Almost all of the Hmong who arrived in America as children have memories of their families’ danger-filled escape through the jungles of Laos to the Mekong River, where they could cross into Thailand. They were fleeing persecution from the Communist Pathet Lao for their support of the United States during the Vietnam War.
Bao Vang, CEO of the Hmong American Partnership, said she was 5 when her family made the treacherous journey.
“I remember us packing and going to the jungle, and then we walked for what seemed like forever.” When they first tried to cross the Mekong, “there were gunshots everywhere and we missed our canoe and went back into the jungle,” eating plants to survive. “It was difficult for us children to keep quiet, but we knew we had to.”
Sia Her, director of the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans, has even more dramatic memories.
Her maternal grandfather, Thong Kai Yang, was one of the Hmong military leaders. After he took her father to Thailand, he returned to retrieve her mother and her and her older sister, taking them through the jungle in 1982. Her mother even gave her older sister opium to keep her from crying out during the journey.
Once her grandfather got them safely into Thailand, he returned to Laos, because he believed that one day, the top Hmong general, Vang Pao, would return from America with U.S. military forces and help the Hmong reconquer their land.
That never happened, and sometime in the mid-1990s, her grandfather and several family members were assassinated and dumped into a mass grave, a tragedy that caused her mother to go into a severe depression.
The price that Hmong families paid in dislocation, loss of their homeland and punishment of relatives who stayed behind all became motivating factors for the early Hmong immigrants to America.
Among Ms. Her’s family treasures are mini-cassettes that her grandfather sent to the family that served as his letters from home.
On one of the cassettes, she recalled, he said, “I didn’t agree with your decision to go to America, but I understand, and I want you to know that even though my words didn’t reflect it, you went with my blessings.
“I know that the future leaders of tomorrow are the ones sitting in the classrooms of America. Make sure the children go into these classrooms and when they pick up a pen and put words on paper that they are rewriting the future of the Hmong, that in that classroom they are sharpening the tools of tomorrow.”
http://www.post-gazette.com/newimmi...-by-flight-from-homeland/stories/201409100172
Bao Vang, CEO of the Hmong American Partnership, said she was 5 when her family made the treacherous journey.
“I remember us packing and going to the jungle, and then we walked for what seemed like forever.” When they first tried to cross the Mekong, “there were gunshots everywhere and we missed our canoe and went back into the jungle,” eating plants to survive. “It was difficult for us children to keep quiet, but we knew we had to.”
Sia Her, director of the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans, has even more dramatic memories.
Her maternal grandfather, Thong Kai Yang, was one of the Hmong military leaders. After he took her father to Thailand, he returned to retrieve her mother and her and her older sister, taking them through the jungle in 1982. Her mother even gave her older sister opium to keep her from crying out during the journey.
Once her grandfather got them safely into Thailand, he returned to Laos, because he believed that one day, the top Hmong general, Vang Pao, would return from America with U.S. military forces and help the Hmong reconquer their land.
That never happened, and sometime in the mid-1990s, her grandfather and several family members were assassinated and dumped into a mass grave, a tragedy that caused her mother to go into a severe depression.
The price that Hmong families paid in dislocation, loss of their homeland and punishment of relatives who stayed behind all became motivating factors for the early Hmong immigrants to America.
Among Ms. Her’s family treasures are mini-cassettes that her grandfather sent to the family that served as his letters from home.
On one of the cassettes, she recalled, he said, “I didn’t agree with your decision to go to America, but I understand, and I want you to know that even though my words didn’t reflect it, you went with my blessings.
“I know that the future leaders of tomorrow are the ones sitting in the classrooms of America. Make sure the children go into these classrooms and when they pick up a pen and put words on paper that they are rewriting the future of the Hmong, that in that classroom they are sharpening the tools of tomorrow.”
http://www.post-gazette.com/newimmi...-by-flight-from-homeland/stories/201409100172
