Celebrate!

Ruth Ayres has a link-up on weekends where people link to posts that are celebrations about their week. I love this reminder to celebrate every week.

I am celebrating community today. I participated in the Widening the Circle Native American and Hmong Indigenous Education Conference. This is not the first time I have attended so it was a time of reconnecting with people from past conferences and making new connections too. I love this event because I learn something new each time and always enjoy the people and of course the absolutely amazing food.

This year was a first for me though as I was asked to be a co-presenter. Our topic was Hmong and Native American Materials for the Classroom and Library. I was able to partner with an amazing librarian, Yee Lee Vue. She has won several awards for her work with Hmong Outreach at the Appleton Public library. Here's a video about her program. She is very knowledgeable about Hmong children's literature and I was so happy to work with her.



I also appreciated the other sessions I was able to attend: One was about inter-generational trauma and how that affects Native youth and another was A Critical Analysis of Hmong Representations and Portrayals in Children's Literature. Both were excellent.