17: Hmong Story Cloths

As the Vietnam War was coming to an end in 1975, the Americans and their allies were racing to flee the country and the newly formed Communist Government. The Hmong people, who lived high in the mountains of Laos, had been strong allies of the U.S. during the war and were recruited by the CIA to help fight the communists. Once the war came to an abrupt end, the Hmong people were in grave danger of being slaughtered by the North Vietnamese-backed Pathet Lao government because of their close involvement with the Americans (Cha, 1996). The lucky ones were able to escape the coming brutality along with the Americans. For the majority of Hmong, the route to escape wasn’t as easy. The people were marked for genocide, but fleeing their homeland was a difficult proposition (Cha, 1996). Chemical and biological weapons were inflicted upon them. Those who were able to escape had to trek through mountainous jungles and cross the treacherous Mekong River where they ended up living in refugee camps in neighboring Thailand (Lindsay, n.d.).