Kori Feener
Lake View Elementary principal Nkaujnou Vang-Vue oversees the district’s only bilingual Hmong-English immersion program.
Every morning at Lake View Elementary School, principal Nkaujnou Vang-Vue walks the hallways greeting her students in both English and in Hmong.
“Nyob zoo sawv ntxov cov phooj ywg,” she says — or “good morning friend.”
“I’m glad you’re here today,” she says — or “Juv zoo siab nej sawv daws tuaj kawm ntawv hnub no.”
The small elementary school on Madison’s north side has a large percentage of Hmong students. While exact numbers are difficult to come by, Vang-Vue says about 25 percent of the school’s population is Asian. The school is also home to the district’s only bilingual Hmong-English program.
There are some other Hmong language courses statewide, says Chris Bucher of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, and some Hmong immersion programs in Minneapolis and St. Paul, but Bucher believes the Madison immersion program is the only one in the state.
For Vang-Vue, the district’s first Hmong principal, greeting her students in both languages shows Hmong students that their language is just as important as English; it also provides the school’s non-Hmong students a chance to appreciate another culture.
“At the heart of it is honoring that we have this amazing group of people that have been here in the Madison community for a long time,” Vang-Vue says on a crisp December morning in her office at Lake View. “And also recognizing that it’s a heritage language that’s dying, it’s going extinct. And so, the district has made a commitment to say, ‘This is important to us, because we want to show our community that they’re important to us.’”
Vang-Vue knows what it’s like to teeter between two cultures. Her family immigrated to the United States after the Vietnam War forced them from their home in the highland jungles of Laos.
Only three years old at the time, Vang-Vue doesn’t remember the war, or being born in a refugee camp. She doesn’t really remember the trip to the U.S. But when she closes her eyes and thinks about the stories her family has shared with her, she thinks she can remember some pieces of the country she first knew.
“I think when it rains, I can smell the soil. And I think I can hear the frogs croak,” she says, holding back tears. “But I don’t know if that’s just imaginary based on what my parents shared with me, or if it’s actually memories that I’ve hung on to.”
Now 35, and in her first year as principal at Lake View, Vang-Vue has made it a goal to ensure her students feel represented in the curriculum and among their teachers.
“Growing up bilingual and bicultural, I’ve experienced American schooling. And I absolutely know what it feels like to be sitting in a classroom and learning and looking at the books, or reading a passage, and most of the books are talking about white European people, and trying really hard to make a connection with that,” she says.
When Vang-Vue and her parents came to the U.S. they first settled in Fresno, California. Vang-Vue started kindergarten in the Fresno Unified School District, and recalls how scared she felt.
“On my first day of school, I knew not a single word of English and had no idea how ‘school’ went,” she says. “In Fresno, the schools are open; thus, classrooms are lined up in rows of buildings with open outdoor hallways. I remember going to lunch and then getting lost and not knowing what to do from there.”
In 1992, her family moved to Holmen, outside of La Crosse, to be closer to their extended family. Vang-Vue finished public school in Holmen and eventually went to college at UW-Madison, where she graduated with a degree in social work.
“I started my career in Wisconsin Rapids as a school social worker,” she says. “I spent five good years there working with students and staff and the school and building a strong school community, all in service of students being successful as learners.”
After that she worked as a district student services coordinator in the School District of Holmen. She got her start in Madison as assistant principal at Glenn Stephens Elementary School in 2015. She worked as assistant principal at Lake View during the 2018-2019 school year, and became principal this fall.
In the top post, she’s been able to make her students’ experience more inclusive than her own: “That they have a principal, a leader that looks like them, and shares the same cultural background and values as the kids do, that’s powerful.”
Unlike other schools in the district, Lake View offers its Hmong students the chance to partake in a bilingual Hmong-English Program, meaning students who opt in spend half of their day learning in Hmong, the other half learning in English.
The program is in its third year and is available to students in kindergarten through second grade. There are currently 31 students in the program and Vang-Vue says it’s growing every year.
On this Wednesday morning, the program’s first and second graders are learning about how plants grow. Together with their teacher Mai Saevang, they point to pictures of seeds sprouting into seedlings, reading the growth stages out loud in Hmong.
While similar to the district’s other dual immersion language programs, Lake View’s Hmong-English program is reserved for heritage Hmong speakers.
“If I were a native English speaker, who does not identify with the Hmong language or the Hmong culture, I wouldn’t have the opportunity yet to participate in the program,” Vang-Vue says.
But the program is optional — Hmong parents choose whether they want to enroll their children.
“We reach out to parents and we give them all the information that they need to be well informed about their options,” Vang-Vue says. Families are told that their children will learn to be bilingual and biliterate, proficient in both languages. They also are informed about research that indicates that being bilingual offers many additional benefits to the brain, from memory to focus to decision-making, that should help their child excel at school. Upon learning that, “a lot of our parents choose to be a part of the program.”
For Vang-Vue, it’s something she wishes had been available to the Hmong community years ago — when she was a child.
“I can only imagine if, in Madison and in the state of Wisconsin, if we had a Hmong bilingual program 20 years ago, how powerful that would be,” she says. “But I’m glad it’s here. And I’m glad I’m here.”
As for being the first Hmong principal in Madison, Vang-Vue says she hasn’t given it much thought.
She says she pursued a career in education to do good work and make a deep connection with her students, families and community. But she says the title comes with enormous pressure and responsibility. “I want to make sure that I represent my people and my culture well. I want our kids to walk through the school and be able to say, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s someone that looks like me. And she’s here to help me,’” she says.
For now, she’s focused on doing her best every day, a mantra that’s made its way into classrooms among staff and students.
“I think if you were to come back and ask me maybe five years later in this role, I might have a different response. But I am so humbled to be where I’m at today,” Vang-Vue says. “It’s been a journey. I don’t think it’s been a long journey. But it’s definitely been a journey where every day I give 110 percent to be where I’m at, and every day I come to school giving 110 percent because those babies out there deserve it.”
[Editor's note: This article has been corrected to note that Vang-Vue first came to the U.S. she and her parents lived in Fresno, California, and later moved to La Crosse and then Holmen, Wisconsin.]
