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Leeanna Lor always dreamed of walking the stage at St. Paul’s RiverCentre as Miss Hmong Minnesota.

It’s the stage that has seen hundreds of young Hmong women in Minnesota compete for the pageant’s crown title. Since 1984, the Miss Hmong Minnesota pageant has embodied confidence, beauty and pride in the local Hmong culture.

As a child, Lor would watch the two-day competition every year during the Hmong New Year celebration, the biggest cultural event of the year for Hmong Minnesotans. She was always struck by the contestants’ elegant Hmong clothing and how the women commanded a room of thousands of people.

“I always wondered if I could ever be like that too,” said Lor, now 22.  “It was kind of inspiring. They’re so beautiful, they have so much confidence to be on stage in front of so many people.”

‘Building sisterhood’ for young Hmong women

Lor’s childhood dream came true when she was crowned Miss Hmong Minnesota 2023 during last November’s 

celebration. She shares the court with two other contestants who came in second and third place.

“It’s building in sisterhood,” said Mee Vang, president of United Hmong Family, the local nonprofit that organizes the pageant. “The Hmong pageant has really transformed into an opportunity to showcase the Hmong culture, language and clothing for a lot of our younger generations because we lost our identity moving to the U.S.”

During the Vietnam War, Hmong military leaders in Laos worked with the CIA to share intelligence with the U.S. After the American forces withdrew from the war, thousands of Hmong people fled from Laos to escape persecution.

From 1975 to the early 2000s, Hmong immigrants mainly settled in Minnesota, Wisconsin and California. Minnesota is home to the largest urban population of Hmong Americans in the country, according to the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans. 

For years, pageants have represented an opportunity for immigrant communities to preserve their culture in the U.S.

“Many ethnic pageants within the USA have developed as a response to the exclusion (first real and then more symbolic) of women of color and other ethnic communities,” wrote Rebecca Chiyoko King-O’Riain in her 2007 

 on cultural identities in beauty pageants. “The evolution of the Miss Vietnam USA, Miss Chinatown USA, Miss Ethiopia North America (first held in 2005), Miss India USA, Miss Latina USA (Fears 2005) and even white-ethnic pageants like the Irish Rose of Tralee pageant are seen as validation that ethnic women and their culture are beautiful.”

Unlike many pageant courts, Vang said the Hmong Minnesota pageant is unique because it recognizes all three title holders — the crown winner and the two runner-ups. The three in the court collaborate for a year-long term to organize Hmong community events and fundraisers until the next pageant.

“Everyone is expected to work together collaboratively,” said Vang. “They’re learning finances, fundraising and relationship building with current business owners.”

Many of the women go through months of training leading up to the competition, from practicing their Hmong to learning how to walk on stage. It’s an opportunity to develop and instill leadership and sisterhood in the next generation of young Hmong female leaders.

“I got a lot of growth,” said Lisa Vang, Miss Hmong Minnesota pageant coordinator and 2020 pageant runner-up. “There’s recruiting, strategic planning and a lot of administrative work. So you really get a feel of different departments that could really help you find what you like to do as an individual.”

How Lor is using her crown to do health advocacy in the Hmong community

At first, Lor thought the pageant was meant to showcase the beauty of Hmong women and their cultural clothing. As she grew older, she realized the pageant had a deeper meaning.

“It’s brains,” said Lor, whose Hmong name is Leeanna Nstuaj Lauj. “It’s what you can bring back to the community and how you use that platform to help others.”

Her purpose as the pageant winner now is twofold: representing the Hmong community in Minnesota and increasing education among Hmong people on health topics like burn prevention. Her passion for health advocacy and career as a burn unit nurse stem from a near-death experience with appendicitis when she was 14.

“I went to the hospital and was sent back home,” said Lor. The doctors initially diagnosed her abdominal pain as menstrual cramps.

“A week later, I came back and they said if you didn’t come by, you wouldn’t have made it.”

Lor felt the language and cultural barriers almost risked her life. As a young Hmong woman, she didn’t feel heard. She wished someone did more to advocate for her and her mom in that hospital room.

“Just knowing I could’ve died made me think that I should do something to help others too,” said Lor. “What if other people are also experiencing this language barrier that they need to get the proper care?”

That’s why she loves her job as a nurse at St. Paul Regions Hospital’s burn unit. She is a fluent Hmong speaker serving a large Hmong population at one of the biggest hospitals in the Twin Cities and she gets to be the person she wished she had in the hospital room when she was 14.

When Lor isn’t working long hours at the hospital, she’s dedicating her time to her pageant court, emceeing community events and planning fundraisers. Part of that has included a winter clothing drive, a frostbite prevention campaign and organizing Hmong Day at the Minnesota State Fair this year.

“I’m really honored to represent the community and be that bridge between the youth and elders and within my field of nursing,” said Lor. “I think there’s a lot of pressure and a lot of people look up to me but I feel very honored to be here and speak about my journey.”

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Since 1984, the Miss Hmong Minnesota pageant has embodied confidence, beauty and pride in the local Hmong culture. It’s about “what you can bring back to the community and how you use that platform to help others,” Lor said. 

Meet Leeanna Lor, Miss Hmong Minnesota pageant winner and burn unit nurse

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