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Our association is a 501(c)(3)
non-profit community base organization representing by many clans of
ethnic Hmong.
Strategically, our organization is functioning like a
family tree, a total of eleven (11) members consisting of
President, Vice-president, Secretary, Treasurer,
and seven (7) board of directors. Each board of director,
including the four (4) officers are representing by many clans.
There is a total of eight (8) clans* in our
organization. Each clan elected a clan leader and
one or more board of directors who oversee their
respective members.
The clan leader
reports to the board of directors of their clan and structurally, it works well
within our organization because their constituents or
members only listen their clan leaders or board of
directors. Strategically, if the
association needs manpower or serving the community,
there is no hesitation of helping nor volunteering from
the community at large.
Originally we believed that all Hmong people belongs to one parents. The "clan" arises or born from this
parents, and their first child born without feet, head, hand,
nor body parts so they sliced the child into eighteen
(18) pieces and
each piece thrown away represented or designated a clan.
This is how a clan is born. Historically, Hmong can not married with
sharing same last name anywhere in the universe, and therefore, the clan is
solely for the purpose of marriage. In another
word, THAO clan can not married another THAO of same
last name. Other than this
marriage prohibition, all Hmong are one big family and
closely related. This believed has kept Hmong
people in a tight knit community in all around the world
and wherever you travel, if you meet a Hmong person, or
family, you
can not go hungry nor be treated strangely, but will
be greeted in a friendly manner always.
*Many
clans together are forming or joining into one clan
leader representing by
a board of director and a clan leader. For example, the LEE clan joined membership with the
THAO clan because only three (3) Lee families
reside in the states of Rhode Island.
The eighteen (18) clans: CHANG, CHWB,
FANG, HANG, HER, KHANG, KONG, KUE
LEE, LOR, MOUA, THAO, VANG, XIONG, YANG, etc.
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