- It's pretty good to making soup.

(gentle music) - Very few times my mom and dad have told me they love me, but I know based on how they show me and based how they feed me.

When they feed you, it's a sign of love.

(claps) My name is Johnny Kue and this is "My Take" on growing up Hmong.

The term Hmong means "free man."

I would describe it as a ethnic group.

We don't have our own country, we have our own language.

Hmong, I guess the best way I can say it is, we're not a place, we are a people.

In the Hmong tradition, a lot of our history was passed down through oral history or through tapestry.

In our culture, we call this the pandau.

This one in particular explains my family's journey exactly.

My mother and father grew up in Laos, and it was around the time the Vietnam War happened that my father was recruited to join the Vietnam War.

- [Presenter] Laos, the strategic key to Southeast Asia's richest areas.

- The United States did not know how to navigate the jungles.

And because the Hmongs were familiar with the jungles and the terrain, they were sort of like navigators in the jungles.

(subdued music) When my dad was, was first recruited into the Secret Army, he was about 15 years old.

When the US left the war, they had to fight for their lives.

They were enemies of Laos and the orders were to kill the Hmong families on site or to put them in reeducation camps.

When my family were in the concentration camp and they were slated for either reeducation or they were slated to be executed.

My sister, my oldest sister at the time, she was so skinny that she was able to get a hand untied from the ropes.

And after she got her hand free, she was able to untie my family.

They were able to escape those camps.

They decided to flee Laos.

The only way was to cross the river that was adjacent to Laos and Thailand.

There were soldiers that were guarding the rivers.

My sister, at the time, she was probably one years old, she was on my mom's back and she slipped off and my father just said that if we go back for her, that there's a chance that we all might be dead.

But my mother was able to rescue her and thankfully they were able to get across the river safely.

Eventually they did settle into Thailand where they stayed for a while until the United States offered them political refuge.

(delicate music) We lived in South Providence near the West End, about one block away from the Knight Memorial Library.

I have a really, really big family, seven siblings.

Four were born in Laos and Thailand and three of us were born in the United States.

I am the last of the seven.

I am the baby of the family.

My father was an immigration caseworker and he would help get a lot of immigrants into Rhode Island.

A lot of the folks coming in did not have a voice and there was a lot of fear for the refugees coming in for the first time.

And my father did a lot of work with community leaders to help ease those fears and to help those early refugee settlers to become a part of the community.

So the Hmong community was always tight knit.

My father told me, "If you are traveling somewhere and you're tired and it's late and you have nowhere to stay, find a phone book and you look up the last name Kue.

And you say, 'Listen, I am so-and-so's son from Rhode Island.

Is it okay if we stay at your house tonight?'"

And he said that they would open up their home for you.

And that's just the community that I've been taught.

There was definitely a time in my life where I was trying to suppress like who I was because I was trying to fit in.

But as I got older, I realized how important my culture was and I realized how important I need to pass this on to my son.

It became evident that, you know, everything that my family has done to raise me the right way is because of our Hmong values.

(family chattering lightly) (mom laughs) (claps) My name is Johnny Kue and this was my take on growing up Hmong.