Over the 50 years since the first Vietnam War-era Southeast Asian refugees arrived in the U.S., there’s been hardship — but there have also been plenty of comedic moments, which is where the St. Paul-based comedy group Funny Asian Women Kollective comes in.
This weekend, the group is presenting The FAWK Hmong (+Friends) Super Show, featuring local and national Asian stand-up comedians, sketch comics and storytellers.
“It might’ve been a stereotype for people to say, 50-year anniversary, let’s reflect on war and death in this history of ours — which is completely real — but what’s really interesting is that a lot of people are focusing on the funny,” said FAWK co-founder and writer May Lee-Yang, who is directing Saturday’s show. “We don’t just want to show up on stage and talk about trauma. We want to talk about the quirky, the weird, the mundane that makes us all feel a little bit more human.”
Featured performers in the show include the trio of FAWK co-founders — Lee-Yang, Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay and Naomi Ko — and Lin Sun, billed as the first Cambodian stand-up comic to have an hourlong special on a major streaming platform; online personality Ntxawm Kam; and other local acts. Plus pretaped and live sketches, including “Love Is Blind: Hmong Edition,” written by Kazua Melissa Vang, who worked as a production assistant on the most recent Minneapolis-based season of the Netflix dating show.
The FAWK Hmong (+Friends) Super Show is at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 19, at the Ordway. Tickets range from $31 to $54 and are available online.
FAWK, which was formed in 2014 and has performed three previous Super Shows over the years in addition to other programming, aims to provide a platform for participants to create a new model of gregarious, funny Asian womanhood, and break down stereotypes of Asian women as demure and quiet and overly serious.
“When we did our first Super Show at the Ordway in 2019, one feedback we got was, ‘You guys were so funny that I forgot I was watching Asian women.’” Duangphouxay Vongsay said. “And then we’ve had to unpack that.”
When Duangphouxay Vongsay was growing up, she said, she recalled Lao community members referencing complex topics like war and trauma — but only through jokes and satirical comments, not head-on discussions.
“I heard a lot of elders making fun of hard stuff to help them talk about it,” Duangphouxay Vongsay said. “For Laotians who have survived the wars — the many wars — we use comedy as a way to cope, and even sometimes to bring up topics that are really, really hard.”
This is the idea behind FAWK, she said: By finding ways to laugh about the things that are most important in our lives, even topics that may feel taboo, audience members cannot only enjoy themselves in the moment but also then use the show as a gateway for deeper conversations in the future.
“I think many people — most people I know, anyway — are always looking for an opportunity to laugh,” Lee-Yang said. “It brings them joy, brings them catharsis and makes them feel seen.”
If you go
What: The FAWK Hmong (+Friends) Super Show
Where: The Ordway, 345 Washington St., St. Paul
For tickets: 651-224-4222 or visit ordway.org/events/fawk-hmong-friends-super-show.
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