Hmong Cultural Center 2024 Year In Review
By Mark Pfeifer
2024 was a very eventful year at the Hmong Cultural Center. They take a look back at some of their highlights from 2024.
The Largest Qeej And Hmong Arts Festival To Date
In 2024, HCC held its largest Qeej and Hmong Arts Festival to date. At the end of May, we brought our Hmong traditional arts festival, possibly the only festival of its kind in the United States, to a larger venue, the St. Paul River Centre. More than 2,200 persons attended a day-long celebration of the Qeej instrument and Hmong music and arts and crafts vendors, showcasing Hmong Cultural Center’s heritage as the primary Hmong folk arts organization in Minnesota.
ABE Program Serves More Than 200 Students
Our Adult Basic Education (ABE) programs served 217 students in 2024. This included 120 ESL students and 103 Citizenship students. Some students enroll in both ESL and Citizenship classes. We served many Hmong newcomers from Vietnam and Laos over the course of the year as well as other immigrants and refugees from throughout the world. Our Citizenship program is one of the largest Citizenship programs in the Twin Cities metro and provides important help to assist students to improve their English and study American Civics so that they can pass the U.S. Naturalization exam. The photo shows ESL and Citizenship students with MN State Rep. Liz Lee in the Minnesota House Chambers on a field trip in May 2024.
Hmong Cultural Center Museum Capital Improvements And Expansion
In early 2024, with the assistance of a State of Minnesota Legacy grant, the Hmong Cultural Center Museum expanded with the addition of another 800 square feet of storefront space, enlarging our main museum exhibit areas on University Avenue at Western to 2,000 square feet of public exhibits. We also added track lighting in all exhibit areas. In the summer of 2024, with the help of grant funds from the Freeman Foundation, a door was added connecting our storefront museum spaces to a building elevator and our upstairs library, additional exhibit space, classrooms and offices.
Hmong Cultural Center Museum Serves More Than 2,000 Visitors
The Hmong Cultural Center Museum served 2,026 visitors in 2024. This total was an all-time high for the museum, up from the previous high of 1,409 visitors in 2023. More than 60 schools, youth groups and other organizations toured the museum over the course of the year. These visiting schools and groups came from not only St. Paul and the Twin Cities Metro but also greater Minnesota and Western Wisconsin.
The Hmong Cultural Center Museum is the only Hmong museum with its own physical space featuring permanent exhibits in Minnesota and is one of only a handful of Asian American museums in the Upper Midwest of the United States. A visiting youth group from First Congregational Church in Eau Claire, Wisconsin is featured in the photo from June 2024.
Happy New Year From The Hmong Cultural Center!
Hmong Cultural Center thanks you for your support in 2024. We look forward to serving the community in 2025!
Images courtesy Hmong Cultural Center.
