Hmongtown Marketplace

Garden tools for sale at a stall inside Hmongtown

Hmong are the largest Asian diaspora in Minnesota, and Minnesota has the second largest Hmong population in the United States.[12] Hmongtown is a staple of local Hmong life and creates a sense of community and belonging.[1] Less then four miles away is a similar Hmong-American marketplace called Hmong Village.[13][14]

Basket with straps, Hmong Trang, Vo Nhai, Thai Nguyen, 2002 - Vietnamese Women's Museum - Hanoi, Vietnam

Vendors at Hmongtown sell traditional Hmong textile art such as kawm (woven baskets) and forms of Paj Ntaub (flower cloth) such as batik dyed cloth (Paj Ntaub nraj ciab/cab[15]) and story cloth, which depicts scenes from Hmong life and history.[16]

While the focus is Hmong culture, the marketplace contains shops and stalls with proprietors and products from any of the cultures that can be found in the surrounding neighborhood Frogtown, which is the most racially diverse neighborhood in Minnesota. Nepali and Mexican vendors have been noted.[17] Owner Toua Xiong aims for the market to be welcoming to those new to Hmong culture.[7]

Cuisine

See also: Hmong cuisine

Stalls selling fresh produce at Hmongtown Marketplace

Hmongtown is noted for its prepared food and quality produce, with the Star Tribune calling it "one of the state's top culinary gems"[5] and Saveur enthusing it's a "destination" for cooks.[13] Minnesota-native food critic Andrew Zimmern says it's "the country’s best little-known ethnic market."[18] Minnesota Monthly included Hmongtown in their "'culinary canon' of essential local eats"[19] list the "Foodie 40", saying Hmongtown is "one of the great, affordable flavor adventures in the Twin Cities" and calling it "ground zero" for good chicken wings.[20][21] The average price of a meal is less than $15 and restaurants are open all day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.[22]

Individual restaurant stalls and a food court serve traditional Hmong and Southeast Asian meals, snacks, and street food.[23] Because Hmong is a diaspora, Hmong cuisine is a fusion, so dishes at Hmongtown come from Tailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and even China, Japan, South Korea, and Mexico. Difficult to find outside of Minnesota, Hmong-style barbecue is prominent, including traditionally prepared and cold Hmong sausage (nyhuv ntxwm hmoob), which is a pork sausage flavored with Thai chili and lemongrass, and sai krok, a traditional fermented pork sausage.[13][24][25][26] Dishes popular among Hmong such as pho, khaub poob (curry noodles), larb (minced meat salad), nab vam (tapioca dessert), purple rice,[27] boba tea, mangonada,[28] and papaya salad are widely available from multiple restaurants.[29]

Notable vendors and dishes include:

• 5-Star Deli: fried chicken wings with egg roll stuffing (kooj tis qaib nitim[30]); chicken meatball skewer; nab vam (colorful jelly and fruit dessert)[31][5][13][20]
• Golden Cuisine: whole roast chicken larb[20]
• Her Kitchen: beef pho[5]
• Hmong Express Cuisine: papaya salad[18]
• Hmobb Kitchen: mok pa (banana leaf steamed catfish)[5]
• Hmoob Cafe: shellacked beef ribs; mustard greens with pork; mok pa; papaya salad[20]
• Kad's Deli: jian dui (filled Chinese donut)[5]
• Mr. Papaya: crispy pork belly, spiced green mango[31][5]
• Mai's Kitchen: sai krok (fermented pork sausage)[25]
• Sida Kitchen: foot-long Thai or Lao style Hmong sausage[5]
• Twin Tropic Cafe: chocolate and blackberry smooth bubble teas; meatball soup[20]
• Xieng Khoung Kitchen: spring rolls[5]

Hmongtown is recommended for its cuisine in many travel guides such as Lonely Planet and Condé Nast Traveler.[32][33]

An outdoor market that sells much of the same merchandise as the indoor market operates from May to October. It has an emphasis on fresh produce and starter plants for gardening vegetables.[34][35]

Produce commonly available at Hmongtown has Southeast Asian origins and is difficult to find in mainstream groceries. A large portion of the produce is locally grown by Hmong farmers.[10][26]

• rambutan[36][13]
• Hmong yellow and red cucumbers[13]
• bitter melon[13][27]
• purple lemongrass[13][27][10]
• sugar cane[13]
• Thai chili[13]
• pea eggplant[13][27]
• dried imported bamboo[13][10]
• winter melon[13]
• radish greens[13]
• bok choy[13]
• Chinese broccoli[27]
• Thai basil[10]
• longan[10][26]
• lychee[10]
• pomelo[37]
• mangosteen[37]
• persimmon[26]

Hmong Cultural Center Museum

Hmongtown plans to someday expand to Hmong senior daycare and senior housing, and include more Hmong cultural activities such as an art gallery, music performance, and permanent history exhibits.[3] Underground parking and an office building are also planned.[4]

Off-site expansion includes nonprofits and museums. Through Hi Hi LLC, Toua Xiong and his wife Nou Xiong founded a Hmong and Karen cultural center and museum a few blocks from Hmongtown. Xiong envisions someday publishing Hmong recipes to preserve their cuisine. He also runs Hmong Connections, a cultural exchange program.[37][42]

Americans with Hmong ancestry by state

Hmongtown was the first Hmong-owned and operated market in the United States.[37][43] The market was founded as International Marketplace[37] in 2004 by Saint Paul, Minnesota entrepreneur Toua Xiong.[1] Hmong people were persecuted in their homelands following the Laotian Civil War known as the Secret War and Xiong wanted a place for first generation immigrants such as himself to gather as though they were at home. The marketplace originally had many video stores that sold footage of and movies set in Laos and Thailand as part of that nostalgia.[43]

Xiong remembers his childhood in Laos before his family escaped to a refugee camp: “The sadness is always burning in me. We don’t have a country. We were chased, and chased. I had no reason to be chased into the jungle at 7. I made no mistake. The [refugee] camps were a prison. I am as capable as any person, but I never had a chance.” Xiong, a younger brother, and his parents joined his teenage brothers in an American-run refugee camp when he was 12. At 17 years old he and his wife immigrated to St. Paul, Minnesota and settled in Frogtown.[3] In three years he gained college degrees in business and accounting.[7][37]

The 6-acre[4] site was previously Shaw Stewart Lumber Co. on Como Avenue, north of the St. Paul Capitol building. Most of the original buildings remain, with the largest warehouse functioning as the main market building. Xiong didn't realize the obstacles to redeveloping the property for grocery and retail when he rented it from the lumber company, having only recently become a business owner and an English speaker. Renovations to meet regulations included a sprinkler system, more toilets, exhaust fans in restaurant spaces, and an upgraded larger sewer pipe to connect to the municipal system. Despite setbacks, he opened Hmongtown in 2004.[3][13]

In 2009 he bought the property from the lumber company and renamed it Hmongtown Marketplace.[4][37]

Hmong people at a marketplace in Ha Giang province, Vietnam

When Hmong began immigrating to Minnesota in the 1980s, there was no cultural hub such as Hmongtown, which made it difficult for refugees to find the supplies and foods they preferred. The market was an ambitious effort to change that.[7] Hmongtown has been credited with creating hundreds of jobs and other entrepreneurial opportunities for much of the Minnesota Hmong diaspora.[44] Most of the vendors speak only a Hmong dialect and not English, which Xiong notes allows them to maintain employment and start a business while still acclimating to America.[3][7][37]

In 2010 Xiong was awarded the Immigrant of Distinction award for his work at Hmongtown from the Minnesota-Dakotas chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.[37]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hmongtown Marketplace.

• History of the Hmong in Minneapolis–Saint Paul
• Hmong customs and culture
• Hmong cuisine

• Hmongtown Marketplace official website
• Video tour of Hmongtown's hot foods by More Best Ever Food Review Show
• Video tour of merchants and hot food by Ethnic Neighborhoods