May Lor Xiong For Congress
By Roger Chamberlain
At the height of the Vietnam War farmers became warriors. The Hmong people of Laos were thrust into the war to push back Vietnamese communist forces to remove a foreign invader from their relatively peaceful lives. The Hmong joined with the CIA and US military forces during a phase in the war where some of the fiercest fighting took place along the Laos -Vietnam border. The agrarian Hmong people harassed the communist forces through ambushes, intelligence gathering, and rescuing downed American pilots. They played a vital role in the war effort. This war is where my story begins.
My father, at the age of 15 years old, fought on the side of freedom. He saw America, a place he has never known, as the defenders of freedom. This value was the foundation of my family.
As the war started to wind down the Hmong people found themselves targeted by communist forces. They were forced to leave their land and elude constant harassment and direct fire while fleeing to safety in neighboring counties. My mother was 7 months pregnant with me when she endured starvation, sleep deprivation, jungle conditions, mortar and gunfire while fighting for the survival of her family until she reached safety in Thailand.
Many Hmong people came through Thailand’s refugee camps in the years and decades that followed. I was born and spent the first eight years of my life surviving in one of these camps before coming to Minnesota with my family.
“I clearly remember the evening when my uncle and relatives came to welcome us at the airport. As they drove us home, the street and traffic lights shined everywhere, and I thought to myself with my hand reaching for the lights, “This must be heaven. Stars are everywhere and so close you can almost touch them!’ Well, we all know that this isn’t heaven, but it is what Ronald Reagan called it: ‘the shining city on a hill.’”
My parents found themselves in St. Paul. That is where they raised their family, where I grew up. Like many before us, we struggled, worked hard and but found peace and success. I went from an immigrant not speaking English, to an American citizen teaching it. There is no better place in the world than America.
I earned a master’s degree in education from Concordia University. For the past 20 years, I have dedicated myself to teaching English to immigrant students in the St. Paul Public School District, enabling them to pursue their own American dreams.
This country has given me endless opportunities to be successful, to live the American dream, and raise four children. I am also a military mom; my two sons served in the US. Military, volunteering to defend this country.
Sadly, I see the American Dream, kids and families under attack and hard-working people are being left behind. Hundreds of billions have been spent of foreign wars while our southern border is being invaded claiming tens of thousands of American lives. At the same time our current Congresswoman has been standing on the sidelines, sowing seeds of hate and division while serving the elites and powerful. She has forgotten who she serves.
I can no longer stand by and watch the decline and allow the good people of district four and America to be taken for granted and continue to lose and suffer. That’s why I am running for Congress—to restore and protect our American Dream and represent all the people of District four and not just the powerful and elite.
It is our time to take a seat at the table in Washington DC, to show this great country and our community we have, and always will, fight for freedom, opportunity, and our American Dreams.
For too long politicians have told us what they know versus working with us to tell them what is needed to let us continue to pursue our American Dreams. Our Congresswoman has forgotten about the people of Ramsey and Washington County, she has forgotten about the Hmong people. Although she loves to support giving free trade to communist countries like Laos. A country that continues to oppress and kill Hmong people.
We have not changed but the politicians have. I want to serve our people and the people of Washington and Ramsey County in Washington DC because my only agenda is You. I am a humble proud mother of four amazing children, whom two followed the family tradition, and are currently serving our country in the armed forces. I am an immigrant that knows what communism and its cousin socialism does to people’s dreams. It puts the power in the hands of special interests and destroys those who get in its way. When elected to Congress, I know the history of our people will be with me every day during my service – they will be in my heart and in my head. I will never forget the many who sacrificed everything to make it to America and have embraced a nation that needs to know us as people.
I ask for your support in the months ahead as we fight to November. Like so many things in this life, things change, and we need to change with it. Our situation has changed- rising cost of food, energy, safety and education have tested leaders and our current Congresswoman has not risen to the challenge of our troubled times. Washington has changed her and it’s time we make a change in Washington.
I will fight for your American Dreams and America will know our culture, values, history and our people when we take our seat at the table. Join me as we continue our fight for freedom like our fathers before us.
