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Being Hmong Means Being Free highlights the history, culture and
identity of the Hmong immigrants who have settled in the United States between
1975 and the early 1990s. The documentary looks at Hmong life in this country
as seen through the eyes of the program host, seventeen year-old Lia Vang.
As a second-generation Hmong immigrant, Lia recalls the historical events that brought her family to the United States. She also tells of the struggles faced by her mother and father and people of their generation after they were forced to leave their homeland (Laos) and re-establish their lives amidst a culture far different from their own. Lia explains many of the fundamental concepts and practices of the ancient Hmong culture - weddings, funerals, the "ball toss," the shaman, clans, the "flower cloth" - and relates how those traditions and beliefs have framed who and what Hmong people are. She and her older brother Seng also reflect on the difficulties that have arisen from trying to live according to Hmong tradition in the western society of the United States. The story of Lia and Seng's family, their journey to and experiences in this country, gives us a comprehensive view of why we have new Hmong neighbors, who and what they are and how they came to be here. Like the Vangs, the Hmong who have immigrated to the United States have done so because they were among the 60% of their people in Laos who chose to take up arms against the communist forces (the North Vietnamese, Vietcong and Pathet Lao) in the Vietnam War. When the United States withdrew from that conflict in 1975, the Hmong soldiers and their families (approximately 120,000 people) were driven from their homes into places of sanctuary wherever they could find it, the "fortunate" into the "re-settlement" camps in Thailand. Later, under the egis of the United Nations and various worldwide church groups, they made new homes, mostly in the United States, but also in France, French Guiana, Australia and Canada. Cher Yang Vang, the patron of the Vang family, was not only a soldier, but also a member of a very elite group that protected famous Hmong military leader Major General Vang Pao during the war. Cher lost his first wife and three children in the fighting and bombing that was brought by that war to his homeland in the mountains of Laos. He married again, resettled in the United States and with wife Mai has produced a family of 10 boys and 5 girls. Because Hmong and English are such starkly different languages, and because there is little demand for the skills he developed as a farmer and soldier in Laos, he has had difficulty adapting to life here - like so many others of his generation. The children of immigrant Hmong fathers and mothers have shared in their parents' struggles: often because of simple ignorance, bigotry and xenophobia; just as often because of the clash between two diverse cultures. At the same time, the Hmong have made remarkable progress. As Lia notes, "We have changed from non-literate mountain farmers into fully capable citizens of the western world in the course of a single generation." No other immigrant population in this country's long history of immigration has come so far in so short a period of time. |
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