Hmong fun in the sun
Warm weather, sports, food and fun fill fourth annual Summer Festival
Joe Nguyen, editor
June 25, 2007

Photo by Joe Nguyen Three defenders attempt to stop a shot at Hmong Colorado Radio's fourth annual Summer Festival June 23 at the Adams County Fairgrounds. The soccer tournament was one of the many activities during the two-day festival.

BRIGHTON – Not even the scorching hot rays of the sun could stop more than a thousand from gathering at Hmong Colorado Radio's fourth annual Summer Festival June 23 and 24 at the Adams County Fairgrounds.

The yearly event featured a variety of activities for patrons, from a Saturday-night performance showcasing Hmong celebrities to sampling food from of one of the many booths located along the edge of the fairgrounds. It was also the big fundraising event for the HCR.

“One of the main purposes is pretty much to fundraise to get us some funding to help us run the radio (station),” said Maimay Vang, program director of HCR. “And a second thing is to bring the Hmong community together because without events like this, you barely see each other.”

For shoppers, there were a number of tents that sold Hmong CDs and movies, as well as traditional clothing. Music blared from the tents, with owners hoping to entice people to come check out their merchandise. Vang said most of the shops were from states with larger Hmong populations.

Among the big draws of the festival were the soccer and volleyball tournaments. There were more teams than in years past, according to Vang.

“We got a couple non-Hmong teams to register,” she said. “For volleyball, we usually get Cambodian and Laotian teams to come join us. This year for soccer, we got a Thai team and a Hispanic team.”

To manage a festival this size, volunteers were needed. Vang said some of the volunteers who signed up early on were unavailable that weekend, so the group members enlisted the help of their family members. They worked long hours, keeping the fairgrounds clean and making sure that everything ran smoothly.

“We started at eight this morning and I probably won't get to sleep until midnight,” volunteer Cheng Vang said on Saturday. “ ... And then start all over again in the morning.”

The festival was seen as a success with the large attendance, Maimay Vang said. But one of their goals for succeeding years is to have members from other communities join in the fun.

“In the future, we would like to reach out more to not just different Asian ethnicities, but other races, too,” she added. “But I think the problem is that ... a lot of people think that it's exclusive to just that group.”

For more information on Hmong Colorado Radio, visit http://www.hmongcoloradoradio.com.

Joe Nguyen is the editor in chief of AsiaXpress.com. Joe can be contacted via e-mail at joe@asiaxpress.com.