×Diane Xiong & E Her

In 1975, the Hmong people were driven from their mountain homeland in Laos after the communist Pathet Lao seized power in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Thousands fled in fear of execution for their role in a U.S.-backed secret war and in dread of the persecution that awaited them under the new regime. Families abandoned farms and villages, trekking through jungles and across rivers to reach Thai refugee camps. For many, the camps became way stations before resettlement in the United States, where significant numbers of Hmong found new homes, especially in cities like Milwaukee.

Half a century later, the story of that migration is being retold by the grandchildren of those first refugees. To commemorate the Hmong people’s arrival in America, students and educators

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