Week 8 | Hmong History

Rida Riaz
ASA 141
May 18, 2019
"Hmong History through Textiles"

Hmong paj ntaub

Hmong paj ntaub

Learning about the Hmong culture was rejuvenating. Even though I had an idea about the Hmong, I wasn't aware of the history and the struggles they went through like surviving as refugees in Thailand or their escape from Laos due to forms of oppression. While in the camps, women contributed to household responsibilities by earning income through traditional textile art like sewing the paj ntaub. The Hmong are a patriarchal system as they always had men as the head of the household running the house while the women used to just take care of household necessities like cooking, cleaning or attending to their kids; however, through women creating textile art for income, this soon became an economic function and the men also started to sew as a job. Moreover, if the men weren't as good with sewing, they would attend the household needs like cooking or cleaning while their wives earned the income.

Being able to depict one's culture in the form of art through textile is simply a skill as well as a rejuvenating form of expression of identity. Creating fashion or textiles allowed to break those fixed gender roles in the Hmong culture and therefore, it unified both men and women to be able to work together as well as share their skills in the celebration of art and history. Through story cloths, the Hmong depicted stories of their oppression or the loss they faced through the Vietnam War or their escape from Laos allowing to bring forth a message about their culture as well as history. So much form of emotion and expression from merely a cloth. 

Hmong paj ntaub story cloth 

Hmong paj ntaub story cloth 

 

Our form of self-identity is shown through our style and the way we dress or portray ourselves to others. For the Hmong, they depicted their struggles, cultures and stories through the paj ntaub allowing others to see the struggles they went through from their eyes. One defines culture through many differ aspects, but clothing is one way to let the unheard voices or emotion be heard and seen.