Member since
2000
Lives in
Woodbury, Minnesota
Her job
As the first Hmong-speaking licensed psychologist in her state, Vang works primarily with Hmong clients in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, which has the nation's largest Hmong-American community. Many of her clients struggle with estrangement issues that are historically rare among the family-centered Hmong. "A lot of my current Hmong clients struggle with anxiety and depression from broken families, and marital difficulties as a result of acculturation and assimilation," she says.
Her childhood
Vang's family was among the first to flee Laos at the end of the Vietnam War, in part because her father had worked as an interpreter for the U.S. government. They lived in a refugee camp in Thailand for four years before immigrating to the United States when Vang was 7, eventually settling in California. The third of nine children, Vang was often an interpreter for her mother who, unlike her father, knew little English. That role made Vang aware of how challenging it was for her mother to immigrate, and eventually piqued her interest in psychology. "That planted the seed in me," says Vang, who earned her doctorate in 2000 at the California School of Professional Psychology.
A trailblazer
Mental illness is not a concept that translates directly into the Hmong culture, Vang says. "Mental illness is conceived by the Hmong as a spiritual suffering, a mandate in life or a curse from an ancestor." Her clients often use analogies, poems and metaphors to describe their problems, so she learned how to blend those narratives with her traditional Western training. "I really began to understand how mental illness was perceived in Hmong, to really ‘dig at the heart of the hurt,' as I like to call it," she says.
Her main priority
Vang appreciates the flexibility of private practice since it allows her to spend more time with her children, ages 7, 9 and 11. Their favorite outings are the simplest, she says, such as camping, walks and weekends at local lakes. She also unwinds through painting, particularly images of bamboo, rice fields, mountains and poppy fields that she remembers from her childhood. "I remember just a little bit about Laos and Thailand," she says. "Enough to remind me where I am from and to keep me grounded."
— Jamie Chamberlin
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