Lucky Fish Face Magazine

Lucky Fish Face is a Hmong cultural magazine covering ritual, creativity, language, gangs, grief, medicine (wo)men, and what your auntie won't tell you at funerals. We call out the bad and the really ugly. We call in the good, and the parts of our story we haven't told ourselves yet; the parts written out of history books, lost to war, or buried under the weight of assimilation, and the parts we might forget to pass down.

 

For anyone whose name was mispronounced, for those who hold the qeej and incense sticks forward, 
and for the ones still stitching paj ntaub, we launch September 2026. With monthly and quarterly digital editions, Lucky Fish Face also comes to life in print, free to Tribe Members and available for purchase.

 

At the heart of Lucky Fish Face is TMT, a living audio archive of cassette letters Hmong families sent across rivers and oceans after the Secret War. Publicly accessible, raw, and haunting, this growing library refuses to forget our fight for one another after surviving exile and attempted erasure. Beginning with the founder’s own family’s collection, TMT is organized by clan name and village of origin. The permanent home of the archive launches with our pilot issue this September, at luckyfishface.com. It belongs to all of us. 

 

Monthly, we’ll school you on (not so) new Hmong words; perhaps giving you room to impress elders at family functions, the kind of thing that might shut down claims that you’re a bad Hmong. We dig up historical context behind cultural and ritual artifacts and tools in Object of the Month. From your notes app to print, we dare you to share your poems with the community. Our Dispatches section will capture communities across the world, promoting connection, belonging, and a sense of Hmong. 

 

Every quarter, we go deeper. Lucky Fish Face publishes boots-on-the-ground investigative articles on issues that matter to our community. Flexing our taste and steez, each quarterly edition will also feature an original fashion editorial spread. Because we're Hmong, and then some. 

 

Founded by Jamie B. Goode, a first generation Hmong American storyteller and multidisciplinary creative. Based in Stockton, California, her aesthetic was formed, not borrowed. As a granddaughter of a Hmong shaman, her work spans tech, including Substack and Pinterest, alongside writing, fashion, education, and spirituality. She founded Lucky Fish Face originally out of spite. Now, it’s something else.