Teng Lo Author: Amy E. Smith Interviewer: Catherine Perez Ethnic Group: Hmong American Generation: Elder

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“If you work like a slave first—eventually, you’ll get to eat and live like a leader. If you eat and live like a leader first—eventually, you’ll have to eat and live like a slave.”

These are words of wisdom, words that anyone can learn from. They’re words that Teng Lo has never forgotten. Now seventy years old, he has learned many things in life—but those words, spoken by his Hmong elders, are as meaningful today as when he first heard them, years ago and in a very different place, as a twelve-year-old boy.

Teng Lo was born in Ban Nyam Hoc, in the Xieng Khuong province of Laos. His parents were farmers who worked hard to raise their six sons and three daughters. Teng’s memories of his childhood are happy ones. From his grandparents and other elders, early on he learned about Hmong religion, traditions, and the beauty and strength of his native culture—a culture whose very name means “free,” a culture made up of men and women who have fought to live to be free and self-sufficient for more than two thousand years.

From his schoolteachers he learned even more legends and history about Hmong elders and important Hmong leaders. Precisely where myth leaves off and history begins for the Hmong, in fact, really isn’t clear. Just as his education had been conducted both by family elders and public school teachers, to understand Hmong culture you need to respect both fact and fiction, myth and history.

Their earliest stories extend back to 2700 B.C.E., to clashes with the Chinese Emperor Hoang-ti. This emperor imposed harsh, unjust punishments upon Hmong people, who in return rebelled against his authority again and again. Eventually, after generations of persecution and rebellion, they migrated to other, safer lands within China.

Whether the Emperor Hoang-ti was a man or a myth, no one knows for sure. But the lessons of the story remain the same—and among the most important is that Hmong identity lives within the people themselves, not the land they occupy.

This lesson still serves them well. Decades of warfare after the Second World War have thrown their way of life into jeopardy again. Intense persecution by Communist regimes for the Hmong support of U.S. troops during the Vietnam War led another generation of Hmong to seek safe haven in a new land. Along with hundreds of others, Teng Lo and his family came to the U.S. in 1976. After first settling elsewhere, in 1981, with a wave of fellow Hmong immigrants, he came to live in Stockton.

Teng may not have arrived in the Central Valley with a great deal of money—but he did arrive with a wealth of cultural knowledge and wisdom. Among the many things he knew were these simple facts: that he didn’t want to “eat and live like a slave,” so he was willing to “work like a slave,” instead.

The words of his elders, those words that meant so much to him, have guided his path through life. Teng is a man who values knowledge and advice but still knows that ultimately, his choices are his own responsibility. Some of his friends, at one point, had decided to become soldiers. Teng made the decision not to follow these friends, but to find his own way—to study, work hard and then to find a wife and start a family of his own.

The greatest source of happiness for him has been this marriage, and he remembers his wedding with great fondness. His marriage is what truly defined him as a man. His relatives made very clear that they, too, recognized how his choice of marriage and family made him an adult. Teng was very proud to become “the man of the house” and to honor his wife as “the woman of the house.” Living by the practical wisdom he acquired, he and his wife could not help but lead good, productive lives.

Perhaps the real success of Teng’s life has been in showing how knowledge knows no borders—it serves those who have the character to use it, no matter where a person makes his or her home. In fact, one of the sayings that he holds most dear is both timeless and classically American—“Time is money!”

And now, at age seventy, the stories of his own successes, both here and in Laos, as well as the story of his journey to America, are part of the rich history that he can pass on. He has finally taken on a role even more important than that of husband and father. Like those whose stories he loved as a youth, Teng is now himself an elder—a man worthy of the highest respect, one whose life enriches the lives of his family, of the Hmong, and of all people who value hard work, courage, and self-sufficiency.