Foung Hawj

Foung Hawj (also Foung Heu; Chinese: 贺祝福; Lao: ຝົງ ເຮີ) is an American politician from the state of Minnesota and member of the Minnesota Senate. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), he represents District 67, which includes the east side of Saint Paul in Ramsey County in the central Twin Cities metropolitan area.

Foung was born in Laos. His father was a military diplomat overseeing air deliveries of humanitarian cargo in Vientiene and Long Tieng. He grew up during the Vietnam War and lived in refugee camps with his family before coming to the United States. In 1990, He received his B.A. in Media Arts and Computer Science from the University of Kansas and earned his M.S. in Applied Science and Technology from New York's Rochester Institute of Technology in 2001.

Foung was a series producer for Twin Cities Public Television in the 1990s before starting his own multimedia business in 1996, Digital Motion LLC. He co-founded the Hmong-American DFL Caucus in 1992and other community organizations including Center for the Hmong Arts and Talent, the Minnesota Hmong Chamber of Commerce and Gateway Food Initiative Co-op which launched the development of the Mississippi Market on East 7th Street.

Foung was one of nine DFL candidates running for the Senate seat in 2010, losing in the primary to St. Paul police chief John Harrington. He ran again in 2012, supported by the Sierra Club and a broad coalition that included the Hmong-American community, but also Latino, Somali, and African American voters. He emerged from the primary victorious, and went on to win the general election on November 6, 2012. His special legislative concerns include economic development, education, housing, environment, and healthcare. Some his first term accomplishments for District 67 include new business developments on 7th Street, Science and Education Center for Metro State University, and job creation dollars to boost the local economy.

He kicked off his re-election campaign on January 16, 2016 at the Carpenter Union in his district with well over 600 supporters in attendance. At the event, he expressed the pride in having the most racially diverse campaign team in Minnesota history.

Foung is an outdoorsman and has worked as a videographer and scriptwriter, producing Hmong environmental videos. He lives at the south end of Lake Phalen and is captain of a dragon boat team. He spells his last name Hawj in RPA so that English-speakers can better approximate its pronunciation.