On Nov. 14, Traditions changed and shifted as members of Stockton’s Hmong community once again gathered at the San Joaquin County fairgrounds to celebrate the Hmong New Year.
Hmong New Year is typically held sometime between November and January, often aligning with the end of the annual harvest. It’s traditionally celebrated with offerings made to family spirits as well as large communal meals.
According to historical data, the Hmong people originate from riverfront regions in China and parts of southeast Asia, with subgroups within the Hmong diaspora. Regional conflicts led many Hmong people to leave for other parts of the continent, including the region now known as the country of Laos.
Later in the 20th century, turmoil in that region spurred further immigration, with many Hmongs choosing to reside in the United States. Currently, San Joaquin County alone has more than 7,000 residents of Hmong descent.
For some local residents, including members of San Joaquin Delta College’s E.P.I.C (Empowering Positive Initiative for Change) club, the celebration in Stockton has been a constant fixture in their lives.
“I think the youngest I could remember was around the age of 4 or 5,” said Brian Thao, who has been attending the event since 2012.
“I remember coming to Hmong New Year starting around like sixth grade to seventh grade,” said Violet Her, another member of Thao’s club.
Thao noted that the celebration had changed since he began attending.
“There was a period where it shrank, and now I feel like it is starting to expand more now,” said Thao.
The increase in festival attendance has led to several volleyball courts being added to the event, where members of the community were constantly playing throughout the event. The popularity of volleyball in the community was somewhat inexplicable to members of the community.
“It kind of came out of nowhere,” said Her, who noted that the rise in popularity was fairly recent. “My dad’s generation was not playing volleyball.”
The volleyball boom has not been limited to Stockton’s Hmong community; Tillyen Moua, who was visiting from Sacramento to play with his team Khob Noom, was uncertain as to why the sport was so popular around the region. However, he had seen its growth firsthand.
“I know in Sacramento we have a lot more courts this year,” said Moua. “I believe we went from five courts to ten.”
While volleyball participation was on the rise, attendees said, some traditions were instead fading, like Pov Pob, a traditional Hmong courtship game. In this game (the name translates to “ball toss”), boys and girls form two separate groups, and the girls toss a ball to the boys they like.
Some noted that in recent years, it felt like the ball toss was less and less common. For Kevin Zong, Hmong New Year didn’t feel quite the same without the ball toss. Zong argued that the people came dressed up, walked around and ate, but without the ball toss, it was lacking something.
“Right now it is not what they call actual new year,” said Zong. “They just use the name of the New Year but it’s more like a festival.”
Zong argued that younger members of the community were simply not interested in the culture anymore.
An alternate explanation offered by Thao was that most members of the community were already paired off.
“I think it just has to do with the fact that everyone’s already coupled up,” said Thao.
Beyond the games on tap, the festival served at an introduction to Hmong culture for attendees like Angela Hairston, who went to watch her sister take part in a dance performance.
“All of the cultural outfits are beautiful,” said Hairston, observing the vibrantly-colored traditional clothing that many attendees wore.
In the past, such dress was very keyed into cultural background with different dialects having different traditional dress. However, in the present, the lines have been blurred.
“I think nowadays people don’t really care about what style they’re wearing. But back then, it used to be a way to differentiate what dialect you were grouped in,” said Thao.