GAOLI MOUA

When I am meeting people for the first time, after several moments of hesitation and a gulp of courage, I am finally asked, “Where are you from?” The answer to that question is quite boring: I was born in Minnesota, but have known Georgia for most of my life. The question they are really asking is: what is your ethnic background? The answer: I am Hmong.

What is Hmong?

FAMILIAR FACES First, let’s identify some faces to be able to put a face to a name. Most likely I am not the first Hmong person you have seen or encountered. The Hmong are actually nicely represented in news, media, pop culture, and politics. Here are just a few:

HISTORY The Hmong are a minority ethnic group originating from Southern China with a diaspora that spreads throughout Southeast Asia. The Hmong have their own language, foods, and customs that vary depending upon their region and influences from other nearby groups. It is believed that they once had their own writing system that was lost over several thousand years of war and displacement.

According to family oral history, my great grandparents have origins from Guangzhou, China who traveled to Southeast Asia and settled in the mountains of Laos. As a minority and immigrant group that already had clashes with the local governments, the Hmong were put in a predicament during the Vietnam War (American War, if you ask the Lao and Vietnamese).

Soon becoming a casualty of the war, the Hmong became convenient targets by local governments and militia during America’s Secret War in Laos, so some aligned themselves with the Americans hoping to gain sovereignty at the end of the war. Hmong families made the dangerous journey towards the Thai borders to seek refugee and asylum statuses safety. After the war ended, many groups were unable to return to their homes due to post-war persecution and destruction, so after several years of paperwork and waiting, many of them were granted entry to the US.

My mom arrived to the US as a young teenager and my dad was a young adult. My mom completed a high school diploma and my dad gained work experience before they met and ultimately got married. All of my siblings and I were born in the US and none of us have been back to the mountain villages in Laos where my parents were born. Today, I doubt my mom would be able to arrive at her birth village on her own although she has been back to visit once. Fortunately, my dad has been back twice and is able to speak the local language and navigate back to his birth village.

WHICH CULTURE DO I IDENTIFY? I consider myself American, hyphenate questionable as I am not fully fitting into my origin culture but not fully accepted in the one I’ve grown up in. I am a third culture kid, someone who grows up in a culture other than their parents’.

So now, my turn to ask: where are you from?