The result of five years of courageous and heartfelt commitment, Soul Calling opens our eyes to the beauty, resilience and daily lives of the Hmong people, so recently displaced from their traditional homeland by the traumas of the Vietnam War.
From the rice harvests and funerals of remote Hmong villages in the mountains of Laos to the shamanic ceremonies and overflowing apartment-complex vegetable gardens of Hmong Americans living in Fresno, writer and photographer Joel Pickford leads us into a world of deep-rooted custom and the harsh realities of cultural adaptation. His exquisite photographs and intimate stories take us into living rooms and through the memories of a remarkable people.