By Jon Vang, Saint Paul

Growing up, my family moved around a lot. After the refugee camps, my parents landed in Michigan. We moved to MN to be with other family members. I wasn’t able to build childhood friends because I moved so often. When I was a teenager, I was riding around town on my stolen bikes and learning how to ride a city bus. A lot of my friends were in the public housing projects in St. Paul. Seeing them there, we were all pretty poor, but we didn’t realize it and didn’t see too much stuff. Our parents worked multiple jobs and we didn’t see them too much.Soon we got bored with staying at home.

So we hung out at the parks and the police would harass us and take pictures of us. They’d say, “Put your hands up. Stand together.” Some were kind, and some weren’t so kind and then we would get searched. As time went by, I grew into a system where interactions with police were normal. At 15, I got into trouble with shoplifting and hopping into stolen cars with my friends. Then it progressed to drugs, alcohol, and fights with gang members.

By age 23, I got called to a fight that escalated into the death of a young man. I was incarcerated in the state prison for 8 years for second-degree murder. It felt surreal, but I had made my mistake. Being in the prison community was where I found that this fight and the hatred between people on the streets were different when we were incarcerated together. We were supportive of each other inside the prison. If we had one packet of noodles, we would share it with each other. It reminded me of some of the stories my parents told me about refugee camps. They had to support each other to survive because they didn’t have much. I finally felt it. I saw Lao, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Hmong folks in prison and we grew together. While I still had friends who went to bars, clubs and got married; I was in prison working for 25₵ per hour.

“What did you do to get in here?”

I remember seeing an old Hmong man in prison. He didn’t understand the English language and he didn’t understand his paperwork and wanted my help to translate it for him. I tried my best to help him, but when he got to the courtroom, the prosecutor had promised him that if he pleads guilty, he could go home. They didn’t provide enough resources and help for him. After the hearing, he said, “Son, please help explain this to me.” It was then that I saw what he had agreed to. He was already old, and I knew that for the rest of his life, he and others like him would be trapped into this system. Many of the Asian men in prison were men who also committed crimes when they were younger, like me. During my time in prison, I found my own identity by reading books about my people and where we came from. Coming home after my release, my family was supportive. I know other communities rarely get that kind of support. There weren’t many other resources for incarcerated Hmong men, let alone Asian men. I found help from the African American community in North Minneapolis at Emerge Community Development. They helped me put my resume together and were my first employer because I couldn’t find a job.

In Fall of 2017, I was nominated by Headwaters Foundation as an Unsung Hero with the McKnight Foundation. A couple of my colleagues interviewed and shared stories about me. It felt good to finally show my parents that I’m doing good work and getting recognition for working with my communities that healed me. As a kid, my mom used to always say, “Be wary of people, like Black people and Vietnamese people. They might do something to you.” It wasn’t until I was older and in prison that I learned what mom said was not true. I learned that my answers didn’t always come from Hmong people. It came from the White, Lao, Vietnamese, and Black people that surrounded me. I had to see beyond my Hmong circle. It was eye-opening. It helped me grow to where I am today.

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