In Solidarity with the Farmers
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Jenny Li
A Chinese immigrant and daughter of restaurant owners, Jenny has always had a deep love and appreciation of food, family, and community. She understands first-hand the struggles that many emerging Black and Brown farmers face: overcoming English language skill barrieris, cultivating and maintaining a customer base, and navigating intergenerational responsibilities and obligations.
Jenny lends us her knowledge in financial auditing and small business know-how to help Friendly Hmong Farms build and hone our financial reporting system so that we can meet our commitment to community accountability and organizational development.
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Friendly Vang-Johnson
Friendly manages Friendly Hmong Farms, leveraging her 20+ years of experience in social justice work. Her understanding of the intersection between food sovereignty, land reparations, and racial justice was shaped by a childhood growing up in the Frogtown neighborhood, farming in the summers, and at the markets with her mom and grandmothers in Minnesota. She holds a master’s degree in public policy.
She sees her participation in Friendly Hmong Farms as the culmination of her activism as an advocate and community organizer. She is a mom of four and an auntie to eight others. Check out this King 5 Evening News profile or this South Seattle Emerald article on her work building Friendly Hmong Farms.
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Chakrya Lim
Chakrya Lim is a Cambodian-American web designer based in Seattle, Washington, who enjoys working with organizations that give back to their communities.
Chakrya and her family immigrated to the United States in the 80’s as refugees after surviving the Khmer Rouge. As an immigrant herself, she saw working with Friendly Hmong Farms as a meaningful project she is proud to be a part of.
Visit her website, www.chakryalim.com, or find her on Instagram (@chakrya) and LinkedIn.
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Katie M. Simmons
Katie Simmons is a professional photographer and community organizer who lent her expertise to help a fledging Friendly Hmong Farms get our bearings. Early on, as a key volunteer with the Hmong Association with WA, she galvanized her Ravenna neighborhood to host flower pickup and delivery, as well as, helped document our movement through photography. She has counseled us in our advocacy for farmers and pursuit of land acquisition for Black and Brown farmers. Through her efforts, we were able to connect with and make numerous donations of food and flowers in the community, including to Crisis Connections and Youthcare. Learn more about her at https://katiemsimmons.com/
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Fiona Lee
Fiona is a first generation San Francisco native and former educator. She volunteers with Friendly Hmong Farms as our Columbia City host, because she is passionate for food sovereignty, sustainability, and giving back to BIPOC communities. She is proud to support the Hmong farming community and grateful for the opportunity to spread joy with their beautiful flowers and produce.
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Cindy Vang
Cindy handles bookkeeping for Friendly Hmong Farms. Her interest in helping Hmong and other local farmers stems has deep roots. As the granddaughter of arguably the first Hmong people to farm in the United States, she recognizes the barriers that language and culture can present to the success of Hmong farming families. She makes her home in Minnesota where the second largest community of Hmong-Americans currently resides.
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Gia Montgomery
Gia hails from Mississippi and joins Friendly Hmong Farms as our 2022 college summer intern. Her background includes food sovereignty work and youth development. She is majoring in neuroscience at Macalester College and passionate about eliminating racial health disparities. Pay attention and you'll see her in both Minnesota and Seattle, WA, helping at our pickup sites, managing our social media, and coordinating food giveaways. Welcome, Gia!
Covid Response & Community Solidarity
Our CSA grew out of a grassroots volunteer effort to assist local Hmong farmers during the COVID-19 pandemic. When farmers markets shut down alongside many other local businesses in 2020, our farmers lost all access to their customers. Lacking strong English language skills, internet savvy, and simply time, they could not effectively identify and pursue alternative sales avenues. As essential workers living in multi-generational households, they worried about their livelihoods and families' health.
As 2020 progressed, our families, along with many Asian Pacific Islander communities, experienced rising anti-Asian sentiment and bigotry, which was exacerbated by those who scapegoated Asians instead of addressing the rising health and economic crises. Our experiences stood alongside mass calls for equity and justice that reverberated throughout the nation with the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless other Black, Indigenous, and Brown lives. The events of 2020 underscored the need for community solidarity to protect and sustain all vulnerable populations, Tribes, and other people of color (BIPOC).
In response, we created and managed a network of volunteers and sites that spanned from Seattle to Edmonds to Bellevue to promote the sales of our farmers’ bouquets and veggie boxes. Our efforts helped more than 12 Hmong farming families stay afloat; financially supported the Hmong Association of Washington’s youth and leadership programs, the Ballard Food Bank, and Black Lives Matter - King County; and generously gifted food and flowers to numerous nonprofits, mutual aid groups, hospitals, and essential and front-line workers.
With the goodwill and commitment of friends, family, and all those who continue to stand in solidarity with us, we are evolving and elevating the work into 2022.
Hmong History & Overview
The Hmong (pronounced muhng) are an ethnic minority from various parts of Southeast Asia. In our language, “Hmong” means to free people. The Hmong first began migrating to the U.S. as refugees from Laos and Thailand in the 1970s to 1980s after the Vietnam War. When the Vietnam War spread into Laos, the U.S. government recruited many Hmong farmers to fight alongside them. The Hmong people suffered heavy casualties, dying at a rate ten times as high as that of American soldiers in Vietnam. Before the war, between 300,000 and 400,000 Hmong lived in Laos. Over 150,000 Hmong have fled Laos since 1975.
Forcibly displaced from our villages - many of which had been in existence for thousands of years in the mountainous highlands between Laos and Thailand - the Hmong became refugees in their own country. After the signing of the Vientiane Agreement in 1973 that marked a cease-fire in Laos and formalized the withdrawal of U.S. forces in the region, the government of Laos declared the Hmong enemies of the state. Fearing retribution and famine, many Hmong chose to migrate to Thailand on foot. Along the way they endured starvation and disease; many drowned crossing the Mekong River. Thousands of Hmong still live in refugee camps in Thailand or remain in hiding in Laos. Human rights reports show the Hmong still face persecution in communist Laos, and many who return have disappeared or are reportedly in reeducation camps.
More than 100,000 Hmong refugees have resettled in the U.S. through sponsorship and aid programs since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. The 2010 census shows over 2,000 Hmong live in Washington state, mostly in King County. But, like many other migrant and immigrant communities in the U.S., Hmong experts believe the population is significantly undercounted.
With few industries and job opportunities open to them due to cultural, economic, and language barriers, many Hmong families have relied on their agricultural heritage to make a living. Approximately 100 Hmong families farm in the rural valleys east of Seattle. Most grow flowers and vegetables on a few acres of land that few own. In addition to the land access and ownership challenges, Hmong farmers continue to face financial, educational, and cultural barriers that inhibit the success of their family businesses.
The Hmong have endured and persevered through these atrocities and barriers. The splendor of the iconic flowers you have enjoyed for years at Pike Place Market and local farmers markets are predominantly grown and assembed by Hmong farmers. Spurred by generations of agrarian ancestors, our hands have produced these magnificent bouquets and the delicious produce you and your families have delighted in. With your support, may Hmong farmers continue for another millenia in the Seattle area.