Your information about Hmong in Vietnam coincided with what we've
learned about the Hmong from Laos.
1. Chinese Archives dated Hmong live in along the Yellow River and
Central China 3000 B.C.
2. Hmong are pushed to the southwest region by the Han Chinese and
records found Hmong existed in Yunnan Province in 862 A.D.
3. Scholars dated Hmong migrating into Indochina, primarily Laos and
Vietnam, from China in the early 1800's.
4. From 1840-68, revolts erupted betweent the Hmong and Chnese, which
ended with more than 10,000 Hmong escaping persecution into Southeast
Asia, mainly Laos and Vietnam.
5. By 1881, another 10,000 Hmong were found migrating to Southeast
Asia from China mainly into Lao Cai, Yen Bai, and Ha Giang Provinces
in Vietnam.
6. Laos and parts of Vietnam become French protectorates in 1893.
7. In 1896, about 30,000 Hmong in Laos, 20,000 in Thailand and Hmong
in Vietnam could not be accounted for at this time.
8. In 1960, Hmong according to the U.S. Library of Congress and CIA
Archives indicaded Touby Lyfong and Vang Pao were Hmong's top leaders
and about 300,000 living in Laos by this time. More than 30,000 Hmong
troops were recruited by the U.S. government to fight the Communist,
aka, Secret War, from 1960-1973.
9. 1975, the Secret War ended, forcing more than 100,000 thousand
Hmong into exile (France, Australia, Canada, and the U.S.).
10. In 1988, Hmong in the U.S. number 70,000.
11. May 15, 1997 - U.S. Congress finally recognized, honored and
commemorated Hmong and placed an engraved plaque in Washington DC for
their valor sacrifice during the Vietnam War.
12. In 2000 - Hmong in the U.S. according to Hmong National
Development, Inc. number about 283,239; 300,000 in Laos.
13. 2006 - Hmong totaled 315,000 in the U.S.; 6,000 Hmong remain
refugees in Thailand from Laos; Hmong population in Thailand and
Vietname remain unaccounted for.
14. 2006 - Hmong students in the U.S. were found in the same level as
Whites in academic achievement from K-12 school. 70 percents of Hmong
entered the workforce and became home owners.
On Feb 24, 11:35 pm, Elchinoboatconscie...@
gmail.com wrote:
> LOYALTY TO YOUR ex=SLAVES WHILE A PRAISEWORTHY CAUSE BUT NOT
> If such loyalty is to cause your ex-slaves more hardship than if they
> were to be left alone.
> Mr Kovan was interested, which is to his credit, in the fate of the
> Hmongs who had served him during the Nam War against present real or
> imaginary persecution by the Vietkong who supposedly punished them for
> past collaboration with the Kovans.
> What I knew of the Hmong was from superficially reading US or Western
> sources which gave me a contradictory picture of the Hmong. Where do
> they come from ? What is there Geographical distribution and why did
> they collaborate with the US.
> A short trip to Ha Giang, the Northern most province of Vietnam next
> to China last Christmas encouraged me to do an in depth investigation.
> Ha Giang was the road by which the Hmong arrived to VN from China in
> last 300 years in 3 waves of immigration.
> What is new to me was before 1954, there were no Hmongs in what is
> known later as South Vietnam. At the end of the War against the
> French, Their main distribution was highest in China (about 70%%) then
> North Vietnam (20-25%%) Laos (5-10%% ) ,Thailand about 1%% and South
> Vietnam = 0%%. The Hmong in North Vietnam lived in the provinces of
> Ha Giang, lao cai, cao bang, son la , Bac can and Thai Nguyen. None
> of them lived in the Central Highlands of South VN in the Provinces
> of kongtum, Darlac, Lam Dong and ban Me Thuat.
> But from Mr Daiuy's posts and others who hated the Communists, all of
> the persecutions of Highlanders occurred on population in the
> Highlands of South Vietnam in the provinces referred to above. So were
> these persecuted Hmong who came from China in last 300 years and who
> belonged, ethnically, to the mongoloid groups called by the Chinese
> as the Giao or Chuang and who inhabited Guichow, Quang Xi and Yunnan
> or were they kotu, Rade', Jarai, a Melanesian group who came to
> Vietnam from South Asia Islands (Indonesia, Borneo, Malaysia etc...)
> tens of thousands years ago ?
> But the records showed that the Individuals who fled to Cambodia from
> VC persecution were mainly Hmongs interspersed with a few Melanesians
> who were converted into Protestantism (Mennonite etc...). So the
> Hmong in South Vietnam came to the South like the Catholic Kinh as
> auxiliary forces (and their family) of the French Expeditionary
> Forces after their defeat at Dienbienfu. These Hmong folks numbering
> then at the most a few tens of thousands. But their number were
> augmented by the Hmongs from Laos who were recruited by Ong Kovans
> into his Special Forces to interdict the Vietkong on the HCM trail.
> The American War in Laos lasted even longer than the American War in
> Vietnam producing a population of collaborators headed by Vang Pao of
> several hundreds thousands. I doubted that all of them were pure
> Hmong. Other components like the Melanesians and Cambodians were
> likely present.
> After the war about 50,000 were imported to the USA settling mainly in
> Minnesota , Wisconsin and California. Their total number reached
> 85,000 in 1995 and 135,000 in 2004 showing vigorous proliferation
> activity but unfortunately the Hmong very poorly integrated into the
> Main Stream Americans. The Reason was mainly cultural but also
> linguistic. Possibly 70%% of all Hmongs are on Welfare to certain
> extent. Still now 70 %% of the Hmong (all figures were from various
> Hmong WebPages) still do not speak fluently English. The most
> successful Hmongs are Lawyer, Doctors; and the First Indohinese
> elected to a state senatorial position was a Hmong Lady from
> Minnesota.
>
> In Vietnam ,I could not come up with the latest statistic on the
> population of Hmongs in Vietnam. The number of 231,000 was published
> in 1967 (Museum of Ethnology , Hanoi, VN). This number increased to
> 550,000 in 1995 then to 800,000 in 2002 a sizable increase comparable
> to the increase in the hmong 's population in USA from 1975 to 2004.
> The amount of rice/grain consumption was used as an indicator of
> economical status in a dirt poor socialist economy like North
> Vietnam's pre Doimoi for both Kinh and Hmong population. A t the
> beginning statistics for rice consumption (around 1970) was 212 Kg/
> inhabitant/year for the Hmonh and 280 Kg for the kinh. In 1990, it
> was 302 kg/inhabitant/year for the Hmong. But since 1990, doimoi
> had visited the Highlands of both South and North Vietnam.
> Electrification was achieved. Each Hmong Village now has and
> Elementary school (Dr Eric Cristal of UCLA Fowler Resource center
> cited that The Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the
> Government of Denmark, Japan and Sueden were involved in the effort
> of eradication of Hmong illiteracy ), roads had ben built allowing
> some, not all of course, successful Hmongs to commute in Motor
> Cycles. Irrigation with electric pumps allowed 2 or 3 crops per year
> improving significantly the diet of all Hmongs who do not have to eat
> yam roots and maize in their diet. Big communal houses were built.
> Traditional ceremonies were revived with the Gongs present prominently
> as musical instruments to celebrate good crops of coffee, cashew and
> pepper.
> I don't claim hat this is paradise on Earth, Mr Kova, but it is much
> better what the Hmongs had seen in their History.
> I hope that Mr Moore and Mr Reese who knew the highlands much more
> than I do to give a comment on their impression when they visited
> these folks. I also cross post this post to the Soc. Culy. Hmong and
> Soc. Culture.laos to hear from their inputs.
>
> On Feb 24, 10:50 am, Dai Uy
hawaii.rr.com> wrote:
>
>
>>> The reality is that it has been reduced by roughly 30%%.
>> I did.
