\u201cSecret War\u201d<\/a> in Laos, thousands of Hmong men were recruited to fight alongside American forces during the Vietnam War. After the war ended, many Hmong families fled Laos and eventually resettled in the United States. Nguyen said many Americans are unaware of that history.<\/p>\n\u201cThe Hmong is spelled H-M-O-N-G, Hmong,\u201d Nguyen said. \u201cDuring the Vietnam War, we helped with the CIA. So, a lot of people don\u2019t know that, but we helped the Americans, and that\u2019s how we got to the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Decades later, Nguyen said preserving cultural identity remains important, even as younger generations grow up speaking English and assimilating into American life.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though we don\u2019t speak the native tongue anymore, we just have to remember where we came from and what we are, because we\u2019re a minority,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Maey Jarin traveled from Orlando to showcase Filipino food at the festival. She said events like the Asian Street Food Festival create opportunities for cultural exchange and understanding.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmbrace and learn other cultures too,\u201d Jarin said. \u201cIt\u2019s diversity.\u201d<\/p>\n
WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and\u00a0donate now<\/a>. Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Millennial Brewing Company hosted its eighth annual Asian Street Food Festival on Friday, Feb. 13, drawing folks from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-158095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}