Somebody was left behind so she could go to the olympics. Dont be a willing dunce.
A star rises:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/everybodys-all-american-11627584152?mod=opinion_lead_pos11Everybody’s All-American
Gymnast Sunisa Lee rises to the occasion in Tokyo.
Communism lost again this week as a tough and graceful American child of refugees from Marxist horror climbed to the top of the gymnastics world. Decades after her parents escaped Laos and found a home in the United States, the indefatigable Sunisa Lee is the new Olympic women’s all-around champion.
The 18-year-old Minnesotan who grew up flipping off a homemade beam and swinging on the metal bars of a family clothesline—and more recently overcame a broken foot and family tragedy—bested a talented field to take gold in Tokyo on Thursday.
Matt Bonesteel in the Washington Post notes Ms. Lee’s unique talents:
“As soon as she came to the gym it was pretty evident she was special,” Jeff Graba, who co-founded the Midwest Training Center in Minnesota where Lee learned the ropes and is now the head coach at Auburn University, told Yahoo. “In our sport, you can tell. Strength to weight ratio. Flexibility. She had the whole package.”
Lee, who will attend Auburn and compete there in the fall, is the first American of Hmong descent to compete in the Olympics. Both of her parents were born in Laos and emigrated to the United States when they were young.
Dane Mizutani of the St. Paul Pioneer Press recently reported:
With every tantalizing twirl on the uneven bars, every logic-defying leap on the balance beam, every fearless flip on the floor, St. Paul gymnast Sunisa Lee is inspiring more people than maybe she even realizes...
“She’s the realization of the dream our ancestors had,” Hmong activist Tou Ger Xiong said. “When they hopped on that plane, and didn’t speak a lick of English, and didn’t know how the heck they were going to make it work, this is the type of opportunity they were envisioning down the road. Everything our ancestors sacrificed to come here was done to give the next generations a better life. She’s living proof of that.”
Jaclyn Diaz and Bill Chappell National Public Radio report:
There are only 18 clans of Hmong, an ethnic group from Laos, Vietnam and parts of China that sided with the U.S. during the Vietnam War.
In the early 1960s, the CIA recruited Hmong to help keep the communist North Vietnamese out of neighboring Laos. In return, the U.S. promised to take care of them and their families. When Laos fell to the communists and U.S. troops pulled out in 1975, thousands of Hmong fled as refugees to neighboring Thailand and then resettled in the U.S.
Suni’s parents, John Lee and Yeev Thoj, were children when they and their families fled Laos and made the dangerous journey to refugee camps in Thailand. Their families eventually settled in Minnesota and found a home among thousands of other Hmong who’d come to the U.S. via a similar path.
Rachel Blount of the Minneapolis Star Tribune recently reported:
In the Hmong culture, a khi tes is a ritual of celebration. When someone reaches a joyous milestone, family and friends tie white string around that person’s wrists, while offering blessings, congratulations and good wishes.
Suni Lee couldn’t gather with her large extended family after she made the U.S. Olympic team, so the khi tes took a slightly different form. With the Tokyo Olympics only three weeks away — and COVID-19 concerns still looming — the St. Paul gymnast had to avoid crowds. At the party in her backyard on July 3, her relatives tied the white string to little cards, inviting guests to write wishes for Lee to read later.
By midafternoon, dozens of cards hung on a strand of twine next to the Lees’ garage. “The whole Hmong community is so proud of her,’’ said Judy Yang, one of Lee’s aunts. “My mom told me they’re even talking about her on the radio overseas. It’s a great thing.’’
In Minnesota their Hmong community now numbers about 80,000, notes Ms. Blount, who adds:
“The Hmong here are very proud to be American,’’ said Sia Lo, a St. Paul attorney and part of Lee’s extended family. “We hope all of America is proud of Suni. What she’s achieved showcases what is possible here in the United States.’’
...The lively Lee and Thoj families have been a constant source of support for each other... John, an applications engineer, and Yeev, an associate care manager with a health insurer, said those family ties were essential to financing their daughter’s Olympic dreams. Their relatives helped put on yearly fundraisers and donated money...
Suni said her parents and grandparents don’t talk much about the hardships they faced. Her generation is well aware of the courage it took to get their families out of Laos and start over in an unfamiliar new place, something that makes her all the prouder to represent them.
“We know they did it for a reason, so they could be safe and their kids could have a good life,’’ she said. “It’s something very cool for my generation to know they did that for us. And it was all worth it.’’
Alyssa Roenigk of ESPN reports on the recent family history:
Two days before Suni was set to leave for her first senior national championships, on Aug. 4, 2019, John fell from a ladder while helping a friend cut a tree branch. He broke his right wrist and several ribs and injured his spinal cord, paralyzing his body below his chest. He remembers waking up in the hospital and being told he was unable to use his legs.
Suni contemplated skipping nationals. But John convinced her to go to Kansas City with her coach. On the first day of competition, he FaceTimed from his ICU bed and told her it didn’t matter how she finished, just that she did her best. She would always be No. 1 in his eyes, he said.
Suni, then 16, has said she arrived in Kansas City feeling unsettled and unfocused. She didn’t mention her dad’s injury to anyone. But because she knew he was watching on TV, she competed for him. And she was stellar.
Mr. Lee has still not regained feeling below his chest, notes Ms. Roenigk, and also reports that father and daughter now inspire each other to persevere. The ESPN account also notes the larger family history, documented by a picture including 150 relatives:
The photo was taken on the first day of an annual family summer camping trip that started in honor of the family’s patriarch, Cher Yee Lee, after he died in 2008. “My dad came to this country and didn’t have an education or understand the language, and he worked two jobs to support 11 kids,” John says. “This is what we do for him.”
... John’s father was a Hmong soldier who fought alongside the U.S. military during the Vietnam War... It was evening on St. Patrick’s Day, 1979, when the family arrived in St. Paul. “It was super cold and we didn’t have jackets,” John says. “We had never ridden in a car. We’d never seen lights. We didn’t have electricity in Laos. It was the first time I ate dinner at a table.”
Yeev, who is also from a large Hmong family, was 12 when she arrived in St. Paul with her mother and older sister from Laos in 1987. “We went to a grocery store, and I thought it was magic. Vanilla ice cream in a box. Starburst. And girls wore jeans instead of skirts. I was so excited to wear jeans,” she says while wearing a pair of stonewashed jeans.
“It’s a big moment for all of us,” John Lee tells ESPN. It sure is, and it could not be more beautiful.
