I am as guilty as any other stereotyper, for the first thing I did when arriving at work Monday was start calling Hmong leaders regarding the awful shootings in the Wisconsin woods over the weekend.

Had the name of the alleged shooter been Johnson or O'Reilly, I would not have been calling Scandinavian leaders or Irish leaders to ask about one man's actions.

But the man suspected of killing five people is Chai Soua Vang. And I was calling Hmong leaders to talk about the group effect of one man's horrible acts.

All the people I spoke with were pained, yet gracious.

In all cases, their pain was on two levels.

First, they all expressed pain for the families suddenly trying to cope with an act that defies understanding.

"We feel so sorry for these grieving families," said Kou Xiong, who works for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources as a liaison to Hmong hunters and anglers.

The second level of their pain is how, whether rational or not, the action of one man affects thousands of people.

Xiong spoke of how he was receiving phone calls Monday morning from Hmong hunters throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin.

"They were asking me if they should go ahead with their plans to hunt," Xiong said. "I told them, 'Yes, go ahead. This is not your problem. Do not take the blame. The person who has done something wrong is the one who is accountable. Not you.' "

It sounds so simple and so right. Individuals are accountable for their actions.

But it doesn't always work that way. And no people understand that better than the Hmong. When one person acts badly, the others in the group must be ready to react and, in a case so filled with sadness and anger, they must react with great caution.

On Monday, for example, a spokesman for an organization known as the Hmong 18 Council said leaders would have no comment, other than to offer sympathy to the families, until the group's elders had a chance to meet. The elders of the organization, which represents conservative values of the Hmong, are expected to issue a statement and more condolences at a meeting this morning.

"We are concerned [about impact on all Hmong]," spokesman Vue Chu said. "But please understand, we need to gather and talk about this. Right now, all we can say is that our hearts go out to those who lost their loved ones."

Again, consider how differently different groups are treated.

There are four Johnsons in the Minnesota Legislature. Yet, if the name of the suspect in this nightmare had been Johnson, none of them would have been receiving calls from the media.

But moments after reporters learned that the suspect in Sunday's shooting was a St. Paul man named Vang, the phone in state Sen. Mee Moua's St. Paul home started ringing.

The first thing Moua said to those who called is that she's terribly sad for the grieving families.

The second thing she said to reporters is "why are you calling me?"

She asked the question in a friendly way. But she also believes that the calls she received Sunday evening and Monday morning represent a stereotyping that seems to be far from fading.

It's somehow safe to lump all Hmong together.

She pointed out how one local radio personality routinely makes jokes about the Hmong disregarding hunting and fishing regulations.

"I hear how he calls himself 'the common sense' person," she said. "It should be offensive to most Minnesotans that he's defining common sense."

No group carries so many ugly labels as the Hmong, she said.

"We're men who beat up their wives, parents who kill their children, people who just collect welfare, people who don't know to follow hunting and fishing regulations," she said. "We make easy targets, partially because people know they can get away with it. We don't march or demonstrate, and we don't call radio stations."

We don't know what set off the bloodbath in the Wisconsin woods Sunday. We may never know.

But Moua said she believes that most people with good hearts and common sense will accept the fact that this was one man, not thousands of Hmong people.

"We're truly American," she said.

There are Minnesota Hmong who set aside Sundays for Vikings games. Wisconsin Hmong who set aside Sundays for Packers games. Hmong who love the ritual of the deer camp, just as other Minnesotans and Wisconsinites have for generations.

Moua's preference, by the way, is fishing with her husband and father.

Sitting on the shores of lakes, she's been called "a chink" and "a gook."

But she doesn't believe that sort of name-calling ugliness represents the beliefs of all whites anymore than the actions of one man represents all Hmong.

Hmong Leaders Say Suspect Doesn't Represent Community

By Curt Brown
©2004 Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune
November 24, 2004

Two dozen Hmong leaders asked the broader community Tuesday not to let the alleged violent outburst of one Hmong man tarnish 30 years of good will.

"We ask you not to allow the despicable act of one person to stain the reputation of an entire community of good, hard-working people," Cha Vang, the son of Gen. Vang Pao, said at an unprecedented news conference at the Lao Family Community center in St. Paul.

Hmong leaders, including Vang Pao, gathered to beg for calm and put distance between their community and Chai Soua Vang, the man suspected of fatally wounding six deer hunters in northwestern Wisconsin on Sunday.

"The Hmong are just as confused, shocked and bewildered as anyone by this incident," said Cha Vang, who is not related to the alleged gunman and was chosen to speak for his father and other elders. "Our community is not unlike any other. You have your good people and you also have your bad apples."

Gen. Vang Pao, who led Hmong troops alongside U.S. forces during the Vietnam War, had just arrived in the Twin Cities on Sunday when news reports of the shootings began to flow.

"He became very angry," his son said later in an interview. "For 30 years, the Hmong have settled here and made good relations with the broader community until something like this, which could damage the reputation of the whole Hmong community."

State Rep. Cy Thao, DFL-St. Paul, said Chai Vang's ethnic background shouldn't be a factor because disputes over deer stands are not "unique to one group of people."

Cha Vang agreed, saying he has American friends who have shared stories about competition for the best hunting spots.

"Even among Americans, you see a lot of that competitive nature as everybody tries to bag the bigger buck," Cha Vang said.

In court documents released later in the day Tuesday, Chai Soua Vang said the shooting victims used derogatory terms for Asians when they told him to get off the property.

Such talk of racial tension between white and Hmong hunters didn't surprise Ilean Her, the state director of the Council on Asian-Pacific Minnesotans. She said her office has received complaints in recent days from Hmong hunters who have had unpleasant exchanges with white hunters in the woods.

"They have called up and said, yes, there are situations in which white hunters think this is their country; Asian hunters, this is not their country," Her said.

St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington joined Gen. Vang Pao and other Hmong leaders to echo their sentiments.

"For 30 years, we have known the Hmong community as a peace-loving, great community, and we really do feel this is an isolated incident," Harrington said.

Harrington, Her, Cha Vang and others all said they are praying for the victims' families and the two survivors' recoveries.

"The circumstances that bring us together are tragic beyond words," Cha Vang said. "But it is only with words, as inadequate as they are, that our grief and sympathy can be expressed."

The Hmong leaders say they will stand behind the U.S. courts as Chai Vang's case progresses.

"Like you, we are unable to explain what happened, and there can be no explanation for such an abhorrent incident," Cha Vang said. "If indeed this individual is found by the courts to be responsible for these crimes, we stand before you as members of the greater, law-abiding Hmong community to unconditionally condemn these atrocities."