Abstract:

"This 58-minute video tells the story of two senior musicians from Laos who play instruments and sing for a variety of American audiences, adapting their presentations for Hmong and non-Hmong of all ages. Footage of Hmong New Year festivals and courtship dialog songs from Rhode Island, Fresno, San Diego, Santa Ana, and Laos are woven into the first-person narrative by UCLA etnomusicologist Amy Catlin, Ph.D., as well as Lao lamleuang folk opera, Lao mohlam, classrooms, and a TV sitcom representation. The General Documentary Edition contains scenes from a funeral in California, omitted in the Hmong Home Edition for religious reasons. A musical and social history of the Hmong from China to Laos to America unfolds using Hmong drawings and embroideries, archival photos, maps, subtitled song texts, interviews, and Hmong 'thought-songs' demonstrated on free-reed pipes, mouth organs, jew's harps, banana leaves, flutes and fiddles. The story concludes by returning to the deceased musician's children and grandchildren after an eleven year hiatus, to give them copies of the original footage. They reflect on their experience of 'generation loss' in Hmong music and culture, expressing their hope that Hmong music will continue in America."