More than a Pretty Cloth: Teaching Hmong History and Culture through Textile Art

Abstract

This article describes one teacher educator's efforts to learn about Hmong culture and history through a study of textile arts and women who created it and use the textile arts to teach preservice teachers in a social studies methods course about this culture. The students responded positively to learning about Hmong culture and history through paj ntaub, reflecting the possibilities of this medium as a teaching tool. Textile arts, decoratively stitched fabrics often created by women, provide a valuable, but often overlooked resource for inquiring into and learning about a culture. Hmong paj ntaub is a complex form of textile art which decorated clothing and identified the wearer's Hmong subgroup when the Hmong lived in Laos. The textile art on baby carriers and burial clothing reflected Hmong religious beliefs. When the Hmong fled to Thailand as refugees, their economic survival became dependent on the creation of marketable textile arts which led to changes in designs, colors, products, and the type of textile art produced. A new form of textile art, story cloths portraying aspects of Hmong culture and history, was developed and sold by textile artists in Thailand. As recent immigrants to the United States, the Hmong create paj ntaub to preserve their culture through sewing special clothing and celebrating the Hmong New Year.