thailand

7/7/09 – Today, we received the following note:

Dear Pat,

I’ve been to the Vermont Quilt Show twice and found a vendor selling Hmong needlework.

Thanks,

Pat Amundrud
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada

Here are the other photos of Pat’s wonderful quilt that she calls, “Hmong Hearts.”

Vertical view of the quilt

Details of hand quilting in alternate blocks

Thanks so much for sharing your work with our readers!

Best wishes for continued joy in quilting!

Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications – link to our main website

Press Release
Media Contact: Lori Wright
603-862-0574
UNH Media Relations
July 6, 2009

Photo of Monica Chiu

DURHAM, N.H. – Monica Chiu, associate professor of English at the University of New Hampshire, has published a book on the history, culture, and role of Asian Americans in New England, the first collection to address Asian and Asian American contributions to the region.

Asian Americans in New England: Culture and Community, published by University Press of New England, explores 19th century Chinese American friendship albums, Japanese American acrobats, the 20th century influence of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts on regional and national Asian arts collections, contemporary Vietnamese American community art, and the construction of Asian Indians and religion in New England, among other topics.

Cover of Asian Americans in New England: Culture and Community

The collection highlights a broad range of Asian American communities and historical experiences. From the poignant writings of a young Chinese immigrant to the influence of hip-hop in a New Hampshire Lao American community, the collection seeks to establish a regional template for the study of Asian American lives and art far from the West Coast. The essays provide a record of particular achievements, as well as an understanding of the rich Asian American culture in New England, along with an analysis of the depiction of New England Asian Americans, one of the fastest growing minority populations in the region.

“If we look back to the region’s reception of ‘Orientals’ at the turn into the 20th century, we find curious New England audiences intrigued and surprised by Asian visitors, many of whom had never seen Asians before. Their reception and visibility afford us a window into understanding what political, economic, and social practices influenced New Englanders’ acceptance or rejection of Asian visitors and later second-generation Asian Americans and Asian refugees. What Asian Americans in New England created from that reception, as well as from their own creative integration into regional citizenship, are the artistic and cultural legacies presented in this volume,” Chiu says.

Chiu’s book has received critical acclaim from her colleagues.

“A sparkling collection of essays across disciplinary formations, ‘Asian Americans in New England’ reveals the reciprocal impress of New England and Asian America. Moreover, this foundational volume illustrates how spatial distinctions, whether regional, national, or transnational, are human creations and as such invite observance and transgression,” said Gary Okihiro, professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University and author of Island World: A History of Hawaii and the United States.

“This collection deals another crushing but healthy blow to the West Coast-centric Asian American Studies paradigm, all but assuring the continuing growth of this vibrant field in race and ethnic studies. The book’s contributors challenge the dominant historical images of Asians in America as manual laborers, shopkeepers, and victims of crude nativism, without minimizing the impact of racialization and orientalism on community and identity formations,” said Evelyn Hu-DeHart, professor of history and director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University.

Monica Chiu is the director of the University Honors Program and an associate professor of English at the University of New Hampshire. She specializes in Asian American literature, criticism, film, popular culture, and twentieth-century American literature. She is the author of Filthy Fictions: Asian American Literature by Women (2004).

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, space-grant and community-engaged university, UNH is the state’s flagship public institution, enrolling 11,800 undergraduate and 2,400 graduate students.

Another book by Monica Chiu

This press release is offered as a public service announcement by Quilter’s Muse Publications, with permission from UNH Media Relations writer Lori Wright.

Coincidentally, and as a point of interest, a current article in the September 2009 issue of The Quilter magazine, written by Patricia Cummings and photographed by James Cummings, focuses on the Genesis Center of Providence, Rhode Island, and their exhibit of Hmong textiles (at RISD, last Spring). The embroidered pieces were made by refugees from Southeast Asia, namely, Laos. This article is Part 2 of a series, the other issue having been published with a July 2009 cover. Contact us at: pat@quiltersmuse.com

Patricia Grace Cummings, University of New Hampshire class of 1973

Many Hmong have converted to Christianity. This is a Hmong-made Christmas ornament, collection of Patricia Cummings.

I have just finished reading, The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang. While I enjoyed reading about Kao’s family’s experiences in America, I particularly appreciated the heartfelt sentiment of the last chapter. It describes, in great detail, her grandmother’s death and all of the traditional rituals associated with it. Her grandmother had already known over 250 grandchildren before she passed on (from a direct quote of the grandmother on page 259).

An excerpt:

My father and my uncles, Hmong sons, had asked for a man who was well taught in Hmong traditions to preside over the funeral. He had brought with him a selection of men, each specializing in a different part of the ceremony: the dressing of the body; the guiding of the soul to the next life; the beating of the drum of the dead; the playing of the qeej, a huge bamboo instrument played by men that carried the heart’s wishes for happy wedding, bountiful new years, and words to the dead. The man who would teach Grandma’s soul the way back to the place where she was born started chanting …

Hmong life in America is the another chapter in the history of a people who never had a real place to be. They were persecuted in China for centuries and were driven into the mountains where they learned to subsist by farming, using slash and burn methods, and moving about every ten years. I have found the study of the Hmong people, their rituals, their beliefs, their industry with the needle, and so many other parts of their culture, to be a moving (no pun intended) part of World History.

I hope that some of you will get a chance to pick up a copy of The Quilter magazine in July (it will have a September cover date). That issue has the 66th article I have written for a column called, “Pieces of the Past,” ongoing since 1999. It is the 2nd part of a two part series about the Hmong people and their textiles.

Even though those two Hmong articles are “put to bed,” I have continued my studies of the Hmong, and the book I just finished still leaves a pile more for me to read. I try to provide links to amazon for books that I like, and/or have in my own personal library. I will do the same this time. I love learning about other cultures! Today, I received a book about Australian Quilt History that is not available in this country. I have been waiting since the beginning of May for it, so it is most welcome. There has been a lot of quilting in the Land Down Under, something else to explore!

Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications