Published On Sep 19, 2014
Learn about Saint Paul’s growing Hmong community. Kao (COW) Kalia (Kah-lee-ah) Yang, author of, “The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir”, will share her family’s experience of living in a refugee camp in Thailand before resettling in the United States. The Hmong fought against communism in Laos during the Vietnam War. They were allied with the Kingdom of Laos forces and the United States. After the Communist victory in 1975, the political movement known as the Pathet Lao responded with a campaign of near genocide, annihilating an estimating 100,000 of 400,000 Hmong in Laos. Many fled to Western countries like the U.S. Today Saint Paul, Minnesota has the largest Hmong population per capita in the U.S.