The country’s first Hmong male news anchor is making sure he’s not the last
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This year marks 50 years of Hmong refugee resettlement and immigration to Minnesota. MPR News will feature Hmong Minnesotans in a variety of careers through the month of May as part of our “ChangeMakers” series. This series highlights Minnesotans from diverse and often underrepresented backgrounds who are making an impact.
In 2021, Chenue Her made history by becoming the first Hmong male news anchor in the U.S. when he joined “Good Morning Iowa” in Des Moines. In 2024, Her made a homecoming to Minnesota when he joined the anchor desk at FOX 9. He currently sits behind the desk for FOX 9 Morning News and is still the only male Hmong news anchor in the country.
He spoke to MPR senior producer Aleesa Kuznetsov about his path to journalism and the importance of Hmong representation in media.
How are you thinking about this 50th anniversary of Hmong resettlement to Minnesota?
This 50th anniversary is so big for the Hmong community, it’s something that I find myself thinking about quite a bit. Since I’ve been home, especially, because I think a lot about where our community is today.
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I wish people like my grandparents were around to see it, because this is everything that they fled for. When they got here and they had to pinch pennies and they had to really just survive. They did it for this for their grandkids to have what they have and achieve what they have.
Hmong culture has a rich tradition of storytelling. Did that influence your path into journalism?
I always say that storytelling is in my blood and it’s in my DNA as a Hmong person, because the Hmong written language is still so young. Growing up, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, they were able to pass history and memories and things like that down to us, just through purely storytelling, not through anything that’s written.
It wasn’t until I got older that I realized that’s essentially what journalism is and that I could somehow make a career out of it.
Currently, right now, I am the only Hmong male news anchor in the country, and I think that it’s surreal, because I got into this because I just love journalism, I love storytelling. It was never something that I looked to achieve, or anything like that. But yeah, right now still am, and I know that it’s not going to stay that way and I hope it doesn’t stay that way.
Why is it important to have Hmong representation, especially in this market?
There are so many Hmong people in this community that make up the fabric of what Minnesota is today, and those stories deserve to be told and deserve to be shared, and Minnesotans who are not in the Hmong community deserve to know what we’re doing and who is in our community.
I just remember growing up on the east side of St. Paul, we really only saw stories involving our community if it was something bad. So it’s important to have Hmong journalists in newsrooms here, because they’re in the community.
They understand a lot of the nuances and they’re the eyes and ears. They know the good things that are happening too.
Do you feel like there’s a tough balance of not wanting to be tokenized, but also being authentic?
I think that’s an important question because that’s something that I have always kind of thought about no matter what newsroom I go into. And I think for me, it always boils down to journalism and so I really stay focused and grounded in that.
And then from there, being really grounded as well in who I am as an individual and the community that I come from that has really propped me up and supported me throughout this journey.
I think it’s been very helpful to just be in a newsroom that has allowed me to just be me, in my most authentic self. And I think that really makes me a better journalist. It makes me a better storyteller and that really helps me just be comfortable in who I am.
So I don’t really even sit here and think about, you know, being a “token,” but more so a part of the team that can bring a different perspective. Because they do value those perspectives and that input from me as a part of the team. There’s no box that they’re trying to fit me into. I can just be Chenue Her.
