Elaine Velazques and the Mien
Filmmaker documents a dying culture
B Y
A N N D E E
H OCHMAN
1 / laine Velazquez came to Portland
from the Bronx, via Puerto Rico. The
Northwest was this country’s adventurous
fringe, and Portland was greener than
anything, a regular hippie heaven. It was the
early 1970s. Velazquez never went back.
The Yiu M ien fam ily c f Ay Choy Saetee
came to Portland from the mountains o f Laos,
via another century. They came from a world
with no cars, no Burger Kings, a world where
the children worship their ancestors and
spirits live in the rocks.
Elaine Velazquez doesn’t speak Mien. Ay
Choy and his relatives don’t speak English.
For eight years, they have been talking to
each other. Velazquez brought her curiosity,
her cameras and microphones and
interpreters and lights. Ay Choy and his
fondly brought their trust and desire to keep
the old life alive. The result is an hour-long
documentary titled Moving Mountains, which
won a blue ribbon in the San Francisco
American Film and Video Festival, and
opened at Cinema 21 last month.
After eight years o f asking the questions,
Velazquez fid g ets a bit on the other side o f the
tape recorder. She talks fa st—a New Yorker
still, after all these years—and worries that
sh e's talking too fa st, saying too much or not
enough o f the right things. W hat’s clear, from
the film and from her thoughtful discussion, is
that something crossed the gulf, bridged the
gaps o f language and culture between herself
and the Mien. Empathy. An urge to
document, to save what would otherwise be
lost.
Something Elaine Velazquez and Ay Choy
Saelee both could understand.
“In 1981 and 1982,1 was a freelance
producer for Front Street Weekly on Oregon
Public Broadcasting. I interviewed some
Hmong and some Yiu Mien people in
Portland and did a ten-minute piece (on the
Mien family). It was a subject that needed a
lot more depth than that
“I found the people very appealing. I was
interested in the fact that these people are here
and nobody knows who they are. They’re a
very little-known tribe from the mountains of
Laos.
“These people are from a different century.
The only people who could read and write
were the shamans. They had no roads, no
cars, no electricity. The war introduced them
to the 20th century. The Mien were just
drafted; it wasn’t like they had a choice. The
Laos government was very prejudiced against
the Mien, kind of like the way we are against
people in the Appalachians.
“In the film, I deal basically with these
seven characters. It’s the family of Ay Choy
Saelee, his wife Farm Yoon, his father Fou
Choy, who’s a shaman, and his mom Lai Poo.
Fou Choy and Lai Poo talk about the ancient
culture. They are the spokespeople for the
past
“I also focused on this other family, on a
bride who was getting married. One of the
first things I shot was this big Mien wedding,
three days, three nights. It was the first one
that ever took place in America. I follow Fey
Finh, the bride, and Low Choy, the man she
married. Her brother is also in the piece.
“They were very open and trusting. The
people who are a little more western, like Ay
Choy and Farm Yoon, were harder to get to
know, in a way, because they had more o f our
values. They were a little more self-
protective.
“When I filmed the wedding, the place was
so crowded. Absolutely packed. I was
totally surrounded by these people. And they
were wonderful. They really appreciated it. I
think they understood the importance of their
culture being documented. Their culture is
dying; there’s no way for it to survive in this
country.
“My last film, called Some o f These Days,
was portraits of four older women. It was
about their lives and what it’s like to age in
our society. This (Mien film) was much
more overwhelming. I re-translated every
interview twice. I was very careful about that.
I was afraid about how deep I could go
without speaking the language.
"The older woman, Lai Poo, is more
positive about American culture than Foo
Choy, the shaman. Women have something
to gain in this culture. [Mien] is a very sexist
society. The film deals with that a lot. A
woman can’t eat at the same table with the
family; she has to eat separately. She has to
wait while the men eat. It’s just incredible.
You try not to put your own values on that,
but it’s not easy.
“Now I kind of tease them. Like the last
time I went to Fey Finh’s house, I said, ‘Are
you going to sit down with me?* And she said,
‘No, I ’m not.’ And her brother will say,
‘Well, in my house we all sit together.’ So
things are changing.
“Mien worship their ancestors and they
believe that you have to take care o f your
ancestors here on earth; you have to feed them
and give them money. And if you have good
children who worship you, you do well in the
third world.
“So they believe when someone becomes
Christian, the ancestors are just going to be
lost. All these generations and generations of
Mien are just going to be gone.
“I tried to be as even-handed as I could.
Even with Christianity. In the film, I tried to
understand why these people would become
Christian and just present it straight I feel
like I ’ve done a careful job.
“Fey Finh, the one who got married, is
very Mien. She’s not like Farm Yoon, who
loves rock-and-roll and is becoming really
Western. I try to understand (Fey Finh), but
I ’m not sure I really can, because she’s really
deeply Mien. She doesn’t mind that she can’t
eat at the same table; she accepts these things.
She’s a good Mien woman; these are her
values.
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LO O K IN G FO R F U N S TU F F ?
LO O K IN G FO R A G REA T G IFT?
"They love the film; they really appreciate
the film. They want it for their children.
Their children are losing the whole sense of
who they are. This film captures a lot of the
transitions when they came here, the things
that were going on that are rapidly no longer
taking place.
“I’ve thought about doing a dramatic piece
about gay women. But I haven’t done a
dramatic piece before. I thought I ’d just start
out with scriptwriting and see how that goes.
I don’t know. It’s taken so much to get this
done. And I do want to see it distributed well.
So at least for a while, that’s what I ’m going
to be doing.
“I’m a visual artist I was painting and
drawing for years and years. Later I was
working for a place that did videos. I
discovered I had this real ability with cutting
(film) that became obvious with the first piece
I did. I like to put things out into the world.
A painting is not going to get into the world in
the same way.
“I think what affects the way I see things
(as a filmmaker) is my really caring deeply.
I’m a Scorpio; I like a lot o f intensity and a lot
of depth, and that’s what I look for in people.
I like to know what really goes on for people.
I think that’s what draws me.
“I like the fact that film does have such
power. And I believe that on some level it
can change things. It’s not an activist thing
where you see a film and go out in the street
and change the world. But my film Some o f
These Days moved people deeply and made
them think about what it was like for them to
age, or for people close to them.
“While I was doing this film, I wasn't
really sure I could do it well because it was
such a large undertaking. But I feel like it
does succeed. You can get inside these
people and understand what their lives are like
and think about things through their values
and their world. I ’m very happy that’s the
way it came o u t”
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