The Hmong Institute’s Hmong Language and Culture Enrichment Program helps Hmong students learn about who they are and where they are from while teaching them about their language and culture. On Thursday, July 24, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m., the Hmong Institute will host the 13th annual open house at Life Center Madison on Madison’s East Side that will highlight the impact of the Hmong Language and Culture Program.
“This is our 13th summer doing this program,” Peng Her, CEO of the Hmong Institute, tells Madison365. “It started back in 2013 when Hmong parents saw that a lot of their Hmong students weren’t doing as well in school as they had hoped. There were a lot of anecdotal stories, but no data. And so we were able to get the school district to desegregate the Hmong data out of the Asian data, and it really showed, at that time, in 2013, 90 percent of Hmong students could not read at grade level, and about 85 percent could not do math at grade level.”
The data backed up what the parents had been saying for years: the lack of cultural support available at schools and low self-esteem were identified as key barriers to their children’s low academic success.
“Now that we had data to back up what the parents were telling us, we were able to come up with this program,” Her says.
The Hmong Language and Culture Enrichment Program is an intensive six-week summer program where, for eight hours a day, Hmong students learn their roots, are exposed to their culture and traditions, learn their native language and are exposed to Hmong college students and Hmong mentors in their community.
“We believe in what is called culturally relevant and linguistically relevant teaching model, where if a child is bound in their home language, in their culture, they do better in school,” Her says. “Having them grounded in their history also helps them have good, positive self-esteem and self-confidence in who they are, and helps them to focus in on their schoolwork.”
(Photo: The Hmong Institute)
Attendees at the July 24 open house will have a chance to meet and participate in learning activities led by the students, learn Hmong words, and have lunch with the students. The students, Her says, are excited to share what they have learned and teach people about Hmong heritage.
“Participants will get an opportunity to meet the students and the teachers and volunteers, but more importantly, they’re going to participate in activities led by the students,” Her says. “So these activities include learning about Hmong history and culture, as well as how to read and write in Hmong, and learning about the consonants and the vowels and the tone marker.
“So the Hmong language has seven tones, and the last letter of each word is your tone marker,” Her adds. “So the students will teach the participants how to read and use a tone marker for the different tones, and at the same time, we’ll have a traditional Hmong meal together. Participants can sit with the students, and get to talk to them at the lunch.”
For lunch at this event, the Hmong Institute will be serving traditional Hmong food.
“What makes this program different from other school programs is that the food is Hmong food, food that the students are used to eating at home,” Her says. “That’s another important piece of this is having that authentic Hmong food.”
There are currently 28 students in the Hmong Language and Culture Enrichment Program, which Her says is down from the numbers they had pre-COVID.
“At the open house, anyone who is interested can come and see what their funding is really supporting, as well as anyone who’s ever interested in getting to know the Hmong community more and learning about our history and culture and the language, as well as folks who work in the community that have contact with the Hmong community,” Her says. “That could be teachers, that could be case managers, social workers, police officers. People can come and really learn about the program, learn about the Hmong community, and see how students learn through an integrative curriculum that incorporates language and culture.”
Life Center Madison is located at 4402 Femrite Drive. To RSVP for this event, e-mail [email protected].
