Four Textiles & Fashion Design students are back in Wisconsin after a new internship in Vietnam reconnected them to the Hmong diaspora.
By Maggie Ginsberg, Division of the Arts
This summer, four UW–Madison School of Human Ecology students stepped off the plane into the extreme humidity of Hanoi, Vietnam, more than 24 hours into a journey that was only just beginning. Led by Design Studies Professor Jennifer Angus, the students — Edward Xiong, Sunshine Thao, Leanne Lo and Jules Xiong — walked around Hoàn Kiếm Lake to shake off the long flight. Soon they would report to Craft Link, the fair-trade handicraft organization that would serve as an instructive home base for the next six weeks. From there, they would traverse Vietnam’s winding roads to rural pockets and mountainous villages they’d only heard about from their Hmong elders growing up.
“Being able to see the homeland was really powerful,” says Edward Xiong, a fourth-year student majoring in Textiles & Fashion Design with a certificate in Asian American Studies with a HMoob emphasis. He and the others were about to spend the summer learning firsthand that some artistic practices can’t be fully gleaned from oral traditions or classroom instruction. You need to feel the heft of dye-soaked fibers as they’re pulled dripping from a burbling pot, or trade Hmong song poetry over a bag of gifted rice. To trace a finger over the embroidered patterns that tell the family stories of generations — especially those scattered by centuries of war, colonialism and displacement.
Before the next six weeks were over, these students would do all of this, and more.
Learning from community
The inaugural 2025 Hmong Design Studies Internship, made possible through the generous support of donors David and Nancy Borghesi, unfolded over six weeks this summer. Two students, Edward and Jules, also received summer research Chipstone Fellowships through the Nancy M. Bruce Center for Design and Material Culture, housed within the School of Human Ecology. The first week was spent touring Hanoi’s museums, studying the product lines at Craft Link, conceptualizing an overall theme and even beginning to pattern and sew a first collection — but after that first week, the students hit the road.
They spent three weeks traveling to collaborate with three distinct Hmong communities separated by a total of 812 miles: Pa Co Commune in Mai Chau District, known for its traditional indigo dyeing techniques; Pa Xac Village in Huoi Tu Commune, known for reverse appliqué, embroidery and customs; and Lung Tam Commune in Quan Ba District, specializing in hemp weaving and batik, appliquéd embroidery, and final finishing sewing skills. The students created a textile collection for each of the three Hmong communities based on what they learned about — and in particular from — the people there.
“We use design thinking methodology, and the first step in design thinking is research/empathy,” says Angus. “You need to understand what a community wants before you start designing, in addition to discovering what skills they possess, and what their capacity is to do this type of craft work — that’s why community visits are so important.”
Getting to those communities was no easy feat, particularly the second community, which was remote, off limits to tourists, and so near the Laotian border that Angus’ phone pinged a warning.
“It was a 12-hour drive, six of which were on the windiest roads I’ve ever been on,” Angus says. “And that’s saying a lot, since I’ve been in remote areas of Nepal and Ecuador. It was definitely stomach-turning.”
But that visit to the Pa Xac Village was especially meaningful because the Hmong dialect spoken there, hmoob dawb (meaning “white hmong”), was closest to what the students speak, and the textile techniques were most familiar. They spent three days working with those artisans, and Edward Xiong in particular felt a strong kinship.
“It felt like I was kind of going back home,” Edward says. “I gave them a bag of rice, and they made a meal for us, and I started crying because it reminded me of my elders.”
Professionally, Edward felt the first community (which speaks hmoob dus, translating to black hmong) “brought my batik designs to life,” and he found the visit to the third community, which speaks moob ntsuab (green hmong) particularly fruitful. “They’re the ones that really pushed our design,” he says. “Here in America, we’re removed from a lot of these knowledges because we don’t have the materials, or the time to learn, and it saddens me. Having the opportunity to continue those knowledges of weaving hemp and turning it into cloth, and learning about the different natural dyes such as indigo, was really amazing.”
‘Hmong Hlub Hmong’
In letters of gratitude to donors Nancy and David Borghesi, the other students expressed their own multilayered emotions and the overall value of the internship.
Leanne Lo needed this internship to graduate, and it was her first time ever traveling outside the United States.
“I wasn’t fully aware of my cultural heritage and just what an important role Hmong textiles can play in expressing identity and pride,” wrote Leanne. “It has made me reevaluate what I should do for the Hmong community at home, since I have seen how these communities in Vietnam are improving the lives of women through traditional craft.”
Jules Xiong is a fourth-year Textiles & Fashion Design student, and the only one of the four students who does not speak Hmong. For her, the experience was complicated, but unexpectedly meaningful.
“I grew up disconnected from my Hmong heritage because of assimilation,” Jules wrote. “My father was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and grew up poor in a packed house with eight other siblings. Hmong culture has rich heritage and practices, but is also riddled with poverty, turmoil, and drama. Now I’ve made new connections and experiences that will stick with me for the rest of my life, and my love for the traditional art form of Hmong people grew stronger with every community we visited.”
Textiles & Fashion Design major Sunshine Thao said she now has a clearer understanding of who she is and where she comes from, and loved the spark of recognition the Vietnamese Hmong showed when the visiting students shared their clan names.
“I don’t think most people realize how meaningful it is for Hmong Americans to visit these communities,” wrote Sunshine. “The villagers feel seen and heard. They remind us of the saying, ‘Hmong hlub Hmong,’ meaning ‘Hmong love Hmong. I will never forget hearing that in each village we visited. No matter where we come from or how far we’ve traveled, we are one big family. And that love, that unity, is powerful.”
A uniquely designed internship
The Hmong Design Studies Internship is not the first created by Angus — it’s not even the first she’s created in Vietnam. Earlier this summer, three other UW–Madison School of Human Ecology students completed eight-week design, arts education, and digital media internships at two Hanoi-based companies, Gôm Sen Pottery and the Zó Project.
“Jenny Angus is a huge advocate for international professional experiences, and these opportunities simply would not exist without her passion and connections,” says UW–Madison Intern Abroad Advisor and Program Manager Nathaniel Liedl, adding that while this new internship is independent of the UW Signature programs, others designed by Angus have ultimately been absorbed by International Academic Programs, including several in Kathmandu, Nepal.
But the Hmong Design Studies internship is certainly the first of its kind, centered as it is on the Hmong diaspora experience and that community’s inextricable cultural connection to textile arts. Hemp in particular is inextricable from Hmong culture, created, gifted and passed through ceremonial rituals from birth to marriage to death. Hmong peoples have endured centuries of Chinese imperialism, French colonialism, and further displacement by the American Conflict in Vietnam. As a result, their traditional practices need preservation in Vietnam as much as they do in Wisconsin, which is home to one of the largest Hmong communities in the United States.
Craft Link, which works to maintain traditional artisan crafts across Vietnam, was receptive to the UW–Madison interns and culturally sensitive to their material needs as Hmong textile designers. Executive Director Lan Tran Tuyet provided access and support, while Vietnamese assistant and logistics coordinator Duy Le — closer in age to the students, a recent university lecturer, and a graphic designer himself — guided the group throughout the internship.
“This was an important and emotional endeavor for them, too,” says Angus.
Putting it All Together
For the final two weeks of the internship, the group returned to Craft Link in Hanoi to refine their collections, as well as create marketing materials for a final public exhibition called “Stitching Lives Between Hmong, Earth and Spirit: Hmong Design Studies Internship 2025.”
That day there was a sense of joy and celebration in the air, the students beaming in front of their colorful sewn collections of clothing, hats, bags, pillows and framed pieces. Each collection featured a mood board-style display with text in English, Vietnamese and Hmong that described the community visits and featured quotes from each student. 
Local reporters gathered inside the showroom at Craft Link to hear from the students, as well as from a group of Vietnamese Hmong artists and cultural preservers, including Hmong musicians, and student representatives of a hemp-weaving initiative. A videographer from Craft Link was on hand to take footage for a short video they plan to create about the internship.
“This internship was successful beyond my wildest hopes,” says Angus. “What I hadn’t thought about was generational trauma, and how healing this experience was for many of them. They have all heard stories about the motherland, and they are unlikely to go to Laos because getting a visa is virtually impossible given that their families fled the regime. Vietnam is as close as they will get to ‘home.’ It was a privilege to witness their happiness, as well as that of the Vietnamese Hmong we met who took great joy in meeting Hmong Americans.”
