Hmong Cultural Center Awarded Grant Support For Archival Work
By Kim Yang
The Hmong Cultural Center Museum and Library has been awarded a $100,000 Community-Based Archives grant from the Mellon Foundation. Over the next two years, the grant will support the enhancing of archival work in the Hmong Cultural Center Museum and Library.
Specific projects to be supported by the grant will include: Updating and improving HCC’s filing system for its Hmong newspaper, periodical and journal article collections with newer, updated, accessible and expanded storage resources as well as building a new and more modern library website while also vastly improving and updating HCC’s virtual library which has extensive resources including abstracts and links to hundreds of Hmong related research resources including online dissertations and theses as well as research reports.
Dr. Mark Pfeifer, Director of Programs at Hmong Cultural Center stated, “Hmong Cultural Center possesses likely the largest collections of local Hmong newspapers, Hmong-related peer-reviewed journal articles and doctoral dissertations in the United States. This funding support from the Mellon Foundation will help us modernize and enhance the user experience of both our in-person and online library visitors and enable us to serve many more people annually looking for unique resources on local Hmong history as well as research resources related to the Hmong experience across the U.S. and the Hmong diaspora more generally enabling us to better achieve our organizational mission of building cross- cultural understanding between Hmong and non-Hmong.”
Txongpao Lee, Executive Director of Hmong Cultural Center stated, “We are very grateful to the Mellon Foundation for providing this important financial support that will allow us to further strengthen the research capacity of our museum and library and to continue to strengthen our growing community-based archival resources that teach about the Hmong experience in Minnesota, throughout the United States and the entire Hmong diaspora.”
University Of Minnesota College Of Liberal Arts Supports Hmong Newspaper Digital Archives At Hmong Cultural Center Museum And Library
A recent partnership between the University of Minnesota’s College of Liberal Arts Engagement Hub and the Hmong Cultural Center has supported the digitizing of the center’s entire archival collections of Minnesota-based Hmong newspapers for public access for on-site patrons visiting Hmong Cultural Center’s Museum and Library. All newspaper issues in this archival collection may now be accessed in PDF file format and the collection is searchable. The Hmong Newspaper collection includes Hmong Free Press – Mid-to-late 1990s, Hmong Times – 1998 (first issue) to Present, Hmong Tribune – 1999 and 2000, Hmong Today – 2004 (first issue) to 2023 and Hmong Pages – 2010 (first issue) – 2020.
Images courtesy Hmong Cultural Center.
