by Anne Fadiman
My understanding of the war also depended on many previously mentioned works, especially Keith Quincy, Hmong; Yang Dao, Hmong at the Turning Point; Jean Mottin, History of the Hmong; and Elizabeth S. Kirton, “The Locked Medicine Cabinet.” One of the least confusing summaries of the conflict can be found in Joan Strouse, “Continuing Themes in U.S. Educational Policy for Immigrants and Refugees: The Hmong Experience.” I also drew on Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence; Stan Sesser, “Forgotten Country” Tom Hamburger and Eric Black, “Uprooted People in Search of a Home” Donald A. Ranard, “The Hmong: No Strangers to Change” W. E. Garrett, “No Place to Run” Clark Clifford, Counsel to the President; William E. Colby, testimony to the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, April 26, 1994; Toby Alice Volkman, “Unexpected Bombs Take Toll in Laos, Too” and Henry Kamm, “Decades-Old U.S. Bombs Still Killing Laotians.”
American Foreign Policy, 1950–1955: Basic Documents; American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1962; “Text of Cease-Fire Agreement Signed by Laotian Government and the Pathet Lao” and Dictionary of American History helped me decipher the international agreements involving Laos and Vietnam.
I have quoted from the following pieces of contemporary reporting: Hugh Greenway, “The Pendulum of War Swings Wider in Laos” Don Schanche, “The Yankee ‘King’ of Laos” “Laos: The Silent Sideshow” Michael T. Malloy, “Anti-Communists Also Win Battles in War-Torn Laos” “Reds’ Advance in Laos Menaces Hill Strongholds of Meo Tribe” Henry Kamm, “Meo General Leads Tribesmen in War with Communists in Laos” Robert Shaplen, “Letter from Laos” Nancy Shulins, “Transplanted Hmong Struggle to Adjust in U.S.” and “Rice in the Sky.”
The CIA film that praised Vang Pao was “Journey from Pha Dong.” The transcript was by Vang Yang.
Roger Warner, Back Fire; Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks, The CIA; and Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin, examine the role opium played in the Laos war, as does the PBS broadcast “Frontline: Guns, Drugs and the CIA.” Frontline and McCoy report an intimate connection between the CIA and the opium trade; Warner believes some of their allegations are exaggerated.
Jane Hamilton-Merritt, Tragic Mountains, and Sterling Seagrave, Yellow Rain: Chemical Warfare—The Deadliest Arms Race, present the case for the existence of mycotoxic yellow rain. The opposing view is presented most exhaustively in Lois Ember, “Yellow Rain” and also in Thomas Whiteside, “The Yellow-Rain Complex,” and Thomas Seeley et al., “Yellow Rain.”
11. The Big One
As they did throughout the book, Neil Ernst and Peggy Philp helped me fathom the medical material in this chapter. Elizabeth Engle, Robert Kaye, and especially Fred Holley also cleared up many points of confusion. Sherwin B. Nuland, How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter, helped me understand septic shock; Robert Berkow, The Merck Manual, explained disseminated intravascular coagulation.
12. Flight
May Lee sent me her autobiographical essay.
George Dalley, Randall Flynn, Bob Hearn, Tony Kaye, Blia Yao Moua, Jonas Vangay, and Jennifer Veech all joined in the hunt for the precise location and spelling of the Lees’ village, Houaysouy. True Lee definitively pinned it down. Good sources on the geography of Laos include the 1:100,000-scale map published by the Service Géographique d’Etat of the République Democratique Populaire Lao and Laos: Official Standard Names Approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names.
Yang Dao, Paul DeLay, Dennis Grace, Bob Hearn, Marc Kaufman, Blia Yao Moua, Dang Moua, Moua Kee, Court Robinson, Hiram Ruiz, Vang Pobzeb, Jonas Vangay, May Ying Xiong, Xay Soua Xiong, and Yia Thao Xiong clarified many aspects of the postwar period in Laos and Thailand.
Many of the sources cited under Chapter 10—most instructively, Stan Sesser, “Forgotten Country,” and Yang Dao, Hmong at the Turning Point and “Why Did the Hmong Leave Laos?”—recount the fate of the Hmong in postwar Laos. Souvanna Phouma’s comment on the liquidation of the Hmong is quoted, in varying translations, in Yang Dao, Hmong at the Turning Point; Keith Quincy, Hmong; and Roger Warner, Back Fire. Jane Hamilton-Merritt, Tragic Mountains, quotes the Vientiane Domestic Service radio broadcast on the Hmong decampment. The background on Neo Hom is from Marc Kaufman, “As Keeper of the Hmong Dream, He Draws Support and Skepticism” Ruth Hammond, “Sad Suspicions of a Refugee Ripoff” and Seth Mydans, “California Says Laos Refugee Group Has Been Extorted by Its Leadership.”
The following helped me reconstruct the experience of fleeing on foot to Thailand: Henry Kamm, “Meo, Hill People Who Fought for U.S., Are Fleeing from Laos” May Xiong and Nancy D. Donnelly, “My Life in Laos” David L. Moore, Dark Sky, Dark Land: Stories of the Hmong Boy Scouts of Troop 100; Arlene Bartholome, “Escape from Laos Told” Dominica P. Garcia, “In Thailand, Refugees’ ‘Horror and Misery,’” and Matt Franjola, “Meo Tribesmen from Laos Facing Death in Thailand.” Hmong funeral customs are detailed in Kou Vang, Hmong Concepts of Illness and Healing. The story of the Israeli child who was accidentally smothered by her mother is from Roger Rosenblatt, Children of War.
On Thai refugee camps and refugee politics, I consulted David Feith, Stalemate: Refugees in Asia; Lynellen Long, “Refugee Camps as a Way of Life” and Ban Vinai: The Refugee Camp; Court Robinson, “Laotian Refugees in Thailand: The Thai and U.S. Response, 1975 to 1988” Jean-Pierre Willem, Les naufragés de la liberté Henry Kamm, “Thailand Finds Indochinese Refugees a Growing Problem” Donald A. Ranard, “The Last Bus” Marc Kaufman, “Why the Hmong Spurn America” Joseph Cerquone, Refugees from Laos: In Harm’s Way; and Jim Mann and Nick B. Williams, Jr., “Shultz Cool to New Indochina Refugee Effort.” The Dwight Conquergood passages are from “Health Theatre.”
Two even-handed discussions of repatriation to Laos, voluntary and otherwise, are Marc Kaufman, “Casualties of Peace,” and Lionel Rosenblatt, testimony to the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, April 26, 1994.
The most reliable source of information on refugee issues worldwide is the World Refugee Survey, published annually by the U.S. Committee for Refugees in Washington, D.C. I have drawn many facts and figures from it.
The story of Shee Yee is from Charles Johnson, Dab Neeg Hmoob. It is greatly condensed, but my phrasing hews as closely as possible to that of Johnson’s informant, Pa Chou Yang.
13. Code X
The Hmong New Year is described in Kou Vang, Hmong Concepts of Illness and Healing; Keith Quincy, Hmong; and W. R. Geddes, Migrants of the Mountains. Kathleen Ann Culhane-Pera, “Analysis of Cultural Beliefs and Power Dynamics,” helped me understand the Hmong taboo against foretelling a death, as did conversations with Koua Her, Kia Lee, Chong Moua, and Long Thao.
14. The Melting Pot
Several previously cited works provide particularly accessible or interesting entrées into the Hmong experience in the United States. “Migrants Without Mountains,” George Scott’s dissertation on the Hmong of San Diego, is the most intelligent study of Hmong acculturation I have read. Hmong Means Free, a collection of interviews with a long historical introduction by Sucheng Chan, contains absorbing oral histories of five Hmong families in California, though her sample is heavily skewed toward Christian converts. Acculturation in the Hmong Community, Ray Hutchison’s study of Hmong in northern Wisconsin, thoughtfully challenges many stereotypes. Two useful brief overviews are Timothy Dunnigan et al., “Hmong,” and the Hmong chapter in Sanford J. Ungar, Fresh Blood: The New American Immigrants. The Hmong Resettlement Study, a comprehensive government report, is a trove of information, interviews, and recommendations on how refugee programs might be improved.
Father Edward Avery, Toyo Biddle, Loren Bussert, Yee Chang, Eric Crystal, Paul DeLay, Timothy Dunnigan, Francesca Farr, Tim Gordon, Glenn Hendricks, Marc Kaufman, Sue Levy, Blia Yao Moua, Dang Moua, Ron Munger, George Schreider, Peter Vang, Jonas Vangay, Doug Vincent, John Xiong, and May Ying Xiong provided helpful background information.
The Ford Motor Company Americanization classes are described in S
tephen Meyer, The Five Dollar Day; Stephan Thernstrom, “Ethnic Groups in American History” and Joan Strouse, “Continuing Themes in U.S. Educational Policy.” Jacques Lemoine, “Shamanism,” comments on the Hmong resistance to assimilation. Marc Kaufman, “Why the Hmong Are Fleeing America’s Helping Hand,” reports Vang Pao’s request for land, as well as other details of acculturation that I have mined throughout this chapter. Eric Martin, “Hmong in French Guyana: An Improbable Gamble,” discusses the South American settlements, about which Bruce Downing, Father Daniel Taillez, and Yang Dao provided further details.
The resettlement bureaucracy is described in Richard Lee Yamasaki, “Resettlement Status of the Hmong Refugees in Long Beach,” and Robert E. Marsh, “Socioeconomic Status of Indochinese Refugees in the United States: Progress and Problems.” The adaptation study in which Hmong complained about American agencies is Woodrow Jones, Jr., and Paul Strand, “Adaptation and Adjustment Problems Among Indochinese Refugees.” Ruth Hammond, “Tradition Complicates Hmong Choice,” and Joseph Westermeyer, “Prevention of Mental Disorder Among Hmong Refugees in the U.S.: Lessons from the Period 1976–1986,” describe efforts to convert Hmong to Christianity. The Westermeyer article also takes a critical look at the policy of dispersing Hmong refugees, as do Stephen P. Morin, “Many Hmong, Puzzled by Life in U.S., Yearn for Old Days in Laos” Simon M. Fass, “Through a Glass Darkly: Cause and Effect in Refugee Resettlement Policies” and Frank Viviano, “Strangers in the Promised Land.”
The ordeal of the Yang family in Fairfield, Iowa, is chronicled by Calvin Trillin, “Resettling the Yangs,” and Wayne King, “New Life’s Cultural Demons Torture Laotian Refugee.”
The helpful hints for newly arrived Southeast Asian refugees are from “Your New Life in the United States.” Journalistic characterizations of the Hmong are from Seth Mydans, “California Says Laos Refugee Group Has Been Extorted” Frank W. Martin, “A CIA-Backed Guerrilla Who Waged a Secret War in Laos Puts Down Roots in Montana” Nancy Shulins, “Transplanted Hmong Struggle to Adjust” Stephen P. Morin, “Many Hmong” and Susan Vreeland, “Through the Looking Glass with the Hmong of Laos.” The angry letter to the editor about the “primitive” epithet is Paul Pao Herr, “Don’t Call Hmong Refugees ‘Primitive.’”
“Bangungut” is the deliciously hysterical editorial on Sudden Unexpected Death Syndrome. For background on this syndrome, which was called Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome until several daytime deaths were reported, see Jacques Lemoine and Christine Mougne, “Why Has Death Stalked the Refugees?” Bruce Thowpaou Bliatout, Hmong Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome; Ronald Munger, “Sudden Death in Sleep of Asian Adults” and “Sudden Death in Sleep of Laotian-Hmong Refugees in Thailand: A Case-Control Study” and Ronald Munger and Elizabeth Booton, “Thiamine and Sudden Death in Sleep of South-East Asian Refugees.”
Senator Alan Simpson’s characterization of the Hmong as “indigestible” is from Dwight Conquergood, “Health Theatre.” Rumors about the Hmong are reported in Charles Johnson, “Hmong Myths, Legends and Folk Tales,” and Roger Mitchell, “The Will to Believe and Anti-Refugee Rumors.”
Examples of anti-Hmong vandalism and violence come from Tom Hamburger and Eric Black, “Uprooted People” Eddie A. Calderon, “The Impact of Indochinese Resettlement on the Phillips and Elliot Park Neighborhoods in South Minneapolis” David L. Moore, Dark Sky, Dark Land; Stephen P. Morin, “Many Hmong” Margot Hornblower, “‘Hmongtana’” Dennis R. Getto, “Hmong Families Build New Lives” Richard Abrams, “Cross Burnings Terrify, Bewilder Hmong” “Slaying of Boy Stuns Refugee Family” Jane Eisner, “Hearings on Attacks on Asians” William Robbins, “Violence Forces Hmong to Leave Philadelphia” and Marc Kaufman, “Clash of Cultures: Ill Hmong Rejects Hospital” and “At the Mercy of America.”
George M. Scott, Jr., “Migrants Without Mountains,” explains why some Hmong refugees choose not to defend themselves. Amy Pyle, “Refugees Allegedly Threaten Welfare Workers,” reports death threats by angry Hmong in Fresno. “Hmong Sentenced to Study America,” and Jack Hayes, “Ching and Bravo Xiong, Laotian Hmong in Chicago,” report the case of the Hmong men who attacked an American driver. The Hmong justice system is described in Charles Johnson, Dab Neeg Hmoob. The suicide of Chao Wang Vang is reported in Shirley Armbruster, “Hmong Take Root in Fresno.”
The Hmong Resettlement Study and Cheu Thao, “Hmong Migration and Leadership,” provide useful background on secondary migration. Timothy Dunnigan, quoted in Don Willcox, Hmong Folklife, observes that Hmong who try to gain membership in other kin groups are called “bats.” Among my sources on Hmong in the Central Valley of California are John Finck, “Secondary Migration to California’s Central Valley” Mike Conway, “The Bill Stops Here in Refugee Policy” David Abramson, “The Hmong: A Mountain Tribe Regroups in the Valley” and Kevin Roderick, “Hmong Select San Joaquin to Sink Roots.” The intimidating agricultural course plan, from a 1982 training program in Homer, Minnesota, is quoted in The Hmong Resettlement Study. Dwight Conquergood’s passage about the Hmong group ethic is from “Establishing the World: Hmong Shamans.”
United States government programs for encouraging economic independence by Hmong and other refugee groups are documented in the following publications by the Office of Refugee Resettlement: Teng Yang et al., An Evaluation of the Highland Lao Initiative: Final Report; Evaluation of the Key States Initiative; and annual Reports to the Congress on the Refugee Resettlement Program. Simon M. Fass, “Economic Development and Employment Projects,” is a good source on Hmong employment in the 1980s. Ruth Hammond, “Strangers in a Strange Land,” takes an unsentimental look at welfare. George M. Scott, Jr., “Migrants Without Mountains,” mentions the man who refused to accept a job that would place him above his coworkers. Charlie Chue Chang and Nouzong Lynaolu provided information on Hmong National Development; the Yang Wang Meng Association, on Hmong in the professions; and Robin Vue-Benson, on electronic resources. Vue-Benson edits the electronic Hmong Studies Journal, which can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.como.stpaul.k12.mn.us/Vue-Benson/HSJ.html.
The welfare statistics are based on information provided by the Minnesota Department of Human Services, the Wisconsin Department of Health and Social Services, and the California Department of Social Services. They are estimates.
The Hmong Resettlement Study and Christopher Robbins, The Ravens, describe “The Promise” made by the CIA in Laos. Lue Vang and Judy Lewis, “Grandfather’s Path, Grandfather’s Way,” likens dependent people to dogs waiting for scraps.
I consulted the following mental health studies: Rubén Rumbaut, “Mental Health and the Refugee Experience: A Comparative Study of Southeast Asian Refugees” Perry M. Nicassio, “Psychosocial Correlates of Alienation: Study of a Sample of Indochinese Refugees” Joseph Westermeyer, “Acculturation and Mental Health: A Study of Hmong Refugees at 1.5 and 3.5 Years Postmigration” and Westermeyer et al., “Psychosocial Adjustment of Hmong Refugees During Their First Decade in the United States.” I also drew on Elizabeth Gong-Guy, California Southeast Asian Mental Health Needs Assessment, and Bruce Thowpaou Bliatout, “Understanding the Differences Between Asian and Western Concepts of Mental Health and Illness.”
Doua Her’s poem, “Lament upon Leaving Our Country,” comes from Don Willcox, Hmong Folklife, as does the observation that to Hmong refugees in America, even the birds, trees, and flowers are unfamiliar. The stories about Plimoth Plantation and about former battalion commander Major Wang Seng Khang are both from Stephen P. Morin, “Many Hmong.” The Hmong Community Survey, done by the University of Minnesota in 1982 and quoted in Tom Hamburger and Eric Black, “Uprooted People,” contains the fraction of Hmong who were certain they would live out their lives in America. Although I am not aware of any later surveys, I would expect that the fraction has markedly increased, especially among younger Hmong.
Richard F. Mollica poignantly describes his psychiatric work with Indochinese refugees in “The Trauma Story: The Psychiatric Ca
re of Refugee Survivors of Violence and Torture,” and, with James Lavelle, in “Southeast Asian Refugees.” Bruce Thowpaou Bliatout et al., “Mental Health and Prevention Activities Targeted to Southeast Asian Refugees,” contains a good basic discussion of role loss.
The murder of a German tourist by a Hmong teenager is reported in Seth Mydans, “Laotians’ Arrest in Killing Bares a Generation Gap.” George M. Scott, Jr., “The Hmong Refugee Community in San Diego: Theoretical and Practical Implications of Its Continuing Ethnic Solidarity,” observes that hardship has strengthened the Hmong identity.
15. Gold and Dross
Robert Berkow, The Merck Manual, and Lawrence K. Altman, “Quinlan Case Is Revisited and Yields New Finding,” helped me understand persistent vegetative states. George M. Scott, Jr., “Migrants Without Mountains,” notes that Hmong parents treat deformed children with special affection.
16. Why Did They Pick Merced?
The following furnished valuable background on the history, ethnic composition, and economy of Merced: Merced Sun-Star Centennial Edition; “A Chronicle in Time” Gerald Haslam, “The Great Central Valley: Voices of a Place” Delores J. Cabezut-Ortiz, Merced County; Kevin Roderick, “Hmong Select San Joaquin” and literature and information from the Merced County Chamber of Commerce, the Merced County Economic Development Corporation, and Lao Family Community of Merced. Dan Campbell, Burt Fogleburg, Jan Harwood, Luc Janssens, Jeff McMahon, Kai Moua, Cindy Murphy, Robert Small, and Debbie Vrana also provided useful general background. Rosie Rocha located several articles from the Merced Sun-Star.
Hmong music and musical instruments are described in Amy Catlin, “Speech Surrogate Systems of the Hmong: From Singing Voices to Talking Reeds” Don Willcox, Hmong Folklife; Charles Johnson, Dab Neeg Hmoob; Megan McNamer, “Musical Change and Change in Music” Rick Rubin, “Little Bua and Tall John” Mike Conway, “Recording the Ways of the Past for the Children of the Future” and “New People/Shared Dreams: An Examination of Music in the Lives of the Hmong in Merced County.”