Inside Hmong Cornhole, the largest cornhole club in Minnesota
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It’s Monday night at the National Guard Armory in northeast Minneapolis, which means it’s time for Hmong Cornhole.
A few dozen folks throw little bean bags into holes in rows of glossy wooden boards. They chat and fist bump and update scores on digital tablets. Kids occasionally run weaving through the boards, sometimes squirreling away bags from their parents.
This definitely has strengthened our community.
- Dia Lee
“Picturing my life without cornhole before this,” Dia Lee says, “I didn’t know any of these people. I didn’t know anybody from this club or in this Hmong cornhole community, so this definitely has strengthened our community.”
Lee started playing two years ago and is now one of the top players in the state, along with her husband, Houa Xiong.
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“You always need somewhere to feel like, ‘Oh, this is my house.’ Where you’re comfortable and where you’re used to playing every week,” Houa Xiong says of the Hmong Cornhole club. “I think it’s important because you want to belong somewhere.”
A handful of cornhole players in the Twin Cities Hmong community — Alan Lee, Kou Xiong, Sue Moua, Ger Vang and Toua Xiong — started the club on Labor Day in 2021. With about 120 players, Hmong Cornhole is now the largest cornhole club in the state.
Many of the club members clock at least 15 hours a week playing cornhole. Hmong Cornhole hosts weekly events, fundraisers and raffles, both at the Minneapolis armory, as well as the one in St. Paul near the capitol.
Sometimes they play at Unison, a Southeast Asian restaurant in Maplewood. On Memorial Day, they will host a tournament at Kingston Park in Cottage Grove for the 4th annual Hmong Memorial Sports Fest and Street Fair. Another tournament will be June 29-30 at the Hmong International Freedom Festival — what Alan Lee calls the “Hmong Olympics.”
“It’s crazy how it came to be,” co-founder Toua Xiong says. “We never thought that we would take it this far.”
The reach goes beyond Minnesota, too.
“It really started off as just a little tiny gathering of individuals that suddenly sparked a nationwide growth in the Hmong community,” says co-founder Alan Lee.
Alan Lee says after they founded their club, other Hmong Cornhole groups popped up in Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Oklahoma, California and the Carolinas — all states with large Hmong populations.
“For the community to boom like that in such a short time is phenomenal,” Alan Lee says.
Alan Lee says they started a club so the Hmong community could compete on an even playing field as cornhole is a predominantly white sport.
“Genetically speaking, we’re not as tall, we’re not as fast, we’re not built,” Alan Lee says.
Dia Lee and Houa Xiong say the Hmong community is very competitive. Many Hmong Cornhole players say the sport took off in the Hmong community because it’s a mental game first: Success relies on technique, strategy and repetition.
Alan Lee says they soon learned that it was already an even playing field.
“When we actually started playing, we go, ‘Nah, it’s not a race thing, it’s not a genetic thing,’” Alan Lee recalls. “Anybody could play, anybody could win in this game. All because you have longer arms, that doesn’t make you a better player, all because you’re taller, that doesn’t make you a better player.”
So Hmong Cornhole opened up and welcomed everyone to play, no matter their background. And players from all over the state flocked in, wanting to play with them.
“The Hmong community felt empowered by everybody else that has been playing for so long, that all of a sudden it just spread,” Alan Lee says.
Jim Bruce, who is not Hmong, is one of the folks who wanted to play with the Hmong Cornhole club. Alan Lee calls him the “OG of Cornhole.” Bruce has been playing for 14 years.
“They have raised the bar exponentially for all of us that have been playing for a long time,” Bruce says. “The majority of their high-level players are in the top 5 percent of all the players in Minnesota now.”
Bruce says it’s been a boon to the community.
“I feel like I’ve known them for years,” Bruce says. ”We just have a common bond of, you know, cornhole.”
At the armories, Bruce says there are always kids running around, spouses checking in, and support for community businesses whether through fundraisers or popups.
We just have a common bond of, you know, cornhole.
- Jim Bruce
Alan Lee says they play at the armories because he’s a Chief Warrant Officer 2 with the National Guard, where he’s served for 20 years, so he was able to secure the space. Lee was first introduced to cornhole by a roommate in 2007 during his first deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
“We played overseas so much that when I got home, I actually went and bought a $40 set from Target,” Alan Lee says.
“The Minneapolis armory has a lot of history with the Hmong community as well,” he adds. In the Nineties, he says this was the site where many Hmong Minnesotans, including himself, came to pick up gifts from Toys for Tots.
“A lot of the members from Hmong Cornhole really love the fact that this has come full circle of like childhood, hanging out here, now to actually throwing bags here,” he says.
At the St. Paul armory on Friday night, May 10, the club is hosting a fundraiser for a member of the local Hmong community, Dani Adele, who is competing for the 2024 Miss Minnesota USA. The vendor Yaoson is selling what they describe as a “Hmong salsa” with whole pickles in it.
Dia Lee, who is now one of the club administrators, is throwing bags. Cornhole, she says, has strengthened ties between the Hmong community and greater community, too.
“It expands your horizon, definitely,” she says. “I would have never imagined myself going to so many bars or VFWs, or just so many cornhole tournaments that I would have never been to and interacting with so many people and creating new relationships.”
Dia Lee encourages everyone to come play with them.
“You don’t have to be Hmong to be part of our family, we’re accepting of everybody,” Dia Lee says.” The Minnesota cornhole community in general — It’s a great community.”
Correction (May 24, 2024): An earlier version of the story had an incorrect date. The article has been updated.
