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Hmong in America

Journey from a Secret War | Traveling Exhibit

“For a good reason, the title of "Hmong in America: Journey from a Secret War" puzzles many of the Hmong. The war in Laos was never a secret from them. The American people were the ones in the dark, unaware that since the early 1960s U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had directed a war against communists in Laos and Cambodia in direct violation of the Geneva Accords.” - Regina Hackett, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

On both sides of the political spectrum, the Vietnam War continues to spark divisive, impassioned arguments among scholars and lay people. What are the lessons of Vietnam?

America's involvement in Laos, and as a consequence its alliance with the Hmong, has received far less attention, yet is written about and debated with no less conviction. Hmong soldiers served as the primary "anti-communist" force in Laos. The multi-million-dollar operation, unreported in the American press until 1969, wreaked havoc on the land and its people. When American forces withdrew from Southeast Asia in 1975, thousands fled to Thailand as refugees and subsequently resettled in the United States.

The experience of the Hmong cuts to the core of American politics, touching upon issues which have been widely debated throughout U.S. history.