Photo to teach Hmong kids in Wisconsin

The Ferry at Thaduea, Xaiyabouli Province

The other day I got this eamail saying someone wanted permission to use a photo from my blog in making a lesson plan for teachers to use for kids grade 4 to 12 in Wisconsin. Below is the eamail and link to the teaching materials.

Needless to say I'm totaly phyched to think that some Hmong kid is going to be viewing my photo and learning something about the land his grandparents left so many years ago.

I've no idea why that photo. It is of the same rough geographic location where the Hmong flee to Thailand. If one follows the mountains across from Phonsavan, Plain of Jars, headed for Thailand that is the route you take. Us tourists take busses, but the Hmong walk, and they walk in areas to avoid notice. I'd think even to this day it is the route of choice for Hmong leaving Laos.

The Mekong swings far into Laos in Xayabouli, crossing the river doesn't mean the journey is over but it does mean that one would have even less chance to encounter soldiers.

Hello, My name is &&&&& &&&&&&. I am
a University of Wisconsin—Eau Claire masters student currently working on the
“Making Americans, Making America” (MAMA) project, a UWEC administered
educational program designed to enhance Wisconsin’s history courses (grades
4-12). As part of the program, MAMA creates free graduate history courses for WI
educators. In return, MAMA fellows are asked to utilize the knowledge and skills
they acquire from the courses by creating effective lesson plans to be
implemented in the classroom. In hopes of providing Wisconsin educators with a
valuable teaching resource, the University would like to host on its website
some of the better of these plans. However, such a project inevitably has
copyright implications, as many of the plans feature images scanned or copied
from various websites and publications. Hence, we are currently in the process
of contacting all the organizations MAMA fellows acquired materials from and
requesting their permission to use the content. One of the plans containse an
image (Ferry Boat at the Thadua crossing Xaiyabouli) copied from your webstie.
We would like to request your permission to use the content. You can access
further information on MAMA at the following address: http://www.uwec.edu/chtl/mama.htm.
(MAMA is a non-profit program created specifically for the purpose of helping
Wisconsin’s educators enhance their teaching methods and classroom content). The
lesson plan has been included so that you can view how the image is being used
(slide 25).

Roger Arnold's Still a Secret War

I like Roger Arnold’s photos. A lot. I like this video even better.

The context in which a photo is taken is as important to me the image itself. I like to know the story behind the photo. In this case the story and the image are tied so closely together that I can’t imagine one without the other.

For myself the last chapter in the story of the Hmong and the secret war in Laos will probably be those pictures of the group of Blia Shaua Her in Roger Arnold’s photos from June in 06. The more often I look at the pictures the more I recognise the people again. Tong Fang mourning his wife. Bla Yang Fang with his old M 16 tied together with rags, then with his new UN High Commission for Refugees certificate. Most memorable of all Tong Hua Her first with his face half shot off, then after surgery in Thailand.

Read the story in Roger’s own words at
Still A Secret War by Roger Arnold

What’s not covered in his story and what we do get a taste of in the video, is who the heck is this guy Mr. Arnold anyway. Two weeks in a Hmong village hidden in the jungle? Ten trips to Laos?

The presentation in the video is extremely factual, the delivery of a journalist. Roger’s refuses to speak in hyperbole. He doesn’t sensationalize. He admonishes those who would use his photos or story for anti Lao propaganda purposes not to do so. The completely rational, sober telling of the story in the first person adds untold power to the message.

It’s as if he’s saying, This is what has happened, and this is what is happening now, it’s up to the reader, or the viewer, to try to understand.

Undoubtedly the most amazing story coming out of Laos at the moment, weaving together the threads of a narrative that begins before the war in Vietnam itself and ties in the current war on terror and the political expediency of abandoning our comrades from thirty five years ago.