• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

September 29, 1982 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS 26143 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS THE ART OF A PEOPLE ON THE Like their U.S. allies, the Hmong lost. The first exhibition of art by the Hmong RUN Unlike the U.S., the Hmong stayed. And and Yao people opened in November 1979 at sometime between 1975 and 1976, the Com­ the Bethel Gallery in Connecticut. The munists in Southeast Asia began to kill show has been seen since at galleries and HON. PATRICIA SCHROEDER them. museums in Washington, D.C.; Calgary, Al­ OF COLORADO VERY UNPLEASANT CONSEQUENCES berta; New Haven, Conn.: Martha's Vine­ IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES In the year since the U.S. raised the issue, yard, Mass.; Minneapolis and now in Wednesday, September 29, 1982 "yellow rain" has to a certain extent Denver. As designed by Miss Hamilton-Mer­ become one factor in the abstract calculus ritt, it is an exhibition that shows visitors e Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, of arms control. But the Hmong are the images of great and remarkable beauty and several years ago I had the honor of people who were sprayed with the stuff. of great and remarkable horror. sponsoring an exhibit of Hmong and And the "stuff" is not the sort of thing one Particularly striking are the complex ap­ Yao art organized here in Washington buys at a garden-supply store to spray on pliques done by the White Hmong <a tribal by Jane Hamilton-Merritt. the front lawn. After much research and ar­ subdivision>. Their color and maze-like de­ That exhibition is now at the gument, U.S. scientists have identified one signs hit the eye with psychedelic impact. Museum of Natural History in Denver of these biological weapons as an extremely The women who do these works map out lethal form of mycotoxin, a poison derived the entire design in their heads, and the fin­ as part of a national tour. from plant fungus. The Hmong accuse the ished piece-which can take months to com­ The Wall Street Journal today gave Communist Vietnamese and Laos of drop­ plete-can have an intellectual precision needed attention to Hamilton-Mer­ ping clouds of it onto them from airplanes. and technical splendor one doesn't always ritt's work, and to the heroic and When these toxins are inhaled, they attack encounter in museums of modem art. tragic story of the Hmong people: the nervous system and body membranes, Only a few pieces are antiques. The harsh THE ART OF A PEOPLE ON THE RUN with consequences that are as unpleasant as and arduous exit route means minimal lug­ By Daniel Henninger and Manuela one might imagine. gage. Western relief workers in Thailand U.S. diplomats stationed in Southeast Asia often foolishly encourage the Hmong and Hoelterhoff continue to file reports of chemical and bio­ Yao to put on their Western shirts and The artists who created the exhibition logical weapons attacks in Laos <the most leave behind their tribal dress. But in the now at the Museum of Natural History in recent occurred through this summer> and camps, many Hmong continue to fashion Denver came a long way to show their work. by Soviet forces against insurgents in Af­ their centuries-old designs. They walked down from the high moun­ ghanistan. One of the most spectacular pieces in the tains of Laos and through its jungles, float­ Against this background of lurid and ap­ exhibition is a White Hong wedding dress ed on pieces of bamboo across the Mekong parently unstoppable killing, one finds in made in the Ban Vinal camp in Thailand. River, spent months or years in the refugee Denver, Colo., the irony of an exhibition of The elaborate, silver-looking r.ecklace incor­ camps of Thailand, eventually climbed beautiful and delicate folk art produced by porates old French coins and tin from soda aboard planes and-some of them, at least­ a people on the run. The show itself exists cans. Once the Hmong carried their wealth ended up in Denver. These refugee artists because of the anger and frustration of an around their necks because they had no cur­ are the "yellow rain people." It is they who American journalist named Jane Hamilton­ rency. Now they tum refuse into memories were intially attacked in Laos with the Merritt, who covered the Vietnam War from of silver. chemical and biological agents that the U.S. 1966 to 1972. The horror is only a few feet away in the government has accused the Soviet Union of While visiting a Thai refugee camp in show. In a comer at the end of the exhibi­ deploying in violation of two international 1977, she heard reports that the Lao moun­ tion, one sees photographs of people who treaties barring the use of poison weapons. tain people were being attacked and killed have been gassed and driven out. One pic­ Their exhibition, "Hmong and Yao: with chemical or biological agents. She ture shows an emaciated man holding up a Mountain Peoples of Southeast Asia," will interviewed the Hmong and photographed small diary detailing yellow-rain attacks he be on view there through Oct. 10. More some of their worst external injuries. She witnessed. Another photograph shows par­ than 30,000 residents of Denver have at­ returned to the U.S. thinking that a maga­ ents holding sick children who died long tended. The work they are seeing is quite zine or newspaper article would cause an before the exhibition opened. extraordinary. uproar. She was wrong. Her story and her One of Miss Hamilton-Merritt's pictures The small exhibition rooms pulsate with pictures were not published. probably accounts in no small part for her dramatically colored, intricately patterned "I have to admit that at first I couldn't be­ publication problems. It is of a baby who is textiles. In their own country, the Hmong lieve it either," Miss Hamilton-Merritt says being breast-fed. The baby is burned across and Yao have no need for museum walls; now. "I couldn't imagine what it <the the eyes and forehead in such a way that they wear their art and have done so for weapon> was." She called U.S. government the child very much resembles a person who centuries, stitching and embroidering gar­ agencies to ask about the symptoms she'd was burned at Hiroshima. Most people who ments with abstracted vegetable blossoms, seen but got nowhere. She called chemical see it tum away from the child. peacock eyes, stars and snails. We see baby companies, drug companies, biochemists at Miss Hamilton-Merritt includes these pho­ hats as delicately worked as a filigreed universities here and abroad. Finally she tographs in lectures she gives in conjunction crown; skirts folded into a hundred pleats, called some veterinarian researchers, who with the exhibition-often to the discomfort belts that would serve nicely wrapped said her description sounded familiar. Miss of sponsoring organizations. She is usually around a royal waist; and sophisticated wall Hamilton-Merritt says they told her: "We asked to eliminate particularly unsettling hangings decorated with a maze-like pattern don't know anything about humans, but we images. But the disturbing contrasts are called "dreaming." know there is fungus animals can eat and most germane to Miss Hamilton-Merritt's But the Hmong <the "h" is silent> have get sick." undertaking: She is trying to say that some had little occasion for the comfort of She made the rounds of magazines, ex­ terrible thing is happening to the people of dreams these last few years. Their art is on pecting to find one that would publish both Southeast Asia and has been doing so the view in Denver because daily life for many her article and pictures. There were no past three years by telling her story to one Hmong has become a nightmare. takers. "I just never thought I would hit a roomful of people after another. And in There are now some 50,000 Hmong people dead end on this," she says. "I thought, Minneapolis and Denver, she has had some in the U.S. They are here because in 1962 'Who is going to record all this?' I had note­ effect. they decided to ally themselves with the books and notebooks of Hmong testimony U.S. against the army of North Vietnam. about the air attacks." SOVIETS ARE SOURCE OF WEAPONS The Hmong are the largest of many cultur­ In desperation, she more or less tore a Next Tuesday a nonprofit gallery shop ally distinct Lao mountain minorities. They page out of the environmental movement's will open in Minneapolis to sell the Hmong's have always feared Vietnam's historical strategy manual: "I chose what I thought textile art. The shop is the work of Gloria claims to their land, so they fought with the would be a non-threatening approach. And Congdon and Lucy Hartwell, who became French and later with the U.S., primarily that was to offer a look at the art of an un­ interested after seeing the museum show. interdicting movements of North Vietnam­ known people, whose art and very existence "The gallery is an attempt to develop an ese materiel through Laos into the south. were in jeopardy. I knew that the Hmong outlet for the art, with the money going di­ They also rescued U.S. pilots downed over art would be appreciated in this country be­ rectly back to the women who make the tex­ Laos. cause it's quite extraordinary." tiles," says Gloria Congdon. Local business- e This "bullet" symbol identifies statements or insertions which are not spoken by the Member on the floor.

Load more

  39

Copy Link