The first scholarly work to come from inside the Hmong community, Hmong America documents Chia Youyee Vang's own migration from Laos to Minnesota at age nine and the transformations she has witnessed in Hmong communities throughout the migration and settlement processes. Vang depicts Hmong experiences in Asia and examines aspects of community building in America to reveal how new Hmong identities have been formed and how they have challenged popular assumptions about race and ethnicity in multicultural America. Combining participant observation and archival research with personal experience, Vang constructs a nuanced and complex portrait of the more than 130,000 Hmong people who came to the United States as political refugees beginning in the mid-1970s. Her critique of previous representations of the Hmong community provides the sociological underpinnings for a bold reassessment of Hmong history in the greater context of globalization. This new understanding redefines concepts of Hmong homogeneity and characterizes ordinary Hmong migrants not as passive victims but as dynamic actors who have exercised much power over their political and social destinies.Table of Contents: List of Illustrations   ix Foreword   xi Preface   xiii Acknowledgments   xvii Chronology of Relevant Events   xx Introduction   1 1. Hmong History and Migration Prior to America   17 2. A New Home in America   44 3. Re-creation of Social Structures   68 4. Continuity and Reinvention of Traditions   97 5. Political Activism   122 Conclusion   150 Notes   163 Bibliography   181 Index   193