GROWING UP

Lisa Yang

"When I was three, I remember having really horrible stomach pains. It kept getting worse to the point where I
couldn't stand. My mom took me to the hospital several times when I would ache in pain and the doctors
would just give me pain relievers and send us home. Finally it got really really bad, to the point where I was
unconscious. My family was scared for the month I was out. I can vaguely remember the moment I fell in
my house out of pain, and even the uncomfortable tubes up my nose in the hospital.
Now, I keep thinking about how so many people who got appendicitis, which was what I had, didn't end up in
such a serious state like I did. Was this malpractice? Was it because as a HMoob family, we were not a
priority? Did they not take my parents' broken English seriously? Would my family have been able to say
anything if they knew it was malpractice in the moment and have the means to fight against the hospital?
When I think about the way my mom is now, I can't help think it was moments like this, interacting with
systems that did not take her seriously, which contributed to her hypervigilance like saving all her
documents and receipts, or not trusting services."

Janessa Thao

"This picture is part of my HMoob experience. When I was a kid, my grandma used to dress me up in HMoob
clothes all the time and my parents would take pictures of me. And as usual, I wore a lot of pink HMoob
clothes because pink was my favorite color. Even though in the past couple of years I haven’t worn HMoob
clothes a lot, recently I’ve been appreciating my identity as a HMoob womxn and I’ve been trying to wear
HMoob clothes as often as I can."

Tshuaj Xyooj

“At least in my classmates back then in high school...they kind of knew what they wanted already, like their parents would kind of like tell them, “oh okay this company, this kind of jobs out there,” and it’s kind of us to just like go to school and then like oh yea by second year of school you should know your major is. And I’m like “oh, I don't know.” and that’s why I dropped out my second year of school.”