Legacy Weaver Katie Moua: Why Weaving is Essential to Community Wellbeing

With the Weaver Awards selection process underway, Fresno DRIVE is highlighting

one of the initiative's community advisors and a legacy weaver herself: Katie Moua. Katie serves as Director of Programs at Hmong Innovating Politics (HIP) and,

through her role, has utilized weaving to increase civic engagement and strengthen

community connections. As a Weaver Awards community advisor, Katie is part of a

local panel of community advocates who are dedicated to weaving strong social

fabrics and lend their expertise to the selection of Weaver Awards recipients. This

summer, Fresno-based individuals and organizations that lead projects to foster

community connection had the opportunity to apply for a $2,500 microgrant. On

December 2, 2026, Fresno DRIVE will announce the 20 Weaver Awards winners.

In your option, what does it mean to be a weaver?

When I think of weaving, I think of Paj Ntaub (pronounced pahn - dao), which is Hmong textile translated to “flower cloth.” Our Paj Ntaub often presents a beautiful and intricately woven pattern, telling stories of our language, heritage and our people’s roots. Now, what we do not often see is the needle work behind Paj Ntaub, the journey that our textile makers go through to create this intricately woven cloth. Weaving and Paj Ntaub mean, to me, knowing my community’s story, being familiar with the cloth we all come from and using the thread that I was gifted to weave us together, reminding us we are all connected to a bigger story — a greater purpose.

How has Hmong Innovating Politics’ work to eliminate voting barriers helped build a stronger sense of community belonging?

Our voter outreach efforts play a key role in our work to foster community belonging because our year-round work engages the community at the door, on the phone and in third spaces. By educating our community about their voting rights and equipping them to access their power to lead change, we get to learn and connect everyone’s hopes for effective and material change so everyone can live a well-resourced and joyful life. Our work reminds our community that our issues, decisions and actions not only impact us — but everyone around us. We all belong to this community and each one of us has a vital role in creating belonging.

As Director of Programs at HIP, how do you feel weaving is tied to justice for all? 

Weaving is deeply tied to the idea of justice for all. As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

That garment of destiny is the cloth of our shared life. We are woven together, each of us holding a thread in a fabric that is larger than any one person. Our threads represent not only our connection to one another, but our responsibility for one another — for each person’s wellbeing, dignity and right to a meaningful life.

In a woven cloth, no thread exists in isolation. When one thread is pulled, the tension travels. When one is cut, burned or broken, the integrity of the whole is affected. And when we tend to one another’s threads — repairing what has been torn, strengthening what has weakened, making space for what has been excluded — we strengthen the fabric we all share.

This is the work of justice: recognizing that our lives are interwoven, that what happens to one of us matters to all of us and that we each have a responsibility for the strength and dignity of the whole.

How do you hope the Weaver Awards microgrants will support community connection?

I hope to see more spaces for belonging that are led are community-led, giving courage to anyone who has ever wondered, “if I send this invitation, will someone join me?” I would love to see our community take up the space that belongs to them and develop even more accessible shared spaces to gather around our joy, skills and stories — and for us to have more space to exist because we simply deserve to.

Subscribe to Fresno DRIVE’s newsletter here and follow Fresno DRIVE on Facebook and Instagram @fresnodrive to learn more about the Weaver Awards and stay tuned for the announcement of the Weaver Awards honorees on December 2, 2026.