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| 4/10/2008 2:56:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Long X. Yang Named Executive Director of Lao Family Community Center
Elizabeth Thao
On April 1, 2008, Long X. Yang was officially named the Executive Director of the Lao Family Community of Minnesota, Inc. Mr. Yang has more than a decade of leadership and management experience in business and nonprofit organizations.
Yang is a Ph.D candidate in Political Science at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, IL. He also holds a Master of Arts in Political Science and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and East Asian Studies. In April of 2007 Mr. Yang was the Youth and Education Director and the Assistant to the Executive Director of the Hmong American Mutual Assistance Association located in Minneapolis, MN. In Minnesota, he has always been heavily involved in the Hmong community including the role of a St. Paul Police Community Liason Officer from 1988-1992.
A statement sent out by the organization on April 1 stated that, "Lao Family's leadership transition reflects a broader transition unfolding in the community at large. Lao Family has a proud history of delivering excellent self-sufficiency services and bi-cultural programs to the Hmong refugees, yet a growing segment of the community is looking for innovative economic development programs and broader services. This shift has pointed to a need for Lao Family to explore its mission and make sure it is serving the needs of a community that is growing and changing."
"Mr. Yang has a vision for Lao Family Community to become a strategic leader for the Hmong community in the coming decades and beyond," stated Ka Houa Yang, current Board Chair of the organization. As told to HMONG TIMES, these visions include the expansion of the current community center and office site in order to become more of a resource and a space for functions within the Hmong community. Yang has plans of including a Hmong senior center in the space as well as a resource to find affordable housing. Yang has seen an increase in the percentage of foreclosure rates within the Hmong community and wants to be able to help that issue by providing services educating the Hmong about homeownership.
Another long-term goal of Yang's is that of establishing a facility in which the Hmong community can celebrate both the Hmong New Year and the Annual Summer Soccer Festival held every year at McMurray Field at Como Park. Because of the sheer attendance size of both of these celebrations, Yang feels the current spaces where these events are held may be too small. A location has yet to be determined where this facility could be built, but funding for the project has already been set forth.
HMONG TIMES asked Yang what potential problems he faced being the new director at a younger age, to which he replied, "There is some community pressure because of politics, however, the reason I have decided to take on this big job is because Lao Family has been the biggest and longest running nonprofit organization. I really want to be able to bring the Hmong community together."
Yang arrived in the United States in August 1975 in Dallas, TX. After living in Texas and North Carolina, Yang moved to St. Paul. He has also lived in Spokane, WA; Milwaukee, WI; Appleton, WI; and has studied in Mankato, MN. Yang is married with seven children and currently resides in St. Paul, MN.
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St. Paul, MN
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