Hmong-American women form PAC to wield political clout

A new Minnesota political action committee led by Hmong-American women is getting ready to endorse about 25 candidates in state and local races.

The new group goes by the name Maiv-PAC (pronounced MY-pac). In the Hmong language, the word Maiv is like saying beloved or darling in front of a person's name. Over the summer, a handful of Hmong women decided the word was a perfect way to name their political action committee.

"We were focusing all of our time in helping candidates get elected," said Kaohly Her, a longtime organizer in the Hmong-American community. "What we didn't realize was that there were so many pieces that needed to fall into place, in order to move issues and agendas forward. Having somebody in place to just represent you, and physically looking like they're representing you, wasn't enough."

She invited friends over to her St. Paul home for an evening that became the first gathering of Maiv-PAC.

"We have women who have been appointed by the president to important councils," she said. "We have people leading at education levels ... we have people in places that can provide the economic resources, but they can also provide the industry knowledge that they're a part of, that really informs the work we're doing, so now is the right time."

Minnesota's first Hmong family arrived from Laos more than four decades ago. Today, Hmong Americans make up the largest Asian ethnic group in the state, numbering nearly 70,000 as of last year. According to the Minnesota State Demographic Center, an estimated 30 percent of Hmong are not working. That's a problem, say the founders of Maiv-PAC.

"We want to hold everyone accountable," said KaYing Yang, another founder, because even after 40 years in the United States "pockets of our community are still struggling."

"And that's not acceptable," she said. "In our social justice movement, we want to be able to use the tools and the know-how to really engage our community so that we can advocate for ourselves, in a way that will help our community in the next 40 years."

Yang, a former executive director of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, helped resettle the third wave of refugees in Minnesota a decade ago.

"When we look at aggregated data for Asian-Americans, it appears as if Asian-Americans are doing very well," she said. "But when we dis-aggregate the data, Southeast Asians, and in particular Hmong, are not doing so well, because large numbers of our students are still identified as limited-English-proficient.

"When we hear about that valedictorian who happens to be Hmong or Asian, we're always thinking that everyone is like that, but that is an exception. It is not the norm."

Since August, the independent, nonpartisan group has grown from a handful of entrepreneurs and artists to more than 120 Twin Cities women.

"They are definitely groundbreakers in doing something like this," said Christina Ewig, director of the Center on Women, Gender and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs. "To have a PAC coming from this community is especially significant, and shows a good amount of political savvy on the part of these women who are involved."

Another reason it's significant, she said, is that the PAC's formation runs contrary to the traditional Hmong view of gender relations.

The creation of a PAC attuned to the interests of the Hmong-American community is a sign that immigrant and refugee communities are maturing, according to Mark Hugo Lopez, director of Hispanic research at the Pew Research Center.

"I think as immigration continues from Asia, and continues from Latin America, and as the U.S. Hispanic population grows, you're going to see the influence of both of these electorates rise over the course of the next few decades," he said.

Correction (Oct. 5, 2016): An earlier version of this story stated the incorrect wave of refugees KaYing Yang helped resettle. This post has been updated.