What’s in ‘HMong Futures’?

Katie Ka Vang's HMong Futures: The Future of Us, directed by Reena Dutt and staged at Theater Mu in Saint Paul, Minnesota, from April into early May, imagines the future of the HMong community through three generations of women in one family. HMong people came to the United States as refugees from Laos beginning in 1975, and the Twin Cities is now home to the largest HMong American population of any American metropolitan area. Vang built the play in 2025 out of community gatherings and conversations, during the 50th anniversary of Southeast Asian people in the state. Then the events of early 2026 took the work somewhere else. A January reading was canceled over safety concerns following a shooting involving a federal agent, and the script was reworked to take in the reality of the federal immigration operation known as Metro Surge. American Theatre writes that a play about a long-established immigrant community in the Twin Cities became far more timely than anyone expected once their state was occupied. Within the play, food, traditional healing and the bonds between generations become ways of facing old wounds, and the central question is what it takes for a family to move from surviving to thriving. Vang says what she most hopes audiences see is the resilience of HMong people and their determination to care for their own community.

Read the full story at American Theatre →