Koj Nam Hlub Koj! - Your Mum Loves You!

Koj Nam Hlub Koj! - Your Mum Loves You! Is a personal publication that combines letters, collage with family photos, illustration, conversation and anecdotes to present not only my familial relationship with my Mum but the presentation of the Hmong language in a personal context.

As I grow older and further away from my Mum, we struggle to keep our connection, losing time together and losing each other, but we are still connected through our love for each other, our memories, and each other’s comfort. Koj Nam Hlub Koj! - Your Mum Loves you! is a personal publication that combines letters, collage with family photos, illustration, conversation and anecdotes to present not only my familial relationship with my Mum but a presentation of the Hmong language in a personal context. For this project I aimed to produce a personal piece that evokes shared sensitivity to the relationship between Mother and child, struggling with age and distance, as well as provide insight into a Hmong Australian family.

I wished to portray a Hmong Australian familial relationship in a casual context. Displaying a language that although is not known to many, is still very much alive. Having the Hmong language in written word within a tangible publication holds great personal significance, as I never had anything like this to hold onto growing up. There would be old digital textbooks about Hmong villages, online videos of Hmong celebrations in the US, but never anything that resembled my family and me. Not only this, the book does not isolate the reader - seeing into the bubble of this unfamiliar culture from the outside, as this Hmong culture and identity is shown through the all so familiar themes of family, motherhood and growing up.

As much as I wanted to highlight my culture and identity through this book and present my family, the project is the dissection of myself. The Hmong language is not at the forefront of this book and typical cultural things like the traditional clothing and photography of these recipes,because I am not just Hmong, I am a first generation Hmong Australian daughter. Even if I am apart of the first generation, because our identity has not been thoroughly preserved and recorded without the necessary support it is fragile - I have become somewhat watered down. Sadly, this is a common thing amongst the younger Hmong Australian generations, but whatever we have left of our identity, we must stay proud and preserve any crumb.