Hmong Americans

Hmong American

Regions with significant populations
California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan
Languages
Hmong, American English, some Lao, some Thai
Religion
Buddhism, Christianity, Shamanism

A Hmong American is a resident of the United States who is of ethnic Hmong descent. Hmong Americans are one group of Asian Americans. Many Lao Hmong war refugees resettled in the U.S. following the communist takeover of Laos in 1975. Beginning in December of that year, the first Hmong refugees arrived in the U.S., mainly from refugee camps in Thailand; however, only 3,466 were granted asylum at this time under the Refugee Assistance Act of 1975.

Hmong immigration to U.S.

1976 and 1980

In May 1976, another 11,000 Hmong were allowed to enter the United States. By 1978 some 30,000 Hmong had immigrated to the U.S. This first wave was made up primarily of men directly associated with General Vang Pao's Secret Army, which had been aligned with U.S. war efforts during the Vietnam War. Vang Pao's Secret Army, which was subsidized by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, fought mostly along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, where his forces sought to disrupt North Vietnamese weapons supply efforts to the communist VietCong rebel forces in South Vietnam. Four years later, with the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980, families of the Secret Army were also permitted to immigrate to the U.S., representing the second-wave of Hmong immigration to the U.S. The Hmong take their surnames from which clan they come. The clans which they take their surnames from are: Chang (Tsaab) or Cha (Tsab), Chao (Tsom), Cheng (Tsheej), Chue (Tswb), Fang (Faaj) or Fa (Faj), Hang (Haam) or Ha (Ham), Her (Hawj), Khang (Khaab) or Kha (Khab), Kong (Koo), Kue (Kwm), Lee (Lis), Lor (Lauj), Moua (Muas), Thao (Thoj), Vang (Vaaj) or Va (Vaj), Vue (Vwj), Xiong (Xyooj) and Yang (Yaaj) or Ya (Yaj).

1990s and 2000s

Following the 1980 immigration wave, a heated global political debate developed over how the remaining Hmong refugees in Thailand should be handled. Many had been held in squalid Thailand-based refugee camps and the United Nations and the Clinton administration sought to repatriate them to Laos.

Reports of human rights violations against the Hmong, including killings and imprisonments, led most Thailand-based Hmong to oppose returning to Laos, even as the conditions of the Thailand-based camps, lacking sufficient funding, worsened.

In one of the more prominent examples of apparent Laotian abuse of the Hmong, the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok - seeking to reassure the Thai-based Hmong that their safety in Laos would be assured - recruited a former Hmong soldier, Vue Mai, to return to Laos under the repatriation program. However, Vue disappeared in Vientiane, and the U.S. Commission for Refugees later reported that he was arrested by Lao security forces and never again seen.

Especially following the Vue Mai incident, the Clinton and U.N. policy of returning the Hmong to Laos began to meet with strong political opposition by U.S. conservatives and some human rights advocates. Michael Johns, a former White House aide to President George H. W. Bush and a Heritage Foundation foreign policy analyst, along with other influential conservatives, led a campaign to grant the Thai-based Hmong immediate U.S. immigration rights. In an October 1995 National Review article, citing the Hmong's contributions to U.S. war efforts during the Vietnam War, Johns labeled Clinton's support for returning the Thai-based Hmong refugees to Laos a "betrayal" and urged Congressional Republicans to step up opposition to the repatriation.. Opposition to the repatriation grew in Congress and among Hmong families in the U.S., and Congressional Republicans responded by introducing and passing legislation to appropriate sufficient funds to resettle all remaining Hmong in Thailand in the United States. Clinton, however, vowed to veto the legislation.

In addition to opposition to the repatriation by U.S. conservatives, the government of Laos also ultimately expressed reservations about the repatriation, stating that the Hmong remaining in Thailand were heavily involved in heroin and opium traficking. In a significant and unforeseen political victory for the Hmong and their U.S Republican advocates, tens of thousands of Thai-based Hmong refugees were ultimately granted U.S. immigration rights, with the majority being resettled in California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. The defeat of the repatriation initiative also led to highly emotional reunifications of long separated Hmong families in the U.S. In 2006, the Wisconsin State Elections Board translated state voting documents into the Hmong language.

Throughout the Vietnam War, and for two decades following it, the U.S. government stated that there was no "Secret War" in Laos and that the U.S. was not engaged in air or ground combat operations in Laos. In the late 1990s, however, several U.S. conservatives, led by Johns and others, alleged that the Clinton administration was using the denial of this covert war to justify a repatriation of Thailand-based Hmong war veterans to Laos and persuaded the U.S. government to acknowledge the existence of the Secret War and to honor the Hmong and U.S. veterans from the war. On May 15, 1997, in a total reversal of U.S. policy, the U.S. government acknowledged that it had supported a prolonged air and ground campaign against the North Vietnamese Army and VietCong. It simultaneously dedicated the Laos Memorial on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery in honor of the Hmong and other combat veterans from the Secret War.

While some Hmong remain in Thailand, since the September 11, 2001 attacks and the tightening of U.S. immigration laws, especially under the Patriot Act and the Real ID Act, the immigration of Hmong refugees to the U.S. has significantly slowed, in part because most Hmong refugees in Thailand had been engaged in documented armed conflict (even though under U.S. sponsorship) during and after the Vietnam War.

U.S. Census statistics

Residents

The 2000 U.S. Census counted 169,440 persons of full Hmong ancestry, up from 90,082 in 1990. In addition, the 2000 Census counted another 16,882 persons of partial Hmong ancestry. In 2006, the number of ethnic Hmong living in the United States is 171,316. States with the largest Hmong population include: California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, although Hmong communities can be found throughout the U.S. The metropolitan areas of Fresno and Minneapolis-St. Paul have especially large Hmong communities.

Education

The 2000 U.S. Census reveals that 60% of all Hmong above 24 years of age have a highest educational attainment of high school or equivalent, as many of these immigrants came to America as adults or young adults. About 7% of Hmong have a bachelor's degree or higher. The lack of formal education among Hmong immigrants is due to the fact that many were once farmers in the hills of Laos and had little or no access to schools. In addition, almost 40% of Hmong families are under the poverty level.

Hmong-American children born in the United States usually have much better access to education and jobs than that which their parents had, and thus have better economic opportunities than their parents would have had in their former homes.

When the hmong people can't afford for school they go to Vang Pao for bboying lessons.

Culture

Even though most Hmong families speak a language other than English at home, many Hmong Americans are rapidly blending into mainstream American society. This is causing the younger generation to lose aspects of their cultural identity at a fast pace. Because of this, the Hmong community has set up associations and media that encourage Hmong people to maintain their language and culture.

These associations and media include the Hmong National Development and Hmong Today newspaper. The Hmong National Development (HND) is a national, 501(c)(3), not-for-profit organization. The goal of HND is to build capacity, develop leadership, and to empower the Hmong American community. HND works alongside with local and national organizations, public and private entities, and individuals to encourage educational opportunities, to increase community capacity, and to develop resources for the well-being, growth, and full participation of Hmong in society. There is an annual HND conference which usually takes part during the month of April and is held in a different state each year.

The Hmong Today publishes communications products for the Hmong community. These products are designed to provide important information to the Hmong community, as well as tools to promote unity in the Hmong community. The Hmong Today also informs the general community about the Hmong community. Having a newspaper like the Hmong Today creates a source for businesses, organizations, and schools to connect with the Hmong community.

As with other immigrant groups, some cultural conflicts arose when the Hmong arrived in the U.S. after the Vietnam War. One of the better documented conflicts is in medicine. In Anne Fadiman's 1997 nonfiction book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down one such conflict regarding a young Hmong girl's health is documented. The girl's parents saw her seizures as a divine gift, whereas Western medicine views them as a dangerous medical condition. The conflict was exacerbated by communication issues and cultural reliance on alternative medicine. Due to an extreme language barrier as well as what they interpreted to be condescension and racism on the part of the doctors, the parents believed the Californian doctors did not have their daughter's best interests in mind, and on several occasions believed the medicines being administered were making their daughter's epilepsy worse. The American doctors, in the meantime, remarked that the Hmong were obstinate and were unable or unwilling to follow instructions in medicating their daughter. There is controversy over whether there was true informed consent from the illiterate parents who signed forms for procedures often without an interpreter. The book is often used in studying cross-cultural medicine, although there are reservations about its contents.

In 2002, Mee Moua became the first Hmong American legislator when she was elected to fill the Minnesota State Senate seat vacated by Randy Kelly when he was elected mayor of St. Paul. She is currently a majority whip.

Hmong Americans are fully integrated into the surrounding culture in most areas. Many Hmong Americans now serve in the U.S. Military. At least two Hmong have been elected to public office: Cy Thao, a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, and Mee Moua, a Minnesota State Senator. In 1996, Joe Bee Xiong was the first Hmong elected to the Eau Claire (Wisconsin) city council. While Joe Bee Xiong has since died, another Hmong, Thomas T. Vue presently serves on the city council.

In many of the large cities where Hmong Americans live and work, tensions have risen up between them and neighboring ethnic groups. Hmong people have often been targets of discrimination, mainly because of job competition and stereotyping of them as welfare dependents. Many of their persecutors justified their actions by claiming that they unnecessarily took jobs, welfare money, and other services away from long-time residents.

General Vang Pao arrest in California

Main article: 2007 Laotian coup d'état attempt

On June 4, 2007, following a lengthy federal investigation labeled "Operation Flawed Eagle," warrants were issued by a California-based U.S. federal court for the arrest of General Vang Pao, eight other Hmong people, and one non-Hmong person for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government of Laos in violation of the federal Neutrality Acts and various U.S. weapons laws.

The federal charges allege that members of the group inspected weapons, including AK-47s, smoke grenades, and Stinger missiles, with the intent of purchasing them and smuggling them into Thailand in June 2007 for use in Hmong guerrilla war efforts against the Laotian government. The one non-Hmong person of the nine arrested, Harrison Jack, a 1968 West Point graduate and retired Army infantry officer, allegedly attempted to recruit Special Operations veterans to act as mercenaries.

On June 15, the defendants were indicted by a grand jury and a warrant was also issued for the arrest of an 11th man, allegedly involved in the plot. The defendants faced possible life prison terms for violation.

Vang Pao and other defendants were ultimately granted bail, following the posting of $1.5 million in property. Following the arrests, many Vang Pao supporters had called on President George W. Bush and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to pardon the defendants.

Charges dropped

On September 18, 2009, the federal government dropped all charges against Vang Pao, announcing in a release that the federal government was permitted to consider "the probable sentence or other consequences if the person is convicted.”

Popular culture

Hmong culture and the plight of the Hmong in the United States is explored in the fiction film Gran Torino, released in 2008 and directed by Clint Eastwood.

See also

• Asian Americans
• Hmong people
• Laos Memorial
• Laotian American
• List of Hmong Americans
• List of Hmong/Miao People

External links

• Lomation's Hmong Text Reader - free online program that can read Hmong words/text.
• Hmong Cultural Center, Saint Paul, Minnesota.
• Hmong Studies Internet Resource Center.
• Hmong Studies Journal.
• WWW Hmongnet.org.
• Hmong-American Partnership.
• Lao Family Community..
• Hmong Times, Minnesota-based Hmong newspaper.
• Hmong Today, United States nationally-based Hmong newspaper.
• "Persistent Invisibility: Hmong Americans are silenced"
• "Acts of Betrayal", by Michael Johns, National Review, October 23, 1995 (national magazine article on Hmong immigration struggles, written from a generally pro-Hmong perspective).
• [http://hmongstudies.org/Hmong-AmericanandLao-AmericanStudiesPresentation.pdf An Overview of Recent Developments in

Hmong-American and Lao-American Studies Research], by Dr. Mark Pfeiffer

• Hmong Americans, by Carl L. Bankston III