Sun Ny Vang belongs to Moob Leeg Moob Xais Nyab (Blue Hmong people from Sainyabuli Province, Laos), but was born and raised on Dakota lands (occupied by the city of St. Paul, MN). His undergraduate experience was routed through Anishinaabeg lands (occupied by The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, MN). There he was a McNair Scholar, studying kwv txhiaj and lug txaj (Hmong vocal genres of poetry and storytelling) under the mentorship of ethnomusicologist Elyse Carter-Vosen.

Vang’s graduate experience is being routed through Patwin lands (occupied by UC Davis). He is a PhD student with a designated emphasis in Native American Studies under the advisorship of Indigenous musicologist Jessica Bissett Perea (from Dena’ina Ełnena, ancestral homelands in southcentral Alaska). His current interests include: Hmong music/sound studies; Indigenous knowledges and epistemologies; and concepts of Indigeneity, diasporas, and identities.