‘Street that feeds me deserves my respect'

Patricia Ohmans

Readers of past Frogtown Green columns have heard a lot recently from me and from Rennie Gaither, our longtime communications wizard. With this issue, we introduce another key member of the Frogtown Green team: Xiem Vuong.
Xiem is Frogtown Green’s outreach coordinator, responsible for connecting our work with residents, neighbors and friends. Xiem is the friendly face orchestrating our monthly Neighbor Nights; the agricultural expert coaching newbies in our community gardens; and, for the past two months, a critical member of the volunteer team planting trees. Lots of trees! More than 150 of them this year alone.

Now, here’s Xiem!

Hi! My name is Xiem, and I use any pronouns. I work for a small outfit called Frogtown Green, an advocacy group for green spaces in the neighborhood. I help keep the garden tidy; lay in the grass to hang out and talk with gardeners, teach new immigrants to eat cold-grown crops. I help plant trees, and meet many people who do not speak English, just like my family. Just 30 years ago, my parents lived just like people in this neighborhood. They came with nothing as refugees from the Vietnam War, and lived in the cheapest apartments they could find.
University Avenue is a huge part of my childhood. It goes without saying that it is the go-to street for immigrant foods in St. Paul, and so I operate on a simple belief: The street that feeds me deserves my respect. It deserves better. The people who fed me, like my great aunt and second cousins, deserve to have access to beautiful green spaces, clean streets, and most importantly: they deserve to be given the time of day.
People drive through Frogtown. They stop in. They do not linger. They park in parking lots, get what they need, and leave. Even my own family is guilty of this. As soon as they could, they moved out to the suburbs. We came to get groceries, fearful of the vagrancy surrounding Shuang Hur. We did not spend longer than we had to. To this day, we do not consider that it could have been one wrong move in the process of assimilation and we, too, would be panhandling on University Avenue, or living on Lafond with five, six, seven family members.
So, it is with respect for the stores, people, and streets of Frogtown that fed me longan, bao, and pho in my childhood that I approach this work. In the spaces I occupied before in nonprofit administration, universities, and web development firms, I was often exclusively the only person of color in the room. But in Frogtown, I am normal. Expected, even!
So that’s all to say: Expect to see me around!

P.S. Both Xiem and Rennie Gaither will be honored in early October as “Unsung Caretakers” by Upstream Minnesota for the work they do to care for Minnesota’s natural places, specifically in Frogtown. We’re so proud of both of them!
- Patricia Ohmans, Frogtown Green co-director