Cathy Shoua xiong, 31

Cathy was committed to a mental institution after her husband falsely reported that she had tried to kill herself. In fact, Cathy had fainted from shock shortly after he introduced her to another woman, who he’d been seeing for the past two years and wanted as a second wife.

“I returned home but didn’t know how to live from day to day. The other woman also was married. Her husband came to me with the phone bills that confirmed they were having a relationship. I found out that my husband had even taken a trip to California to be with her. He had told me that he was going there on business with a male co-worker.

I carried on with him, putting up with his absences while hoping and wishing that he would change his mind and just decide to be with me. One night he told me he was going to the farm to help his parents work, but he said the rest of us didn’t need to come because there wasn’t much to do. Later, my children wanted to go feed the ducks at the park, so I took them there. When I arrived, I noticed his car was there and so was hers. I couldn’t stand to see this right in front of my eyes. I pounded on the window and we again argued, screamed and yelled for four hours. She wanted me out for good and was willing to trade her life for ours. It was around ten at night and I had my children with me. Even though things were unresolved, I said I was going home. The last thing I remember was going toward my car. I woke up 45 minutes later in the backseat of his car.

My face, hands, arms and knees were covered with blood. I didn’t know what had happened. They dropped me off at home.
I awakened with my body pulsing with pain. I had bruises all over my face, neck, arms, hips and legs. I went to the hospital and was told my right cheekbone was fractured. Before I went to the hospital, I was warned by my mother-in-law not to tell what had happened but to say I had fallen. I wasn’t certain what really had happened and was afraid to tell anyone, so I stuck to the story that I fell. In fact, the other woman had attacked me from behind as I was going toward my car. She stomped my face and body as I blacked out, lying lifelessly on the hard gravel road. My husband let her do this to me, then had the nerve to put me into the car to bring me home.

The pressure of trying to keep this secret and saving my marriage was catching up with me. I became very depressed and isolated. When I tried to sleep, I would feel my heart beating loudly and uncontrollably. Night after night, as soon as my children went to bed, I went out driving.
I drove anywhere I could, for hours, in circles, until it was time to get the children up for school and go to work. I was a walking zombie who’d lost touch with reality and any feeling of being alive. I did this for one and a half years.

I finally had the courage to leave him after a few years but still didn’t feel free of him, even though we were not together anymore. The disgrace of being a Hmong woman without a husband is glued to me like a label for life. It’s such a big title that no Hmong woman wants to hold. I even thought during this depressing time that, if he were to come back, I would be willing to take him back. I never thought in my lifetime as a Hmong woman I’d be a divorcee. I had men looking down on me like I was a piece of meat. There were men who were older than my father who wanted to date me; men who were married called me constantly. I had no respect from these men. ‘You’re like a dinner of meat that we can come in and have anytime because you don’t have a man at home that you can call your own.’

Having this title of divorcee meant that I had failed as a Hmong wife.”

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Excerpt from Cathy's story, written and photographed by Kou Vang