by Staring Down the Tiger- Stories of Hmong American Women (retail) (epub)
“Maybe I can call him tonight and tell him to pick up the car tomorrow after we leave,” suggested the woman.
“You should call him when you get to California,” I said quickly. “If you call him now, he might not let you leave.”
“Could I leave my car at your house?” asked the woman.
Clearly, she had not thought this through. I looked at Blong since he was the one who hadn’t wanted to consider the car situation earlier. “What do you think we should do?” I asked.
“Ah, you could leave it at the hotel,” stuttered Blong. “I-I guess you could leave it at our house.”
Blong and I stood there, looking at the woman. What did we get ourselves into? I wondered. It was 2007, and we’d been married for four years. We didn’t have any kids yet. Although my friend didn’t believe there was domestic violence in the Hmong community because it didn’t happen in his family, here was an example of a Hmong woman whose husband was beating her. I thought about the girl I taught in Sunday School whom I met years later to find bruises on her upper arm where a hand had gripped her, hard. “You know,” she said, as if I knew what it was like to be abused, too. “No, I don’t,” I’d told her. “You know it’s not normal, right?” She didn’t answer me.
I thought about Blong’s cousin who came to him for help divorcing her husband, who had beaten her multiple times in front of her two little kids. Like a good girl, she had gone to his relatives for help. They’d counseled him to be better. But they couldn’t stop him from beating her. She was on her own. Having exhausted the Hmong channels, she came to Blong for help using the American court system to divorce her husband. While we waited for Blong to finish up the paperwork, she asked, “Does your husband beat you, too?” I thought she was joking so I laughed. Then I saw the look on her face. She was serious. “No. My husband doesn’t beat me.”
“Could you drive my car to your house?” asked the woman, looking at me.
“Oh, you drive it,” I said.
“I don’t like driving in the big cities. There are always a lot of cars.”
“Oh, you’ll be okay,” I reassured her. She had, after all, driven the three hours here. “There are no cars now,” I said. It was 9 PM. “Our house is not too far from here. It’s just this highway, and then small streets all the way there.”
The woman got in her minivan and followed us to our house in North Minneapolis.
“What do we call you?” Blong asked the woman. We were driving toward the airport to get the woman a hotel room.
“Aalia,” answered the woman from the back seat, where she was sitting with her two kids.
An unusual name for a traditional Hmong woman, I thought. Did her parents give her that name? Or was she like the Hmong kids in the eighties who gave themselves American names such as Stacey or Tony so they could fit in? Or maybe she was like the Hmong college students in Thailand who adopted Thai names so Thai people would accept them. It was probably more that Hmong people loved Bollywood movies. You didn’t need to understand the language to know what was going on. Aalia was probably the protagonist in one of the Bollywood movies the woman watched.
“Do you have a Hmong name?” asked Blong.
“Mai,” answered the woman.
Every Hmong woman is a Mai, which means “beloved” or “dear daughter.”
“Mai,” I said, choosing to call her Mai since it was a generic Hmong woman’s name, and, in a way, it protected her identity. “Do you have neej tsa here?”
Neej tsa is the Hmong word for relatives from her side of the family. These were the people who could exert pressure on her husband’s side of the family to exert pressure on him to treat her right.
“My aunt has a son in St. Paul. But most of my people are in California.”
In the Hmong community, a wife running away from her husband, even if it is to escape domestic violence, is called a nkauj fa. This is translated as a married woman who runs away or divorces her husband. She initiates the actions. And that is the cause of the negative connotation. One online Hmong-English dictionary even translated nkauj fa as “adulteress.” I’m not sure about that translation, but clearly the word indicates something wrong, bad, or evil. If you helped a nkauj fa, you could get in trouble. It was almost like you were harboring a criminal. I was not surprised Mai had not gone to her cousin for help.
“When did you come to the United States?” asked Blong, breaking my train of thought.
“I came in 1995,” answered the woman.
I did the math quickly in my head. She was maybe thirteen years old. Nineteen ninety-five was the year I graduated from college.
“Where did you live when you came?” continued Blong.
“I lived in North Carolina.”
“When did you marry?”
“I married in 1996.”
“When did you move to southwest Minnesota?”
“1997.”
“Did you live in Minneapolis or St. Paul before moving there?” “No. My husband and I moved from North Carolina straight there.”
I didn’t know anyone in southwest Minnesota, but I had heard that, in the early 1990s, some Hmong families started moving there. The Hmong were credited with saving one of those small towns.
“Do you and your husband come to Minneapolis and St. Paul much?” asked Blong.
“Yes, we come to St. Paul to buy things for our gas station. We’ve been to the flea markets on White Bear and the one on Como.”
Blong and I had been to both Hmong flea markets. We’d stopped by the Aldrich Arena market once before going to hit some golf balls at the driving range next door. The flea market was full of cheap toys and trinkets, bras that were too big for any Hmong woman, carousels of polyester pants and flowered shirts. In the summer, Hmong Town on Como Avenue had an outdoor flea market full of home-grown vegetables, dried herbal medicine, and handmade Hmong clothes. It also had two buildings with small stalls of vendors selling music, books, and Southeast Asian fare. The deli area had its side doors propped open and the fans on full blast, but they only circulated the heat of the mid-July air. It felt like a flea market in Laos or Thailand, not St. Paul.
“When you return the car,” continued Mai, “take it to the parking lot on White Bear and he can come pick it up.”
“Okay,” I said. “Please call and let us know when you want us to do it. Call us first and then call him, okay?”
Although I wanted to stick around to see the man who got off on beating his wife, Blong didn’t care to. “Why?” he asked, not wanting to make things any more personal. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because I wanted to know if he was like my cousin who didn’t stay home to help his two wives with their five kids but instead went out to play soccer or cards, drink beer, and flirt with girls. Or was he more like my uncle who had cut open his wife’s head when he flung a plate at her? Uncle and Aunt lived across the hall from us in the fourplex in Frogtown in St. Paul. Late one night, my aunt rushed into our apartment, her head bleeding. I called 9-1-1. My mom told me to ride with her in the ambulance. I stayed by her side in the emergency room. I saw the white of her skull. I saw the broken shrapnel embedded in the tissue. I was in tenth grade.
My uncle spent some time in jail. My aunt became a nkauj fa and took her baby with her to her parents’ house. My relatives all said she ran away. The gossip was that her parents told her to do it. It was their meddling ways that caused the divorce, not my uncle’s abuse. For some reason, it was too far outside the realm of possibilities for my aunt to divorce my uncle on her own. The event scared me. I didn’t want to marry a Hmong man because I was afraid that might happen to me, too.
Mai nodded in response to my request to call us first. The car was quiet as each of us gathered our own thoughts. I prayed for an open hotel room near the airport. It was a couple days before the Fourth of July weekend. Several of the hotels were fully booked when I checked online earlier. One or two were still open, but I couldn’t reserve a room since I didn’t know how many kids Mai had
and what kind of room she wanted.
“Do you think my husband can take money out of our bank account?” asked Mai.
“Yes, he can take money out of the account just like you,” said Blong.
“Did you take money out before you left?” I asked.
“I took out a little bit,” said Mai. “Do you think there’s a bank open now?”
“What’s your bank?” I asked.
“Wells Fargo.”
“Oh, we can stop at a machine,” said Blong. “That’s not a problem.”
“I don’t have a card.”
“Oh! How do you take money out?” I asked.
“I go in and give them my ID.”
“There’s no bank open now,” said Blong. It was about 9:30 PM.
“Oh, really?” sighed Mai.
Why had she not taken out all the money? I wondered. I didn’t know what time her husband worked, but couldn’t she have taken it out after he left for work and before the bank closed? It made me mad that she was so unprepared. I decided to change the subject.
“Mai, what time does your plane leave tomorrow?” I asked.
“Six-fifty in the morning.”
“Okay, when do you get to Sacramento?”
“Eight in the evening.”
“Really? Why is it going to take so long to get there?”
All I could think about was how Mai’s husband was going to come home in the morning and find his family gone. He was going to go straight to the bank and take out all the money. And there was nothing she could do about it.
“I don’t know. I bought the tickets through a Hmong travel agency.”
Mai’s comment reminded me of last year’s trip to Thailand, a few days before Christmas. I’d called one of the Hmong travel agencies, thinking that since they regularly booked trips to Thailand, they’d be able to give me the best deals on tickets. One of the agents told me that there were absolutely no flights to Thailand during the holidays. We had to travel later—in January, he said. “No, thanks!” I said. I found my own tickets online. Why hadn’t Mai gone online to find her own tickets? She seemed to be at the mercy of everyone, including the Hmong travel agent who sold her one-way tickets that took all day.
“Mai, have you gone to the kwv tij?” I asked, wanting to know if she’d exhausted the Hmong channels of relief.
“No, I have not.”
I was surprised by her answer. A Hmong woman who had trouble with her husband was supposed to go to the designated uncle from her husband’s side of the family, who had been assigned to help her at the traditional Hmong marriage ceremony. Instead of going to the kwv tij first, she was going straight to her neej tsa in California. It was a bold move for a Hmong woman to involve her side of the family immediately.
“My husband won’t listen to them. If he doesn’t listen to them, it’s not going to do any good.”
I nodded in agreement. “Mai, are you sure you want to divorce him?” I asked. I had to ask.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure your parents will let you divorce him? What if they force you to go back to him?”
Hmong parents did not like divorce. As if the failed marriage were their fault (they didn’t raise a good girl), they often wanted to save the marriage despite abuse or infidelity. That is why parents sometimes forced their daughters to go back to their husbands to try harder, to be more patient, to not talk back—as if it were the women’s fault their husbands cheated on them or beat them up. In my mother-in-law’s case, when my father-in-law cheated on her, she was told to “follow him, go wherever he goes,” as if this were going to stop him from cheating on her again.
“If I don’t want to come back, I don’t think they’ll force me to.”
“Okay. But you must be strong and bear through it,” I said.
Mai nodded in understanding. “I don’t care about anything else, but we have a small gas station. Can he do something with it?”
“Sure,” said Blong. “He can give it away. He can sell it. He can close it up.”
“Really?” sighed Mai.
“Mai, this is the van that will take you to the airport. It leaves every hour, so you have to be here at five o’clock in order to make your six-fifty flight, okay?” I said.
Mai and I were standing in front of the hotel doors, looking at the airport shuttle. We’d spent what seemed like the whole night looking for a room.
“Don’t forget! It’s free. You don’t have to pay for it. You tell the driver the airline, and he’ll drop you off right in the front, okay?”
Mai nodded. Blong and I decided to book the room under my name and pay for it with my credit card. That way no one could find Mai or trace her activities. She paid us in cash. We helped Mai and her kids take their luggage up to their room. Blong called the receptionist and asked for a wake-up call at 4 AM.
“Mai, Blong asked them to wake you up at four in the morning. Is that too early?” I asked.
“No, that’s okay.”
“Okay. When the phone rings, that’s them calling to wake you up.”
Mai nodded. “Thank you both so much for your help. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you. Thank you.”
“It’s nothing. It’s okay,” said Blong. He took out one of his business cards. “This is my phone number. Call if there’s anything.”
“We better give her my number since you’re going to be in court tomorrow,” I said. I took Blong’s business card and wrote my name and number on the back. I handed it to Mai. “Mai, Blong’s going to be busy tomorrow, so call me. This is my cell phone.”
“Thank you. Thank you for helping me.”
“It’s nothing. Be well. Good luck,” I said.
“Call us when you get to California,” repeated Blong.
Mai nodded.
“Get some sleep,” suggested Blong.
As we left the hotel, I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Blong and I had driven up and down I-494 looking for a room. I was sweating from getting in and out of the car, running to a hotel’s front desk, only to run back to the car and drive to the next hotel. I worried that we wouldn’t find a room. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to help. I did, but I was not prepared to have Mai and her kids stay at my house or drive them to the airport at 5 AM. That had not been part of the deal. Neither was keeping Mai’s minivan in our garage. I was not prepared to have Mai’s husband know where we lived. I didn’t want any bullets in the mail or who knew what else could happen with an angry Hmong man. We finally found a room in the last hotel on my list.
At 4:50 AM, my cell phone rang. I was tired and didn’t pick up the phone. And then I realized: it was Mai calling me! As I jumped out of bed and fumbled through my bag for the list of hotels to call her back, Blong’s cell phone rang. I picked it up.
“Aunt Mai Neng, I’m so worried,” said Mai. Her voice sounded small and far away.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I called him last night, and he didn’t pick up. Maybe I should go back home and try it later,” suggested Mai. “Please tell me what to do. What should I do?”
“Well, if you go back now, what if he’s madder at you? You’ve already spent money on the tickets to California. You’ve come this far. I think you should go to California.”
“Oh, the shuttle’s here. I have to go!”
“Oh, okay.”
“Could I keep my car at your house until I figure out what to do about it?”
“Sure, sure. Don’t worry about it. Just get on the shuttle.”
“Okay, bye.”
“Bye.”
I sat on the couch, fully awake now. I shook my head and hoped that Mai and her kids were on their way to California.
When Mai did not call after a couple days, I suggested we call Ka in Texas. Maybe Mai had called her to let her know that she’d made it to California.
“No! Who cares? She has our number. She’ll call us when she wants,” said Blong.
I wondered how he could be so nonchalant about
the whole thing. Did he really not care? But I remembered that before we married, he had helped a cousin move out of her husband’s house. His two housemates, who were from the same clan, had not helped her. They didn’t want to get in trouble. Four days after Mai left for California, Blong’s cell phone rang. I picked it up since he was still asleep.
“May I speak with Blong Yang, please?” asked a woman in Hmong.
“He’s not available right now. I’m his wife; you may speak with me.”
“I’m Mai’s older sister. She called and told me to come and get her minivan,” said the woman.
“She did?” I asked. Mai had not mentioned an older sister when I asked her if she had family in Minnesota. “Did she get to California? We never heard from her.”
“Yes, she got to California. She said she’s coming back Monday. I don’t know if it’s this Monday or next Monday. She wanted me to pick up her car.”
“Well, it can’t be today. We have some guests over.”
We had cousins from Wisconsin staying with us for the big Fourth of July soccer tournament at McMurray Field in St. Paul. This was the annual outdoor festival that brought thousands of Hmong from around the country to Minnesota. It featured Hmong teams competing in soccer, volleyball, and other sports. Vendors sold grilled food on the side of a steep hill; it was a feat to walk the length of its forty-five-degree incline.
“Maybe tomorrow? Could you call back then?”
“Sure,” said the woman.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Niam Tou,” said the woman.
It shouldn’t have surprised me that she introduced herself as “Mother” Tou, which was really Mrs. Tou or Tou’s wife. It reminded me of when I accompanied Blong to a speaking engagement in Wisconsin and a young Hmong woman introduced herself as “Niam Pheng.” I stared at her name tag, expecting something along the lines of Amy Yang or Mai Neng Moua, but instead saw “Niam Pheng.” She thought I couldn’t read Hmong.
“You know!” she said. “Pheng’s wife.”