Harvest of Love
Hmong families embrace farmers market traditions, community
Phong Vang arrived on American shores with his bride, Ze Thao, in 2005, and headed straight to Milwaukee to join Ze’s family. Although they soon found jobs, they brought their love of gardening with them, Phong from his village in Laos and Ze from Thailand, and planted a large vegetable garden. As Phong explained, “Back home, most villagers farmed and grew almost everything they ate, including rice.” Two years ago, Ze, observing that her cousins were selling produce at local farmers markets, suggested that they, too, could earn extra money by selling vegetables.
They joined a decades-long tradition of Hmong farmers selling at local farmers markets, said Jennifer Casey, executive director of the Fondy Farmers Market. For newly arrived refugees with generations of farming experience behind them and language as a possible barrier to employment, it was a natural fit. For many, it’s their primary source of income.
When Phong and Ze began farming, they rented a plot of land in Menomonee Falls, about a 10-minute drive from their home, and there they grow “almost everything,” said Phong, including several varieties of eggplant, lettuce, chile peppers, tomatoes, beets, potatoes, cucumbers and a variety of herbs.
They’ve also grown Hmong cucumbers, a super-sized (about as large as a medium zucchini, ranging in color from green to orange-yellow) version of common cukes. Hmong farmers have also introduced bitter melon and long beans (also called yard-long beans, they are similar to string beans and, as their name suggests, 12 to 18 inches long) to the Milwaukee market scene.
In early spring, the Vangs select the crops for the coming season and sow seeds for some of the plants in their backyard greenhouse. Once the earth warms, they transfer the seedlings to their farm.
Many evenings after work, from late spring to early fall, are spent cultivating their garden. On weekends they harvest what will be sold, load
their truck with tables, tent and produce and supply satisfied customers with fresh vegetables and colorful bouquets at the Cathedral Square and Walker Square farmers markets. Their most popular sellers are sugar snap peas and flowers.
Chia Vang, history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, fled her agrarian, mountain village in Laos with her family in 1979 after the communist takeover. After six months in a Thai refugee camp, they landed in the U.S. (Minneapolis), where, although she didn’t speak English and “even though I did not know how to read or write, I was put in third grade.”
She went on to earn master’s and doctoral degrees, but growing up she spent her summers working in the fields and selling vegetables at farmers markets with her parents and five siblings. She therefore knows firsthand about this aspect of Hmong-American life.
As director of the Hmong Diaspora Studies Program at UWM, she can also speak to the larger picture.
Long before heading across the ocean to the U.S., in the early 1800s, Hmong people began migrating from China to Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, and they adopted many of the foods of their new countries. Because most Hmong in Milwaukee come from Laos, their food here typically reflects the flavors of that country.
Additional adaptations were made when they came to America.
“Turkey stuffing with the addition of cellophane noodles is a popular Hmong Thanksgiving dish,” professor Vang said. To better illustrate the food and culture, she led a visit to Phongsavan Asian Market, which is really two adjacent buildings on N. 76th street near Mill Road.
The buildings’ simple exteriors display no hint of the treasures that await inside. In one building, rows of booths contain shoes, purses, jewelry, racks of brightly colored traditional Hmong clothing (some imported, some made on site) — and an event space.
The second building contains a large grocery store, and both buildings have a few food stalls with seating areas.
The market, which opened in 2009, is the brainchild of Pai Vang, who immigrated from Laos in the late 1970s. She met her husband, raised eight children and earned a degree as a nursing assistant.
Eager to help the Hmong community, she worked for 20 years at the Indo Chinese Medical Clinic. When her husband died, Pai said, she pursued her dream of opening a market that would “provide Hmong products and serve as a gathering place as well as a business incubator for the Hmong community.”
Here, entrepreneurs can open small booths without large sums of money.
Sipping lychee bubble tea, one of a wide variety of teas available at the bubble tea stall, one can stroll the aisles of Yang’s Grocery, checking out produce, noodles, condiments, tapioca in a rainbow of colors, exotic beverages (basil, tamarind, lychee, passion fruit and guava, among others) and several varieties of rice, as well as bamboo rice steamers, large wooden mortars and pestles and other cooking implements.
Stop at Yang’s Café, owned by Xay Vang, where the offerings include spring rolls, sandwiches, sesame balls, tapioca pudding and papaya salad. Known in Laos as “tum mak hoong,” or “pounded papaya,” papaya salad is enjoyed throughout Southeast Asia.
Xay invited us to step behind the counter and watch as the papaya salad was made fresh to order. The cook pounded the ingredients together in a bucket-size wooden mortar with a club-like wooden pestle.
Tamarind paste, a block of moist, pulverized tamarind, and lime provided the sour component; sugar added a touch of sweetness; fish sauce, a clear amber liquid made from anchovies and salt, delivered a complex saltiness; chile gave it heat and garlic an extra burst of flavor. When mixed, these ingredients combined to make a perfectly balanced dressing.