If HMong Futures stirred something in you, start here.
Nyob zoo, I’m Pagnia Xiong, a Hmong American recording artist based in Minnesota.
If this is your first time here, welcome.
Music has always been the most powerful way for me to express my lived experience as a first-generation Hmong American woman. These three songs are some of the most honest work I’ve ever released. Together, they reflect identity, healing, and what the journey from survival to thriving can sound like in Hmong music.
I’m truly grateful to collaborate with Theater MU as they bring Hmong Futures: The Future of Us, written by Katie Ka Vang, to the main stage. I’m honored to share these songs as a companion to this world premiere, and I hope one of them meets you wherever you are.
“Pagnia Xiong is incomparable […] her voice and presence in both speech and song command every scene she is in.”
— TWIN CITIES AGENDA
I
Txoj Phuam Txoom Suab
"THE HEADDRESS" — A SONG FOR HMONG BRIDES
This one is for every Hmong woman who has stood at the threshold between who she was and who she is becoming. In the Hmong culture, marriage is a beautiful and complicated passage — a woman spiritually leaves her birth family to become part of another. There is so much love in that. And so much quiet loss.
This original song was written to honor both.
II
Mos Txwv
"BULLETS" — ON PAIN, SILENCE, AND HIDDEN GRIEF
Have you ever been hurt by someone you love and later realized they were drowning, too? That the sharp words, the criticism, the distance...were actually tears they didn't know how to cry?
This song came from that ache. The moment you understand someone's cruelty wasn't about you at all and you're left holding both the wound and the compassion at the same time.
III
Ob Txiv Tub
"FATHER AND SON" — A TRUE STORY
In the Hmong culture, family is the core of your existence. It’s where you come from, who you are, and who you carry with you forever.
But what happens when years of unhealed trauma live inside that love? When the person who shaped you is also the one who hurt you most?
This song is based on a true story—a father, a child, and the long road between wound and understanding. This song sits with the complicated truth of loving someone deeply while still healing from them. And it asks, gently: how do you forgive? How do you love them? And…how do you love yourself?
LET’S STAY CONNECTED