Rep. Kaohly Vang-Her: Empowered to Lead
By Macy Yang
News
Hmong Women in Leadership is a series of articles highlighting inspirational and influential Hmong women breaking barriers in politics.
MINNESOTA—Born in Laos, Kaohly Vang-Her came to the U.S. at four. Her family first lived in Illinois and Wisconsin before settling in Minnesota—where her parents pursued better schools and job opportunities.
""I come from a family of six kids, and everybody was an engineer except for me,” Kaohly shared candidly with Hmong Daily News. ""My sisters are probably some of the first engineers in the country— [that is] Hmong women engineers, and I was the one that went into business because everyone thought I wasn't as smart.”
She earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from the University of Wisconsin in Madison and a Master of Business Administration from Northeastern University.
""I went into business, and I had a very nontraditional career that led me into politics,” Rep. Kaohly added.
Kaohly enjoyed a remarkable15-year journey in finance and investment, where she managed retirement accounts, mutual funds, and individual and Fortune 500 accounts.
It wasn’t until she chose to stay home to raise her two daughters that she started thinking about "leadership and politics."
"I always knew that politics mattered in the Hmong community, but I never really understood what my role [would be],” Kaohly explained.
Through her soul searching, Kaohly joined every activity she put her kids in—even earning herself a Black Belt. She said her children trained in the same gym as Olympian gold gymnast Sunisa Lee for ten years
Fighting for Others
While volunteering at school, Kaohly learned that her children were classified as English Language Learners (ELL). She requested to remove the ELL classification; her children didn’t need it, and by accepting it, they'd be taking away significant resources from kids who did.
""I remember thinking that this whole journey of me fighting for the education that my children deserve and what they should have. I don't have any barriers in time, resources, and language, and for all these reasons, we have been privileged. Some parents worked two jobs, had language barriers, managed more children than I did, and lived in multigenerational households caring for families. They should get the education they need,” she explained.
At the same time, Kaohly was advocating for her mother during a difficult time. She remembers toggling between the insurance company and the provider because of a coding error and thinking, ""How is somebody going through the most difficult time in their life supposed to deal with this? I think $40 doesn't seem like a lot, but that's my mom's monthly grocery.""
Kaohly reentered the workforce and found herself surrounded by advocates and politicians. She felt "tricked" into running for her first political bid when the former Deputy Mayor of St. Paul asked her to attend the Central Committee meeting and to "tell them you're interested in the position."" After doing so, Kaohly said ""I went back to Kristin, and said ‘I think, I'm running now.'"
In 2018, nearly six months behind her opponent, Kaohly jumped in the race. Three weeks in, Kaohly's predecessor Erin Murphy, unexpectedly retired to run for governor instead. Kaohly not only won the endorsement but also swept the election.
"I never looked back on my life doing this work,” she said, ""I could not love a job more than I love this job.”
She is a third-term state representative serving District64A and is currently Chair of the Legislative Commission on Pension and Retirement and the Reproductive Freedom Caucus.
The Greatest Leadership Test
Wealth and income disparity applies in legislative work, and Kaohly found relevance by applying her finance experience.
She authored a bill that prohibits employers from inquiring into an employee's pay history. Doing so creates barriers for women and people of color and continues suppressing people into poverty, she said.
When asked to chair a committee her first term, she responded, ""No, I'm not ready,” she told the Majority Leader.
After seeing the list of chairs, she thought she could have been a committee chair.
Kaohly became Majority Whip after being reminded: ""If you don't run, somebody less qualified and less smart is going to take that job. Somebody always will.”
""I was in leadership through an unprecedented time in the legislature and kept a state running during COVID. Having never experienced that, that was the greatest test of my leadership. I'm proud of what we did in Minnesota, protecting people and keeping the legislature in a remote environment. I would say that was a hugeaccomplishment for me.”
Investing in Children
Kaohly is passionate about children and investing in the future of children. She’s currently working on a bill protecting children from vaping.
A bill she authored to eliminate child marriages for anyone under 18 in the state is one that resonates with her.
At thirteen, someone wanted to marry her. Kaohly recalls her father saying, ""My daughter is so young, and she's going to go to college, and you should tell your son to go to college. One day, when they finish, he can contact her if he still wants to marry her, and if they like each other, they can get married.”
""My father was constantly protecting me from the pressures of what was around me. My parents were people with such big dreams and knew they couldn't reach them, but they knew that if they invested in their children, they would.”
Kaohly's supported several bills that offer free tuition for anyone whose family's income is less than $80,000. Additionally, she authored the Foster Education Bill that provides free college for any child who has been in foster care.
"I always tell people that you invest in children now, or you're going to invest in them later, especially our kids of color,” Kaohly said.
""Very few kids, I think, in single digits, ever go on to get a higher education, and most of them end up in a system that we have to pay for whether it's public assistance, whether it's a juvenile justice system, whether it's the criminal justice system, that they end up in.”
The number of ELL students in the state is disproportionate. She found herself coming to a full circle—at one time fighting for her kids—and now she's fighting to have the state invest more money into the program so everyone, who needs it, can benefit.
""I'm really proud of those types of bills. They don't get a lot of visibility, but I’m proud that I sponsored and championed them.”
"Not Meant for People Like Me"
"I knew this was a place not meant for people who look like me, who came from my background, and I never take that for granted," Kaohly said, speaking about her political career.
She feels privileged in many ways, significantly as a Hmong woman growing up in the generation that she did. She is living her dream and has remembered her roots.
"My grandfather was a Colonel in the ""Secret War,"" and he didn't get elected to office, so the hope he always had for all of us was—education.”
"I turned 50 this year and am probably the first wave of young women who went to college in the early 90s. I would not be here today, and I would not be doing what I'm doing had it not been for the love and support of my entire family. The women who nurtured and raised me and the men who protected me were my biggest advocates."
Against all Odds
Her parents were business owners, but they struggled when she was young. People often questioned why her father had invested in three girls.
"My father didn't have a son until the fourth child, and so I think my father had no choice but to invest in the girls. He wanted to prove people wrong – like girls could do something too.”
"We all paid for college on our own, and I remember worrying about taking on debt to go to college. My dad let us go away to college, too. We were some of the first girls to go away to college. I remember telling my dad I was afraid to take on debt, but he told me that the debt that you take on for your education is the greatest investment you will ever make in your own life. And, he said, you will pay that and get it back 10-fold.”
Young Hmong women were supposed to marry. An unmarried woman would often be asked, why isn’t she married?
""My grandmother also told us from a very young age that it's okay if you don't get married. You don't need to. You'll never need a man. She's like, you want a man, but you never need him, and that the greatest thing is to have independence and take care of yourself.”
In college, people would say, ""Oh my God, you guys are so old. There's something wrong with you. They'll never get married,” she recalls.
On the Lighter Side of Things
Kaohly is married to her husband, Kong, and they have two daughters. Even with a demanding job, there is time to enjoy a hobby farm she owns with her husband, in Stillwater. Her family is quite adventurous, she said.
"I love being outdoors. I ride motorcycles. My husband is a big motorcycle rider who taught me how to ride. We've been downhill skiing for 30 years,” she said.
What is the outlook for the third-term legislator? When asked to run for mayor, governor, or congress, her response: ""I don't know where my future will lead me, and I love this work so much that when the opportunities are right, they will fall together. I always leave the door open to what might come to me.”
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