May Lee-Yang

Playwright/Prose Writer/Poet/Performance Actor

“I write because there are certain stories that I want to see exist,” May Lee-Yang says about her passion and drive to get where she is today. “I didn’t see them out there and knew that if I didn’t write them, they might not exist.”

May Lee-Yang, of Confessions of a Lazy Hmong Woman, and currently Ten Reasons Why I’d Be a Bad Porn Star fame, always knew she wanted to be a writer. Born in Thailand, May immigrated to the United States in 1979 when she was just a little baby. The fifth daughter of Va Pia Lee and Noh Yang, she grew up in the Twin Cities. Since junior high school, May has been honing her skill of putting her passion down on paper and out in the audiences. “I love stories—sitting around with people, listening to people gossip, catching up on family news, even telling ghost stories,” she says, “growing up, I wasn’t allowed to go out much, so most of my time was spent on writing stories.” May graduated from Highland Park Senior High in 1997 and went on to obtain her Bachelor of Arts Degree in English, Literature and Creative Writing, from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She currently lives with her husband, Peter Yang, in Saint Paul.

At eighteen, May had her first piece of writing published—a poem called The Voice. Although she initially began her writing endeavors as a fiction writer when she was a kid, she quickly evolved her talent into the realms of memoirs, poems, and now full-length plays she performs in herself. May also got her first acting role at eighteen when she decided to audition for Hmong Tapestry. Even though she currently performs some of her works, she has never had formal acting lessons. She considers herself to be a writer first and foremost, even though she never thought she would be writing poetry or plays. “I realized there were certain pieces that don’t work as well as a story—it had to be a poem or a play,” May said.
May’s pieces have since been featured in many books and anthologies, including Bamboo Among the Oaks: Contemporary Writing by Hmong Americans; The St. Paul Almanac, a national Asian-American Women’s Anthology; the Water-Stone Literary Review; and in How Do I Begin – a new Hmong Anthology. May has also had her plays published in an anthology called Asian-American Voices. She is currently the Interim Executive Director at the Hmong Arts Connection, nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and inspiring artistic expressions of Hmong culture.

May is also currently one of four Hmong people to have received a fellowship from the Bush Foundation—a highly competitive process where a grant is given to applicants who best represent their mission of  being a catalyst for leadership necessary to create sustainable solutions for tough public problems, ensuring community vitality and improving the quality of life. “I feel I am one of a lucky few who get paid to do what they like—it’s what I would do for free, anyway…getting paid is just an extra perk!” May says.

Confessions of a Lazy Hmong Woman was a breakout hit for May at the 2010 Fringe Festival, Minnesota’s biggest performing arts festival held annually in August. A hugely successful project, the play delves into the life of a Hmong woman who goes through the many different roles she is faced with as a woman in the Hmong community. There are certain expectations a woman must conform with in order to be considered a “good” Hmong girl. When May came up with Confessions, many people – both within the Hmong community and outside – were afraid she would make Hmong people look bad, especially with such a controversial title. “[People] questioned why I would do that when Hmong men and women are such hard-working people,” May says, “I meant for it to be funny and ironic. If my work isn’t funny, then I am in trouble as an artist…I didn’t do my job right.”

In fact, May strives to create an environment that any Hmong-American could potentially see themselves in. She wants them to be able to walk in and say , “Oh yeah, I remember that,” or, “oh yeah, I understand that world.” She aims for her plays to be universal, speaking to both Hmong-Americans and non-Hmong Americans alike—just don’t expect her to explain certain commonalities known in the Hmong community, as she acknowledges that much of her audience are Hmong-Americans. “Being a Hmong-American is a major influence in my writings. I hope to provoke people through my work,” May states.

Her production company, Lazy Hmong Woman Productions, received funding from the Minnesota State Arts Board to do a new version of Confessions in Hmong. Lee-Yang is excited to start work on translating it to an all-Hmong play. She can’t wait to see what kinds of reactions she will get from this new audience she will have by performing the play in Hmong. The audience will comprise older generations of the Hmong community. She and her husband Peter Yang, also a writer, received funding from the Minnesota State Arts Board as well, to write a superhero story which will be coming out later this year.

Despite success, May’s work has not come without some criticism: she’s seen a lot of mixed responses to her work. Many do not like the fact that she explores certain topics within the Hmong community that they view as ‘putting them down,’ such as the issue of underage marriages. But there many who applaud her for having the courage to examine such subject matters. Her work is mainly comedic. She’s been nicknamed “The Equalizer” while performing her work. When other artists’ pieces create a gloomy atmosphere, she would be asked to perform to create a balanced ambiance again.

So you might ask: what prompted Lee-Yang to write and perform Ten Reasons Why I’d be a Bad Porn Star? In this play, she tackles the topic of sex within the Hmong community—a cultural no-no. May stated, “The funny thing is that a lot of the stuff I talk about in my show, Hmong people do talk about. We just talk about it private, in the kitchen.” Added May, “I’ve always been fascinated with sex hypocrisy within the Hmong community. I was always told that Hmong people don’t talk about sex. Yet, I realized that Hmong men and women do talk about it, they just don’t talk about it in the same way.”

When she first started working as a full-time artist, she was broke, so she thought she could sell sex toys on the side to make money, even though she ended up making more money writing than selling sex toys. Also, having a work background in teaching sex education for non-profit agencies, May had seen how much of an impact the world of sex could have. She started out teaching abstinence then went on to teaching comprehensive sex education.

“I just started to weave everything together and came up with Ten Reasons Why I’d be a Bad Porn Star,” says May.  In the show, she talks about sex toys and generalizations of Asian men and women. There’s a section with a polar bear teaching different sexual positions if you want to be a porn star. In her own words: “I wasn’t trying to be provocative or anything. I was just really interested in hearing these stories and so I decided put them together. The show is an exploration of me being an artist and what artists have to do to make a living. I talk about how sometimes as an artist I kind of feel like a whore because we have to make ourselves look good in front of people, we have to find people to support our stuff, like a “sugar daddy” or whatever. I also talk about the generals for Asian women and men. But I also talk about darker stuff, like the kids I used to work with and the stories I remember from them.”

May’s advice to young writers: “I encourage you to write your stories because each writer has his/her own experiences to write about, even if it’s not the popular ones or the cool ones. All stories are unique so that even if they all get published, each would still be different. I hope to inspire others to write. And write what you want to write—don’t censor yourself because if you censor yourself, you’ll never get anything done.”
For more information on upcoming projects, please visit May’s website: www.lazyhmongwoman.com

By Pa Lee