The Hmong Tribe

[Matty_UK]

I was wondering if anyone has any more information about an incident during the Vietnam war where the US pressganged and terroristed the Hmong tribe in China to fight for the US in China and Laos to sabotage supplies to North Vietnam. And then after the war was over the Hmong tribe not surprisingly faced terrible repression in China so fled to the USA where cultural differences meant they faced a lot of discrimination. My girlfriend's mam is a medical anthropologist (the cultural differences faced when they came to America is somehow relevant to the course she teaches) and was telling me about this, and I was amazed I'd never heard about it before. I googled it but most of the websites on it make out that the Hmong were recruited voluntarily but according to my girlfriends mam this is not the case; which seems more realistic, I don't see why a primitive tribe living unfettered in the mountains of a socialist country would happen to hate communism so much as to volunteer to fight the Vietnamese for the USA.

Just wondering if any of you know about this in more detail?

[Janus]

I don't think the Hmong in China were able to assist the US in any major way. So there was really no participation from them in the US's fight.

It was mainly the Hmong in Laos who were utilized by the US as combatants in the fight against the Pathet Lao. Thousands of Hmong helped to form the Secret Army. Many of them fled during 1975.

[which doctor]

Lot's of Hmong have migrated to the United States, specifically in areas around Minnesota. They are very discriminated against.

[Severian]

Yeah, I grew up in Minnesota and knew a fair number of Hmong from Laos (they mostly settled in St. Paul.)

I don't know about "pressganged"; maybe they were - if so, by other Hmong. The officers and generals of this army were Hmong, too.

They were heavily involved in the opium trade - including smuggling it to south Vietnam where it was used by U.S. soldiers. That's a big part of how the CIA's Hmong army was financed. Growing opium on a small scale was traditional for the Hmong - but the war made it into a cash crop for export.

"Primitive tribe living unfettered in the mountains of a socialist country"? Laos certainly wasn't socialist before the Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia War; not sure if that's remotely accurate now. As for primitive and unfettered; the Hmong were subsistence farmers not hunter-gatherers; some degree of class division is usual in that kind of situation.

Basically it was a case of exploiting ethnic divisions and hostilities - Hmong vs lowland Lao; a similar thing happened with the Montagnards in Vietnam.

The Pathet Lao was able to recruit at least some Hmong to its side of the war. Basically, the younger and poorer part of the Hmong population. Relatively early, the CIA-supported army was driven out of the Hmong's traditional area, and brought their families along. Other Hmong remained; one woman I knew in Minnesota told me her uncle was currently a mayor in Laos.

Eventually the U.S. wholly lost the war in Southeast Asia. That's when the mass exodus to Thailand happened. It was feared that the Pathet Lao would take revenge on members of the secret army and their families. I don't know if that was Pathet Lao policy, but that was the fear.

Many Hmong in Minnesota had stories about waiting for aircraft to come take them away, but only a few helicopters came to take away the officers. So they proceeded to hike to Thailand, then spend years in squalid refugee camps there, before some were eventually given permission to come to the U.S.

It's a pretty low-down story of using people and then abandoning them, certainly. Despite which, most Hmong I knew in the U.S. tended to be anticommunist.

Many Hmong in the U.S. tend to be working-class; more than some other Asian-Americans. The old CIA stooges still try to officially speak for the community; they're the most organized group - it's called the "Lao Family Community."

They don't always have a total lock, though; after one incident of a police shooting of two Hmong teenagers in South St. Paul there were a series of protests which were organized ad hoc, by family members and other local Hmong in cooperation with other activists in the city, including members of the Socialist Workers Party.

[Janus]

I don't think impressment was practiced since it would've been a pretty bad strategy as it would've led to major desertions. Rather, the army would've been able to effectively win recruits by taking advantage of their less-developed conditions, and wooing the village leaders with money,etc.


It's a pretty low-down story of using people and then abandoning them, certainly
Worse, in the 1990's, many of the ones who had fled to Thailand were forced back to Laos.


Many Hmong in the U.S. tend to be working-class; more than some other Asian-Americans
Well, that's mainly due to the fact that the Hmong who moved here were mainly poorly educated, subsistence farmers.

[redhmong]

I think you're wrong.
The Hmong in China wouldn't help US.

I know that some Hmong people in Laos and south Viet Nam helped the US, because of the oppression and discrimination.

[YSR]

The Hmong here (I'm in St. Paul) are getting more organized, but they are still the least represented and organized racial minority within the city (at least in my opinion).

From what I learned in school, Hmong folks in Laos are still crossing the river into Thailand and congregating in refugee camps there. From there a few of them get into the U.S.

I think Severian's analysis is pretty accurate. Most Hmong I know tend to be really anticommunist (not surprising, what with their history) despite the fact that the U.S. government is just as culpable in fucking them up. It's a really shitty situation (like so many others, I guess) but I hope the Hmong to be a really radicalizing force in this area.

Their culture of very formalized and family oriented, but I'd really like to get some anarchist education going within the community. Most anarchist organizing in the T.C. (that I know of) is going on with the Latino community on Lake St., but I hope we can move out to reach the Hmong. A lot of them are settling in the suburbs (growing up in a rural suburb in Wisconsin, I can testify to this).