Hillmer Presents "Save Our History" Video Project Friday

CSP History Professor Dr. Paul Hillmer will present the culmination of a year-long video project focused on the preservation of Hmong history on Friday, May 18, at 7 p.m., in the Buenger Education Center. The project was made possible through a $10,000 grant from "Save Our History," the History Channel's national initiative to promote history education and historic preservation. The project was a group effort involving students from Concordia University and three area schools: Vessey Academy, Como Park Senior High and Hmong Academy. Students interviewed elders in their family to collect their stories for future generations. At the same time, Hillmer interviewed former politicians, policymakers and members of voluntary and religious agencies in the Twin Cities about their role in welcoming the Hmong to St. Paul (and Minneapolis) and making it their home. Read more in the Pioneer Press article "St. Paul Hmong Teens Document History," (May 18, 2007)  http://www.twincities.com/searchresults/ci_5923736.  

The DVD has been organized around the following themes:

Part One:  Hmong migration into Laos, Vietnam and Thailand; participation with the U.S. in a 15-year war against communism; flight from Laos to refugee camps in Thailand; first-hand perspectives from Hmong and Americans who worked alongside them in Laos and Thailand.

Part Two:  The first Hmong family to arrive in St. Paul in February 1976 and the church that sponsored them; government and voluntary agencies that helped new Hmong immigrants.

Part Three:  The trauma of refugee camps and being deposited into a vastly different culture, climate and socio-economic environment; adjustment problems in the early years after immigration.

Part Four: Clash between old world and new world traditions.

Part Five:  Hmong community begins to form and assert itself to serve the people.

Part Six: A growing, prosperous and influential Hmong community seeks to help Hmong refugees living in Thailand