Nyob zoo xyoo tshiab! Happy Hmong New Year. The sounds of jingling coins, tonal chatter, and music from Southeast Asia signal the end of the harvest season and the beginning of a new year.
My name is Tori Hong. I create art that shapes, challenges, and speculates a queered Asian American identity. I began as a self-trained illustrator creating protest images, political zines, and community art spaces. Today I create under the studio name Ntxoo Art. This reclaims the name I share with my mother and sister: Ntxoo (pronounced “un-Zong”). It means “shade” or “shadow.”
My mom once specified, “Ntxoo is the shade of a tree on your hand on a hot, sunny day.” Hmong American shaman Billy Lor taught me that ntxoo is also a spiritual item: a branch with leaves, casting protection under its sunshade.
The Hmong (pronounced “muhng”) live in semi-nomadic farming villages and are indigenous to central China. For centuries, the Hmong have been violently removed from their lands by imperial, colonizing forces. My mom’s family arrived in the United States as refugees of the U.S.’ Secret War in Laos. I was born on Dakota land, in Minnesota. And we continue to see imperialist forces displacing Indigenous and communities of color – from Palestine to Sudan to Chinatown.
Every year as the seasons shift from fall to winter, Hmong New Year is celebrated around the world. There’s food, shopping, performances, competitions, spiritual ceremonies, and the possibility of romance. In Minnesota, the Hmong New Year coincides with Thanksgiving – a national holiday celebrating the genocide of Indigenous people of Turtle Island.
As I celebrate Hmong New Year, I commit myself to decolonization, indigenous futurity, and the end of nation-states. I support Palestinian liberation, ethnic sovereignty in Myanmar, and the Land Back movement. Creating in diaspora, my art embraces my queerness and cultures in hopes of resisting colonization.
- In “Decolonization is for Everyone”, Nikki Sanchez defines colonization and what we must do to decolonize.
- Through photography, Pao Houa Her explores intangible homelands and personal illusions.
- Hmong embroidery – paj ntaub – holds history, relationships, community, and inner peace.
- This poem by 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo (Muscogee Nation) brings out the lover in me.
As I honor this Hmong New Year, I thank my ancestors and reflect on my land-based relationships… Who is indigenous to these lands? What made it possible for me to live here? And what can I (continue to) do to disrupt colonization at a collective and personal level?
Through my art practice, I honor my name and namesakes: Ntxoo. Shadow work, protective work, spiritual work – for my loved ones, my ancestors, our future ancestors, and myself.
In solidarity,
- Tori + Irma, Turner, Sharmin, Kari, Leyen, Allison, Brenda, and Van – the 18MR Team
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