About
Nyob zoo. My name is Tzianeng Vang.
A former refugee child, a Maplewood neighbor of more than twenty years, and a candidate for the Minnesota Senate in District 44.
At a glance
- Seeking: Minnesota Senate, District 44
- Status: write-in candidate
- Home: Maplewood, Minnesota — 20+ years
- Family: wife Ong Xiong; children Ki, Dej, Thi and Chia Xiong Vang
- In the Phalen Lake area since 1989
From the jungle, across the Mekong, to Phalen Lake
I lived deep in the jungle of Laos as a child. I swam across the mighty mother Mekong River. I survived many years in the Nong Khai and Ban Vinai refugee camps before I ever saw a Minnesota winter.
Since 1989 my extended family has lived around the Phalen Lake area. My wife, Ong Xiong, and I have raised our four children — Ki, Dej, Thi and Chia Xiong Vang — in Maplewood for over twenty years.
People who arrive with nothing learn quickly what a public park, a clean lake and a fair hearing are worth. I have never stopped treating them as things worth defending.
Service to this community
I have not waited for a title to do the work. Over the years I have served and convened:
- Board member, City of Saint Paul’s Community District 2.
- Civil Service Commissioner, Maplewood Police Department.
- Mediator in the Hmong Town Marketplace raids by law enforcement over mislabeled, expired and illegal herbal and medicinal substances — bringing vendors and officers to the same table.
- Convener on the poisonous mushroom problem at Keller Lake Regional Park.
- Early participant in the first discussions on the Changsha and Saint Paul Sister City China Friendship Garden and the Hmong Plaza.
- Builder of Tuj Lub (spinning top) and takraw courts, with Saint Paul Parks & Recreation at the Case & Duluth Recreation Center and Marydale Park, and with Ramsey County Parks & Recreation at Keller Lake Regional Park in Maplewood.
- And many other community educational and social events, year after year.
Why I am running
Because the work in front of us is care work.
With these life experiences and this record, I believe I am prepared to be your next Minnesota Senator serving Senate District 44.
If elected, I will initiate the Siesta Minnesota program: mandatory paid rest of up to two hours for caretakers, and tax incentives for other lines of work and for volunteer capacities. The idea is simple — Minnesotans and our natural environment should both be well taken care of, and the people doing the caring cannot pour from an empty cup.
When people are rested and our waters are restored, we get to enjoy what is already ours: canoeing from Little Canada and North Saint Paul into Maplewood through Kohlman, Gervais, Spooner, Round and Phalen Lakes, then down Phalen Creek through Swede Hollow and Wakan Tipi in the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary, or through Tanners and Battle Creek Lakes, down to the mighty Mississippi River.
Once that is done, I will turn to natural resources across all of Minnesota, and especially the Boundary Waters — including initiating and implementing real fire prevention work.
Family
The people I answer to first
My wife Ong Xiong and our four children — Ki, Dej, Thi and Chia Xiong Vang — are the reason I know exactly what this district needs: places to play, water safe enough to touch, and time to rest.
In his own words
Introduction video
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