(Arranged roughly by time and theme)

 Village Life

            "In Laos, there was little free time.  Only after the harvest season was over were we able to celebrate Nau Paichow.  This is our New Year celebration.  This is the only time when we were given new sets of clothes to wear.  We were discouraged from working.  The youth were encouraged to come together to have fun and to find suitable spouses.  The New Year would usually last four to five days.  After this event, it was back to the farm.  Since I was a White Hmong [There are different types of Hmong due to Chinese segregation in the past], I could wear whatever type of White Hmong costumes I chose.  There are some that wanted to wear the traditional female White Hmong pants instead of the skirt.  For the men, they sometimes wore the traditional costume that included the cap.  Even if our clothes were new they were not beautiful or decorative because we lacked the materials and time to do this"

            "In the old days, you did not tell each other verbally that you liked them, but used the traditional pipe instrument and other means to tell them.  The passions in the tunes of the instruments expressed feelings that no words could.  These tunes would tell how much you loved someone and that you wanted to marry them.  We were too embarrassed to talk openly to someone that we were attracted to, not like you youth these days.  We did not date; there was only courtship.  The man would never enter our house.  At midnight, the man that likes you will come like a thief to talk to you (the thin bamboo walls make this possible).  When both are ready for marriage and are in love, the groom's family would bring some rice wine over and would tried to offer a dowry for the girl's marriage.  Sometimes the groom would come and 'kidnap' the bride.  In Laos, the dowry is to compensate for the loss of a valuable worker in the bride's family.  The dowry would be about 600 American dollars.  Sometimes the bride's parents will give marriage presents that will be as valuable and as expensive at 600 dollars.  In Laos, the marriage age usually was around 16 years old.  If you were younger than this, the in-laws considered that you were still too young to do work.  It is by tradition that the new bride cannot work for three full days when she first enters into the groom's house.  It was taboo to work.  The in-laws would go kill some chicken or a pig to offer to their ancestors so that the bride would be accepted into her new clan family.  The groom was expected to work and help out at the in-law's house and farm as much as he worked on his or his parent's farm.  The newly wedded are to call their in-laws 'mother' and 'father.'  It is an unspoken law and tradition that the bride must put her new family before herself, no matter the circumstances.  She must cook and look after the well being of her husband's family."

- Xai Thao

 

"I miss the freedom.  Time wasn't very important.  We didn't have a lot of clocks or watches in Laos, so time was not important.  In Laos, we were free.  The weather was great.  It was not too hot or too cold.  It was like spring all the time."

- Karry Moua

 

            "It wasn't easy, like living here in the United States.  After the New Year, we went back to gardening.  In January or February, it was the time where we would go and cut down the forest or field and prepare the field for another year of rice patties and cornfields.  After we cut down the forest, we would let it dry for about one month.  Then we would go back and burn it.  If all of it did not burn away, we would have to go and pick up the remains and put it in a pile and burn it.  We had to do that so the field would be nice and flat and clear to plant, and when weeds started to grow, it would be easier to pull them out and destroy them.  First we would plant the corn seeds, then the rice patty.  After we were done planting the rice patty, the cornfields were already full of weeds for us to pick.  After we were done weeding the corn, the rice needed weeding, too.  Throughout the whole year we would have to weed the fields twice before the corn and rice fields started to grow.  The corn was the first to be ready, and then the rice.  After we had put the corn away, then we would go back and harvest the rice.  After we harvested the rice, if we had the time, we would hit it for the seeds to come down and then we would have the New Year.  If we didn't have time then we would just bring it in and stack it up in the storage room until after the New Year.  Then we would go back and hit the rice.  After we were done hitting it and all the seeds came out we would put it away in the storage room.  This was our everyday life.  This was the cycle of our lives.  Gardening, farming and harvesting was our daily cycle.  Back in those days there were no cars, unlike now.  N o matter how far or near, we would have to walk and all we used were our backs and shoulders to carry things.  But then there was a lot of freedom during that lifetime.  There were no debts to pay, no taxes to pay, no one to boss you around, and no one to tell me what to do.  The only thing that was scary back then in the days were the tigers.  When I learned how to garden I was probably around six or seven years old.  When gardening we would have to burn in the sun, get wet in the rain, get bit by little bugs and mosquitoes.  We would start our day every morning at about five in the morning until seven at night.  This is if we lived far from the garden and would sleep over there.  If we were going from our house, we would start at about seven in the morning and come back home at five at night.  Farming is not an easy job; there is no time to rest.  The only time is when we would rest was after we finished a row of rice or corn or when we took a break to eat lunch for about 30 or 40 minutes."

- Khu Thao

 

            "In my home country you walked far distances.  If you walked a full day and rested in a neighboring town or were on the way to the town you were going to, when you ate, you would have to call upon *daj tej daj chuy [bad/wild spirits].  You would say: 'We have arrived at this location and we ask for you to help protect us to arrive at our destination.  Please do not harm us.  Now that we are eating, please come and join us in your share.  Whether we eat in small or large portions, we are eating with you.  Please come join us in exchange for our protection and help get us to our destination.'  Whenever you eat, you have to call upon them to join you.  If you do not call upon them in my home country, when you arrive to a town or city that is far away, surrounded by jungle, and you go there, there are bad spirits called *pe kong quoi and *pe yu vui.  They are bad spirits that drink blood.  If you call upon them, you sleep throughout the night without any disturbances--also if you don't set up a fire that has a sour stench.  If you come to a place that is surrounded by a large number of bad spirits [a feeling of coldness] or you hear strange cries, it is wise to call upon these spirits to join you when you eat.  I've heard them before, especially in places that are cold and in towns filled with jungles.  You have to remember to call upon them to protect you from even greater threats like *daj ku haj or any kind of *daj that are really evil and mean.  There are nice and evil spirits, as the elders once told us.  Some will help you while others will bite you and another will drink your blood.  There are some *daj that will love you and help you.  The elders once told us that but I've never seen it for myself.  I've heard it before when you've arrived to some towns that are cold or in places filled with jungles, there is the feeling of being scared of sleeping at night, even when you have nine to ten people with you, you follow this trail and when you sleep you have this feeling of being scared and you feel like you have to call upon the spirits to protect you [poj yeej].  When you do this calling, when you arrive to your destination you will have to sacrifice something in return for the spiritual protection.

            "When you go into places that are no good or into a place when it is the wrong time to be there, you will become very ill.  They say that you have found *daj quo.  When you get home, you become very sick.  Some will go and return home dead.  This person will have bad luck and end up dying.  Others who travel in good times will return home without a problem.  This person will not have any trouble.  Sometimes when your blood isn't too healthy and you go to a place that is very cold; a place that you have never been before or place of *daj territory--my mom used to tell me that if you go to a place that you have never been to before, this place will be cold and when you return home later you will end up dying.

            "In addition, when you arrive in such a place, you should not kill any kind of animal that has always lived there.  If you go and want to eat an animal you will have to ask.  These animals belong to the *daj quo.  You have to remember that when you go, you should burn incense and say that you want to eat one of their animals.  It is only then that you are able to kill one of their animals to eat.  There will be no problem.  But if you go and kill the animals without asking or deliberately slaughter the animals for fun, when you return home, you will become very ill.  When the shaman does a spiritual healing, the shaman will say that the reason why you are ill is because when you arrived at this certain place, you deliberately killed their animals without permission.  They want someone's head in return.  This was why you are ill."

- Xao Vang Vue

 

 

The War  

            "The war against the Vietnamese started when we were little, when the province of *Xieng Khouang was taken [by the Vietnamese] in 1962.  *Pho Dong and *Pho Qua [two important towns in northern Laos] were taken, and that's why we joined in the fight against the Vietnamese.  If we didn't protect them, the Vietnamese troops were going to take all our property and lands.  That was the reason we joined our government in fighting the Vietnamese."

- Noj Her Vang

 

            "They first sent us to *Pon Kou [a northern frontier in Laos] in 1966-67.  It was a very intense battle up there.  We would set up forward observation bases.  These bases contained about 25-30 men.  Bases with larger numbers of men usually drew mortar and howitzer fire, whereas the Vietnamese considered smaller groups less valuable.  Before nightfall we usually took three crates of grenades and made it into one big crate of 96 grenades.  Each man was issued a big crate and this is how we fought the Vietnamese.  We weren't allowed to use our guns, because the flash of the muzzle would give our position away.  We also put dried tree branches along with dried leaves all around the perimeter of our bases.  Whenever enemies tried to sneak up on us they would make noise when they stepped on these dried branches and leaves.  When we heard this we would toss a grenade in the direction of the noise.  If we saw the enemy shooting at us (by the flashes of their gun muzzles), we would toss a grenade in that area.  These two methods were very effective.  One example was a base where all the defenders would flee except for one person.  By throwing grenades all night long and without firing his gun the enemies thought that there were more soldiers in the base than one man.  In the morning he could see all the dead bodies of the enemies all around the perimeter.  The Vietnamese would usually fire red and green flares before advancing on our bases.  This was a sign for their troops, but it was also a good warning sign for us to prepare.  Most battles usually lasted from midnight to five or six in the morning.  If they withdrew, then it meant we won the battle.  During the course of the battle, as I mentioned before, we couldn't use our guns to fire back.  If we did, they'd know our position and use a B-40 [an anti-tank/anti-bunker bazooka-like weapon] to take us out.  Those who did fire back at the Vietnamese with their guns were usually taken out within a matter of seconds.  Most experienced soldiers used grenades instead.  This is one of the reasons it was hard for them to overrun us.   

            "The US usually sent in airplanes called 'Spookies' [C-4 and C-130 gun ships] to parachute in flares so we could see where the enemies were.  The Vietnamese usually hid themselves when the flares were dropped.  The planes contained weapons such as M-60 machine guns.  They asked us to use a 60mm mortar smoke round to shoot into the area where the enemies were; then they would know what they could take out with their guns.  They would also send in some propeller airplanes called 'Skyraiders' which were flown solely by US pilots.  US pilots also flew the 'Spookies.'  When they were running out of ammunition and flares, there were more airplanes to take their place."

- Nhia Lor Vang

 

            "In 1969, I was serving with the US force in Laos.  I was a radio operator who eavesdropped on the enemy.  For example, we would listen to all the conversations going from the field troops back to Hanoi regarding which logistical supplies were in demand.  We would record the radio messages and translate them in *Chen Meng Un Dor, Thailand.  The [South] Vietnamese there would translate these messages into Laotian and English.  We would relay this vital information back to our forts in Laos that the Vietnamese planned to attack.  In this way, our troops were well prepared for the [North] Vietnamese assaults.

            "I wasn't trained to fire the weapons; my specialty was in radio recording.  There were four Thai and three American instructors who taught us.  The Americans were 'Mr. Moose,' 'Mr. Scroll' and 'Mr. Mathis.'  [CIA operatives were given code names.]  Mr. Mathis was in charge of the CIA supply from the Thailand air base at *San Chen Oua Doua.  This was the big US airbase in Thailand where all the fighter/bomber planes were deployed to fight in South Vietnam and Laos.  Mr. Moose was stationed in *Mua Na.  He controlled the radio operators who were stationed with the frontline troops in the *San Khoua area.  In December 1971, Communist Chinese troops together with the Vietnamese tried to take Long Cheng.  I was stationed on Skyline 2 [hills surrounding Long Cheng].  The Vietnamese were just at the base of our hill sending radio messages to *Lang Seng to direct accurate artillery fire into Long Cheng.  [The Vietnamese's 122mm Russian-made artillery, had a longer range than any of the Hmong's artillery.]  That night, my friend and I were stationed up there with a company of Thai volunteers.  We intercepted the Vietnamese radio messages.  One Vietnamese radio operator was far off while the other operator seemed to be close to our base.  The closer radio operator would call for coordinated artillery barrage.  If it was not accurate, he would call in to re-correct the coordinates.  Their two artillery pieces became very accurate after a while.  They were targeting the residence of Colonel *Vang Seng and the Buddhist Temple.  Some of the houses were burning.  They fired all night until the morning.  During the morning, one of our Thai instructors flew into Long Cheng to get the recording from us.  We gave the tape to him and he flew off to *Na Sue.  Na Sue was still a safe place while Long Cheng had primarily become a military base.   Before nightfall, the plane carrying our Thai instructor came back.  He ordered us to depart because the Vietnamese were planning a massive attack that night.  Our bombers were going to carpet bomb all our positions to deny the enemy everything of value.  Our options were to depart with him to Thailand or go back to our homes.  We both quickly packed up our equipment and belongings and put them in the airplane and we flew to *Na Sue. 

- Phoumee Xiong

 

            "The first day it was we, the Green Hmong, who said that we were pushing on [to go to Thailand], but Vietnamese soldiers were blocking the way and didn't allow us to pass.  They threatened to kill us if we went.  We were frightened and came back [to the village] and slept a second night there.  The White Hmong decided to be in the front  this time, and the soldiers still wouldn't let us pass.  [The White Hmong] were determined and they pushed the soldiers aside.  The soldiers instantly killed those who were in the front and the people panicked.  The Vietnamese killed and wounded a couple of people.  Two died immediately on that bridge.  Thousands of people panicked and rushed back.  The older people were trampling over the young ones.  We couldn't get to *Vien Xieng because the Vietnamese were blocking the way.  We stayed at *Na Sue, but we didn't know what to do, because there was not a grain of rice to eat.  When we got to Na Sue, we searched for everything edible and ate it.  We decided to go back to our old farms so we could at least find some food. 

            "When we came back to our old farms we discussed our situation.  We agreed that if we did not 'become Vietnamese' we would all be killed.  We decided to become 'Vietnamese' [meaning that we would act like we were communist] when the Vietnamese came to visit us.  We hid all of our weapons and didn't shoot any of them. 

            "We had been there for about a year when Hmong guerilla fighters [soldiers who stayed behind instead of fleeing to Thailand--the Chao Fa] from Phon Bia came and told us that General Vang Pao had come back and that it was time for us to fight against the Vietnamese.  They were lying, but we didn't know anything, so we thought it was true.  Everyone went back to find their weapons that they had hidden and started to ambush Vietnamese convoys on the roads.  The Vietnamese couldn't come in to our village, and they became very angry.  They sent a lot of soldiers to come and fight us.  In 1977, they attacked our region.  They came by night, and by morning when they started to fight us they had set up artillery in all the high ground.  They didn't even bother to come in to our village, and they started to shell us from north of *Na Mooe.  From there they shelled us, and everybody panicked and ran.  They fired on the whole region, including Small Slim Mountain and the Big Slim Mountain areas.  It took them one day to do it.  People didn't know where to flee.  Some who were in the garden fields ran all about and those in the villages ran into their garden fields.  Mothers went one way and children went another way.  It took us all night just to regroup and to find more people that we knew near Mount--I think it was called Mount Kou-yeh.  We were there for 20 days.  The Vietnamese still shelled us and we couldn't live there anymore, so we fled to *Na Feng.  There was no food in this region.  There were so many Hmong here that we crossed over to *Sa La and lived there.  We didn't know what to.  We could become 'Vietnamese' again and live in the city of *Phon Sa Vaj or go somewhere else.  We were very worried.  We decided to make a garden there and some of our relatives came back from Thailand to fight the Vietnamese in this area.  During this time there was much anti-Vietnamese activity in this area; the Vietnamese didn't dare to come near.  Those who had come from Thailand told us we should go there, too."

- Pang Her Vang

 

            "When we were issued weapons we didn't know what we were fighting for.  It was only later that we were told that we were protecting our country from the enemy.  Only when the war was going on for a long time did you begin to realize why you were fighting.  Our government started to run away and then I started to take responsibility.  When I took responsibility, only then did I see a larger picture of what was going on.  When the Vietnamese troops started to attack our villages and we started to take casualties, the people started to take sides.  When our older brother *Chong Koua was killed.  *Chong Koua was a good moral person and if the Vietnamese could kill someone decent like him then they wouldn't spare us.  The Vietnamese came and lived among us and they just killed him in his house.  That's when we decided to take action and fight the Vietnamese.  The only reason we fought was they started to kill us, and it wasn't because we wanted to gain a high military position or to win medals.  We took action against the Vietnamese so there was no going back.  We decided to head for *Long Cheng and took the long dangerous road to it.

            "The war destroyed my family completely.  After the war my life was filled with death and destruction.  The whole village was wiped out.  I had over 200 cattle, 200 goats and some horses that were all killed because of the war.  My property and money were all gone.  One of my sons was also killed by the Vietnamese.  Everything that I knew was destroyed.  That was why when we lost the war I just moved out of the country.  I had nothing left to go back to."

- Pa Seng Thao

 

   "I was married during the start of the war.  I lived in *Poa-Ing.  I moved to another place for about 10 years before the war started.  When the war began, we heard that Kong Le was coming our way.  One day, while we were steaming some rice, we saw many soldiers marching into our village.  We did not know what to do, so we fed them and they went on their way.  The soldiers continued into the village of *Von-Via.  It took them half a day to march out of our village.  When we heard that the Vietnamese were winning, we decided to run.  The Vietnamese were at *Pong-Dong and they were fighting everywhere.  We moved to *San-Tong, then to *Moung-Pieng, then to *Long Cheng.  After Long Cheng we decided to move to *Pa-Kaig and lived there for 10 years.  The Vietnamese came once again and we moved to another area.  It was our first glimpse of the tough Vietnamese soldiers.  The Vietnamese held on strongly to the territories they won.  Once the Vietnamese won the war we moved to Thailand and lived there for three years.

            "I had no feelings or thoughts of staying behind.  We knew that the Vietnamese were taking over our villages and we could not go back.  We traveled for one month but we could not catch up with General Vang Pao.  [He had flown into Thailand already.]  The Vietnamese took over the village of Hin Heup.  We walked another nine days before the road was blocked.  They put a rope over the road and threatened to kill any one of us who crossed over it.  Our Vang clan crossed over the rope and they started to shoot at us.  There were many who were killed and there were those who survived.  I was still far behind the roadblock when I heard the shooting.  Someone told me that it was too dangerous to go forward, so we decided to stay back.  Our father was very sick at that time, so we tried to ask for some medicines from some of the Hmong leaders who were still in charge of their villages.  We stayed in Laos for another month waiting for my father to get better.  It took us all day to get a taxi to take us to Vientiane.  My father almost died on the way there.  When we reached Vientiane, we were welcomed by my grandmother who lived there.  There were many Hmong refugees in Vientiane.  I bribed the Laotian boatmen 100,000 kiep to take me across the Mekong into Thailand."

- Geu Vang

 

            "I was 25 years old when I became a soldier in May of 1965.   I lost many relatives and friends.  Those of us who survived were few when compared to those who were killed. When the Americans pulled back, we went back to our old villages where we used to live before the war.  The Vietnamese and Pathet Lao continued to persecute us (even when the war was over and an agreement was made).  They started to kill the elders, leaders and political figures who used to work for General Vang Pao and the Americans.  We decided to wage guerilla war against them by using American weapons that we hid away.  We would rather have fought and died than for the Vietnamese to kill us helplessly.  We waged a guerilla war against them until 1979.

            "We tried to help the Americans with all our strength but they turned their backs on us.  I am very disappointed in them.  After the Americans abandoned us, we lost many Hmong to the Vietnamese and Pathet Lao.  The Vietnamese even killed the women and children.  If I would have known that the Americans would not help us, I would not have become a soldier in the first place.  Now we know that the Americans lied to us."

- Blia Pao Vang

 

            "My first trip north, which was, naturally, to Long Cheng, Site 20 Alternate, depressed me.  They had boys carrying rifles; that's the kind of--if you're an American soldier, that takes a little getting used to, to see that.  I got used to it a lot, over time.  They had already suffered a lot of casualties (this was, what?  1966). So it wasn't just in the last few years of the war that they suffered, they had been suffering for some time.  And with a limited population, widely dispersed, it hit some parts harder than others.  But--the other thing that was quite striking to me when I first got there was Vang Pao's complete control that he had managed to put together.  Vang Pao, by the way, is one of the best field generals I've observed, and I've seen a hell of a lot of field generals...He had a feel for the fight and tactics and--I wouldn't necessarily say strategically, but he had a feel for the fight that was eerie.  He didn't have modern intelligence, overhead cameras, and all this kind of stuff, but he sure knew the enemy, and he knew what they were likely to do in certain circumstances...In South Vietnam, which is what I was used to, it was really weird.  The enemy, which were mainly guerilla--VC aided by irregulars, until later in the war--were out in the jungle, and the US and allied forces and ARVN forces were very much road-bound--not entirely, but very much so.  In the northern part of Laos, it was the opposite.  The enemy was road-bound.  They didn't ever go off the road two clicks--it was very rare that you'd see the enemy patrol much more than a couple of clicks off of a motorable road--very rare.  So rare that when they were observed, it was news.  So it was a flip-flop; it took a little getting used to--which made them susceptible to air power, which we used a lot of--and it grew during my time...

            "Long Cheng, to any first visitor there, especially to an airman, it was pretty startling.  [In] the first place, it's a one-way runway.  Now, I've seen a number of runways, but this one was pretty stark, because at the west end of the runway is an escarpment--that's the barrier.  That's it.  You overshoot that runway, you're dead.  Going out the other way isn't exactly a piece of cake, either, because you've got a pretty good slope...[Y]ou've got to get a pretty good climb rate to get out through that pass out there.  The weather has a way of clogging up these passes, so it isn't a very interesting place to operate...But over the years that became a really busy airport.  That's a remarkable--they had some accidents there, but not a lot.  When I first saw it, if you'd have told me there was going to be a really big air operation out of there, I'd have said, 'You're nuts.'  But it worked.  The Air America pilots and the Continental [Air Service] pilots, they were really good at it, and...different guys would have their own let-downs.  I mean, there's no IFR [Instrument Flight Rules] approach there, obviously...[T]hat means ILS [Instrument Landing System] or radar.  Hell, there wasn't even a radio beacon approach, which is a non-precision approach.  The terrain wouldn't permit it.  So they had made up their own little visual approaches with a key rock here and a key rock there, and turn so many degrees over the stream bed here, and let down to a certain altitude here.  It was not the school of aviation that I came from, but I learned.  I learned.  So they were good.  Other than that it was pretty well-laid out, with the Agency facilities there, which were sparse and austere--to understate it, they were austere.  But they were co-located with Vang Pao's headquarters, and that's why they were there.'

- Richard Secord, Major General, Air Force (Ret.), CIA detailee in Laos, 1966-68.

 

            "The war changed my life for the better.  Because we Hmong lived in the village only; we didn't get to be around anyone else.  This war helped me learn how to become a soldier, become a nurse/doctor.  I learned how to cure the people who had become injured in the war.  My family was also affected because they became smarter, became soldiers, and learned how to do business."

- Chang Tao Vang

 

           "When [my husband and his older brother] were in prison camp we were in such a terrible state.  All we could do was cry because there was nothing else to do.  After not hearing from them for a year we thought they were both dead.  When we were detained in Vietnam, we cried daily.  We constantly prayed every day for their lives and to hear from them again.  We prayed continuously even though we didn't know about God at this time.  After a long time, our relatives from the village of *Pho Luj told us the news that my husband and his older brother were alive.  That's when we decided to get passage documents from the authorities there to allow us to travel back to *Phon Savah.  There, for the first time, we heard reliable news that they were alive.  When they were in prison, we suffered heavily and so did our children.  When we were deported [to *Noj Het, Vietnam] there was no one to provide food for us and it was very hard.  The only thing we had was our lives.  Our six day journey back was difficult, because there was no one to guide us and show us the way.  Knowing no one, we just made our way over.  When it got dark, we would beg Hmong families for places to stay for the night."

- Poj Noj Her

 

Fleeing to Thailand

            "We went to *Na-Sue [trying to flee the country] but the main road was closed off.  The Pathet Lao soldiers were guarding the roads.  We could not do anything so we stayed at *Na-Sue.  Meanwhile on one of the roadblocks, daughters from the Her (my own clan) and Kong clans decided to break down the roadblock, and they were successful because the soldiers did not know how to stop these girls.  If our sons had done it they would have been shot.  We did not tell the girls to do it; they decided to risk it on their own.  Then everybody that came to *Na-Sue followed these young girls out and the guards could not prevent our escape.  The Pathet Lao decided to put up another roadblock at *Heng-Her.  The roadblock was on the Nan-Li Bridge.  It took us about seven or eight days to reach it. We were not satisfied with the conditions in Laos at that time.  All our political leaders had left and we wanted to follow them.  The guards pulled out their guns and were ready to shoot us.  They asked us if we wanted to go see Touby LyFong and Teng [former Hmong political figures who were in power during the time of the French Colonization]  We decided to go see them.  Our group decided to send six of us to meet with Touby LyFong and Teng.  I was one of the six chosen.  A Pathet Lao officer took us by car to Vientiane.  We did not meet Touby, but we met Ly Teng--[He] told us that we could not leave.  We agreed with him since he was a man with authority.  We slept in his house for the night.  While we were shopping at the local market early the next day, sounds of a gunfight could be heard back at the roadblock.  We heard the sounds of B-40s that the Communists fired.  It was very close, like from St. Paul to Minneapolis.  The Hmong had only small arms and were massacred.  The Hmong retreated back into the hills.    There were dead bodies everywhere on one side of the bridge.  Most of them were Hmong.  I saw one who lay dying on the foot of the bridge.  There was another moaning on one side of the road.  At the site of the roadblock, there was a lady sprawled dead on the road; one side of her face was missing.  After we passed her by, there was a child crying for its parents from the side of the road.  It was raining the whole day and mud was thick.  The road was very narrow for the vehicle to travel on. [They took a vehicle back to the roadblock.] There were lots of belongings dropped on the road as the Hmong fled back--I only saw three bodies at the roadblock but we heard that many of the bodies were thrown by the Communist troops into the river below.  The river was filled with blood and blood was everywhere.  There were so many belongings left behind on the road.  Even valuable items were discarded.  We finally reached our people at *Pon-Song.  I asked Tsu Fong to go get a taxi from *Na-Sue to pick us up.  He rode up to *Na-Sue and found a taxi and came back to pick us up.  At *Na-Sue we all went back to our old villages.  We all went to find our weapons that we hid away and started to ambush communist convoys.  We fought guerilla warfare for two to three years.  We fled to *Pon-Bia and the Vietnamese attacked us there.  We then decided to give ourselves up and the Vietnamese took us back to *Trau Yia [Straight Mountain].  We planted and harvested rice there for that season.  We heard on the Communist radio that those who were trying to escape were Vang Pao's people and would be dealt with [the radio was talking about the incident on the roadblock.]  We decided that we were in danger.  Another radio announcement came up again.  This radio announcement said that we were free to do whatever we wanted if we filled out some papers in the town square.  We pretended to ask for farmland near the Thai boarder and when we were allowed to move there, we escaped quietly into Thailand.   The Thais picked us up and that is how we came to Thailand."

- Wang Her

 

            "As long as I could remember, we were always running from the Vietnamese.  My mother became ill during this time of hardship and she died because there was no hospital nearby.  After my mother passed away, it was just my father, my little eight-month-old brother, an older brother and myself.  After constantly running away from the Vietnamese, my father moved us to a region near *Long Cheng.  After the war was lost and General Vang Pao went into exile, we had no place to go so we became Chao Fa [partisans /guerilla fighters].  We could not farm when we became Chao Fa.  The Vietnamese would burn our farms down.  We had no food to eat so we ate anything that could be eaten.  We ate many types of roots.  Some were called 'pig potatoes.'  All these roots were very bitter and we only ate them to survive.  For most of the roots, we would take the skin off first, then boil them down and then tried to eat them.  We also ate the branches of certain types of tropical trees that grew along rivers and streams.  Some trees we had to cut down and eat the soft tissues inside.  For these inner tree tissues, we sun-dried it first and then pounded it and mixed it with water.  You took the liquid formed by the mixing and baked it till it became mushy starch.  If we had rice with us, we would not have eaten these types of things."

- Goua Lee 

 

            "In 1972-73, there were many large battles in our area.  From 1969-70, *Long Cheng was under siege, and many people were fleeing that area.  It was very intense; the US even used B-52 bombers to bomb the North Vietnamese in and around Long Cheng.  In 1974, I went into the Long Cheng area and I saw that there were many sites where battles had taken place.

            "In 1975, all the high officials flew by planes into Thailand.  The country was in chaos.  The Vietnamese were in control and their laws varied constantly from day to day.  The Vietnamese vowed to eliminate us Hmong because we helped the Americans.  They wanted to put all adult males into 're-education' camps and to exterminate them all.  We were all scared.  My family moved into the area of *Heng-Her.  There, even Hmong who were on the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese side were being killed.  We were scared and moved back into our old villages.  There were many who were killed along the way.  I asked my older brother Nhia Lor what we should do.  He told me that since I was not married I should flee to Thailand by myself.  And that is what I did.  In July of 1975, I fled to Thailand by myself."

- Moua Vang

 

   "When we got to Thailand, the Thai people did not like foreigners; they did not like refugees.  So they were beating up [Hmong] people.  The morning that we reached Thailand, we were in a big group so a lot of the people around us got robbed and beaten up.  Luckily my family was not beaten or robbed.  But whatever that we had, whatever money that we had, they came by and searched everything.  So they got everything.  We were brought into a camp, we were fed that morning and we were shifted to the refugee camp where we stayed about a year and a half."

- Fong Her

 

The Refugee Camps

    "It was probably the most boring existence you can possibly imagine, because they weren't allowed to do anything. There were folks, particularly young folks would clamor to come and work for the agencies that were setting up programs in the camp and they'd learn skills and there were a lot of folks that would enroll in both child and adult education programs in the camps, but there wasn't anything to do.  It was just--it was enforced idleness.  It was so unnatural. It was painful to hear kids talk about, 'Yeah, I know where rice comes from.  It comes from the back of the UN truck.'  And that's what they were growing up in.  Kids growing up and spending fifteen years and never seeing dad or mom work--not a normal, healthy situation whatsoever.  It was amazing to me that there weren't more problems in the camp, because--you know, just sort of interfamilial conflicts, because, you know, there's so much time on your hands.  It was just--I was struck when we went to *Wat Tham Krabok, which was a very, very different situation entirely, because it was basically a free-standing village and everybody had to work.  They weren't being provided any services or anything, period--and everybody talked about--particularly up until a couple years ago when the Thai military moved to consolidate control over the camp, that it was far, far preferable.  I mean it was a real life, and they liked it there, as opposed to the refugee camps, which almost universally they talked about hating.  They'd have to troop down once or twice a week to get their rice supply off the back of the trucks and drag it home.  That was one of the more exciting points of the week.  And you'd see kids running around playing everywhere, but there was just this look of depression upon all of the adults.  They'd just sit there and--there's nothing to do, and  I'm sure they were just bored out of their minds.  And there wasn't any way to relieve that, which is perhaps why the birth rate remained so high in the camp.  [Chuckles]  So not a pleasant experience at all.  They had basic amenities.  I mean, nobody was starving to death, everybody had housing, everybody had access to medical care--so everything was being provided, but it was just a totally empty experience."

- Jim Anderson, Former IRC worker in Thailand

 

    "In Vinai, you had to help because although we lived like that, we were afraid of the Thai and so at night time we rounded up the young boys to keep watch.  They had nothing [no weapons], but made signal noises, because I was already trained, so I taught signal noises to everyone. It's not yelling or calling but it's an odd noise, but every night we changed to a different noise.  By doing that we were able to help each other, because sometimes the Thai came, but when the noise was made everyone rose together so Thai couldn't do anything bad to us.  As I see it, since we ran from a war, first they [the Thai guards] wanted to get girlfriends; that was the main reason.  The second reason was wanting to rape young women, and the third was to steal money.  But although we didn't have weapons we were well prepared.  We didn't have any problems, but after I left, there were problems.  But since I wasn't there, I don't know about it. 

     We had no one, but after being there for one or two years, my two younger brothers were still bachelors.  At that time they transported young men with no parents, so we signed them up so they were able to come to this country.  I'll always remember how the fact that the family wasn't separated gave you peace.  Being separated makes you heartbroken because this land, no one had been here [yet], all we knew was that it went past the horizon.  We didn't know if there were people or demons on the other side.  But if you stayed, you had no idea how to find food or how your life would end.  So when separated we never thought to see each other again, because the person who left would never come back and you would never be able to visit them.  In truth, you missed them more, your heart hurt and burned more than if the person died, because when they're dead, you see that their body is decaying, but when they leave and are still alive, you miss them more."

- Pa Sher Yang 

 

    "In Vinai I suffered the most, because we did not have anything.  We had to wait for relatives to send us money in order to buy anything to eat.  We couldn't do things we wanted to do, because we were forbidden.  If it was up to me, I wouldn't have come to America, but I had no other choice.  Here in America they don't let us suffer, but I am not complete here.  The older generation does not want to live here."

- Sy Yang

 

In America

            "We came [to the US] when I was five and a half.  It was pretty shocking, but probably to a lesser extent [than my parents] because I was just a kid.  When we came to this country, an organization sponsored us, so we came to Chicago, Illinois.  I guess the surprising thing was coming right into Chicago.  We never knew there was forest or jungle in this country at all, because all we saw was building after building.  Skyscrapers were very impressive.  The amount of people was really impressive.  You'd see people walking all the time and the city lights were on 24 hours every day.  I remember the first winter.  We came to this country in November, so shortly after we got here the first snow storm was surprising.  We thought someone was throwing cotton from the top story because we lived in the middle of the building.  So we thought someone was throwing the pillow or whatever, blankets were coming down.  We observed that for a little while.  One of our uncles actually came to this country a year and a half before us, so he kind of told us that it was winter time and [what we saw was] snow.   

            "Language was probably the biggest barrier.  The language was the toughest because they didn't know who to talk to and what to say.  Basic things like 'hospitals,' 'stores,' even that was kind of tough because we were sponsored by an organization, so all they did was show us where we were supposed to live.  No one actually took us from place to place and said, 'This is where you do your grocery [shopping], this is where you shop for clothing, this is how you carry your money.'  We didn't have any of those survival skills, so they just threw us into the building and just kind of told us to live there.  Then they contacted us every once in a while saying, 'What do you need?'  They took us to the welfare place to show us where to ask for money.  Besides that, there wasn't much help." 

- Vaj Tsuj Xiong

 

            "When I left Thailand, I left my parents, my younger brothers, aunts and uncles. When I got here, I didn't know how to go to the store.  Here I faced a lot of problems.  When it got dark, I didn't know where to go.  I looked everywhere, and I saw windows outside--but I was not sure.  I thought it might be caves.  We lived in Chicago.  I walked to my aunt's house, and we went to the store together.  But we get lost, and didn't know how to get back.  We didn't know how to take the bus, because we had never lived in the city before.  We saw that the stores were very beautiful.  There were a lot of things placed neatly everywhere.  I didn't know where to begin or what to buy."

- Xee Lee

 

            "We became aware of what appropriate manners are and what are not.  Here in the U.S., you cannot trespass into someone else's yard and land.  Also, in the U.S., there is no free giving from one neighbor to another.  You cannot depend on your neighbor for mutual support and giving like in Laos.  Whatever you make and whatever you have, you keep to yourself.  If you don't make enough for yourself, then you become homeless and a beggar in the street.  When it comes to childbirth, in Laos, the husband assisted the wife in child birth.  By custom and tradition, the parents must bury the baby's placenta inside the house; you cannot throw it away.  Here in the U.S., you cannot have a child in the house, instead, you must go to the hospital.  You don't know what they do with the placenta--perhaps they throw it away or do tests on it.  The husband no longer helps in child birth; it is left to the doctors and nurses.  In regard to raising children, it is now easier to raise children.  There are fewer health problems for our children because of modern medical healthcare.  It is also easier to find food and clothing compared to Laos.  Even the poor can get financial assistance from the government.  Those who work can buy milk products from the stores to feed their babies, making it easier to raise children.  In the U.S. the children are required to go to school so they can someday get a job and have a good life.  One thing that I worry about is that as our children become teens they are conforming to the culture of the people living here.  They hang out late at night--I worry about them when they are 12 to 18 years old.  This makes us the parents really stressed out.  However, the majority of the students don't go this route and they stay in school to get an education."

- Pastor Cheng Vang

 

            "My father had always been a shaman, so many people knew that he was a shaman.  They did not know that he was converted to being a Christian, that he had found his new faith or new religion to be rewarding, because he was willing to leave all that behind and he had found peace in his life for once.  But eventually when more Hmong people came to Lansing [Michigan], and they knew that he was a shaman back in the days, they came and begged and begged him.  I remember going to the Lutheran church--we each were given a cross, and we had worn our cross every day, and my father had a much bigger cross that he wore, and he had told the fellow that came--he had told him that he no longer performed the shaman ritual anymore, because he is a Christian now.  Well, that fellow doesn't know anything about being a Christian, yet my father is also a newly converted Christian, and as the guy begged and begged, and--my father was always a kind person.  He decided, 'Well, maybe one time will be OK.  Maybe just this once.'  And he went to perform the shaman ritual and he came back and he told us that he didn't feel the same anymore, that he felt the shaman spirit wasn't with him anymore.  It was more of a fake.  He couldn't really see how he saw, but he realized he had the cross with him.  More people came and asked him to perform.  And more and more people came.  And as he got into that again, every time he went he took the cross off.  And then he felt, 'OK, maybe this is becoming something [where] I can't just hide behind the church anymore.  I need to do something.'  Because, according to the shamans, if you perform shamanism, you have to have an altar for the spirits to communicate.  And so we had an altar built in our apartment, and when we had bible study they would cover the altar.  Later on, my father had asked the pastor if it was OK for him to perform shamanism.  Well, I guess the translation of what he was doing, when my pastor heard it, he had questioned, 'Are you doing something to harm someone or is it something good?'  My father had replied that it was a good thing.  And the pastor, without realizing what my father was doing, said, 'It's OK.  If it's good, it's OK.'  So later on when the lay minister came and ministered to us, that got across [to] my pastor, and then that's when they said, 'I didn't know this.  If I knew about this, I would have told him not to do this.'  And then they took my parents to church and they talked to them about taking down the altar and really just being Christians, sticking to the word of God.  And during this time there were a lot of Hmong people in Lansing already.  A lot of people had a lot of expectations of my father and he decided with the pastor and also the lay minister by his side that--I felt he was pressured into taking down the altar.  So I got home one day and saw the pastor and the lay minister, along with my father, and asked them what they were doing, and the pastor told me, 'Your father has decided that he wants to take down the altar.'  And I--obviously my father was there, too, and I thought my father was happy.  I was glad he wanted to do that, because like I said at the beginning, he wanted to escape that.  I was happy for him, and I took part in it.  So I helped him take down the altar.  And then later on my sister-in-law came and said, 'What are you guys doing?  Do you guys know that if you do this the shaman spirit is going to attack my father?'  And that--reality just hit him or something.  And he was scared to death.  And he experienced many--he was traumatized... He experienced a lot of sickness, and then the--we didn't have the support from the church.  They didn't come to pray for him.  Also he was upset at the pastor, so the pastor had--you know, cut the communication between him[self] and my parents.  And it was me--I would still go to church, but it was just me."

- Keith Vang

 

            "One thing that made us worry in the U.S. was that Americans didn't know how much we helped them during the war.  When we first got here, the Americans hated us because we looked different from them.  When they saw us, they spat at us.  When they saw us driving newer-model cars, they cursed at us.  When we were driving old rusty cars around, they also cursed at us.

            "The generation that was born here will become Americanized and will lack the close family bonds that we used to have.  They will isolate themselves and live as they choose.  In the future, when the Hmong who were born here become able leaders, they will no longer keep to the traditional religious culture but became Christianized.  Those who do not want to be Christian will have no faith of their own any longer."

 - Pastor Chang Tao Vang

 

    Well, I think overwhelmingly the concern has always been--well, twofold, really.  One is for that group of folks who were adults when they arrived--have really had a very difficult time here.  I mean, it's been very, very hard--and I think increasingly so as time went on, because it became easier and easier to sort of settle into a Hmong enclave in St. Paul, and the sense of urgency about learning English and moving into our culture more, reduced for folks, because, you know, for those folks who were 25 years of age or older, who had never been to school, who knew not a single word of English when they arrived, it's hard to imagine just how difficult it was for them.  So the big concern for the Hmong families and the Hmong community agencies trying to work with the Hmong refugees has largely been around that adult population when they arrived, and now the rapidly aging population, many of whom still have never made that acculturation, who still feel as foreign here as they did the first day they got off the plane. And that's terrifically sad.  The other group of folks, really--I think that because, for a lot of the Hmong parents, their decision to come to the United States, whether reluctant or enthusiastic, was, for many if them, at least, was an admission that, essentially their life was no longer the focus, that everything now was being officially transferred to their children.  And that put a lot of pressure on those kids, a lot of pressure to--you've got to do well.  If your American classmate is spending an hour a night on homework, you have to spend three hours a night on homework.  You have to observe Hmong rules in--heaven forbid--dating and, you know, socializing in general.  You're not to become too American, although you have to learn English right away and you have to learn all about this culture but you have to stay Hmong.  A lot of pressure, tremendous amount of pressure that kids went under, and what is so amazing is how many kids responded so wonderfully and successfully to that kind of pressure.  But for a lot of kids it was really more than they could handle, and so you saw kids dropping out, a lot of, sort of the first intergenerational conflict, as far as I know, in Hmong history [Chuckles]--that suddenly there's this huge gap between parents and their kids.  And the parents no longer start--you know, they don't understand these kids, and these are the first kids going through adolescence.  And just how difficult that was for both sides of that generational gap--and some kids wound up either directly and defiantly disobeying and sort of forcing the hand of their parents who said, 'We have no choice but to kick you out,' or the kids themselves chose to leave.  And so that also has been very tragic--I think tragic on all kinds of levels.  These kids who are getting kicked out of their Hmong families because they're too American, but not really being American enough to really fit in, and so sort of being stuck somewhere in the middle and being really lost and isolated.  And no wonder there's an allure of joining some compatriots in a gang, because it's the only sense of family or belonging or understanding that you can find.  So there's been that, that's been real difficult and real tragic for a lot of Hmong families.  But I still think the overwhelming sense is that--just how miraculous it is that so many have done so well, and how justifiably proud they are that they've been able to do that, after what they've gone through, [to] come out the other side.

- Jim Anderson, former IRC worker in Thailand, now Planner for Immigrant, Refugee, and Homeless Services for Ramsey Country (MN).

 

In 1980, Marlin Heise, already an employee of the Minnesota Historical Society for about seven years, was asked to help two new Hmong employees find their way in an unfamiliar work environment.  He had spent many hours sipping coffee and chatting with them over their breaks. [A]t Christmas 1980 Chong Toua had said, 'All the people at the office come to his house' up at McDonough Homes in St. Paul and then they will have baby party for Baby Jack. And you think about Christmas Day how many people do you go and visit other than your nearest of blood relatives unless you really can't stand them.  And so I had stayed overnight with friends in South Minneapolis, and they dropped me off in Mount Airy...I found the place--walked up Jackson and found McDonough Homes and found Bigelow and the right address, and there they were in the kitchen.  And since it was only an hour late, it was about right time. [Laughs]   Ka Yeng is Chong Toua's wife, and was standing there holding Baby Jack.  And there were about 15 or 20 men in the kitchen, and one was slightly taller, and everybody had lot of things to say in Hmong, and the slightly taller man said he would translate for me.  And so on the formica and chrome table were big...aluminum roaster kind of pans...of steamed rice and some kind of barbecued beef and egg rolls and salad.  And so everybody is standing in a big circle around the room.  And somebody does a prayer, because they were all Hmong Baptist from Roseville Baptist church.  And the prayer goes on and on and on and on until they say 'Amen,' and then the slightly taller man said, in complete, total translation, 'That was the prayer'  [Laughs].  And then we were to eat, and each of us had a bowl...and then if you want to eat this, you just spoon it in with your spoon, and if you want more, you just use your spoon from the main serving aluminum pan, and it seemed a little bit strange.  And the food was not totally recognizable.  It wasn't what we would have done on Christmas day.  And all of the people talking and talking and talking, and then everybody standing there and eating and talking--only the men--and then there was a wedding in the neighborhood, so about 90% of the people just left.  And that got explained...And then afterwards there were still a dozen...in the house.  And they began to sing old familiar Christmas songs like 'Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht' in Hmong--good old 'Silent Night,' and several others (they were all Baptists), and it seemed like a good thing for people to do.  And I would say about 4 o'clock or 5 o'clock, Chong Toua's older brother Houa drove me home...And I thought, 'You know, for a Christmas Day, that was a pretty good day.'  It was a lot more meaningful than many of them that I had been to, and just to be able to listen to Christmas songs like the old days was not so bad, and out on the farm when we had, maybe once a month we had some sort of a birthday party or Thanksgiving or Christmas or some other big event, it was a lot the same, other than usually the whole mob of children would go in and fill up their plates and disappear, and then the men would go in and get whatever it was they were going to eat, or else men first and children next, and then the women would just sit out in the kitchen and eat and talk.  So to have just a whole group of men together, that wasn't quite so strange; that was a little bit just like out on the farm.  And I found later on so many of those other connections--the same with almost everybody, because they all grew up in villages, and they all were farm people and they had dirt under their fingernails until they became real city people, and that's kind of what we did, too."