Hmong History

The early history of the Hmong is not known for sure. One of the Hmong tales tells of life in a land of ice and snow. Some people believe that this land was Mongolia. Chinese history tells about people who could have been Hmong around 2700 B.C. Later Chinese history tells that the Miao (Hmong) were forced to moved from the Yangtze plains around 2000 B.C. When life became very difficult in China in the late 1800's, a lot of Hmong went to Viet Nam, Laos and also Thailand, but some Hmong stayed in China.
In the late 1950's, the Hmong began to help the CIA and also became involved in the civil war in Laos. In the early 1960's, the Hmong and their leader, General Vang Pao, began to fight against the Pathet Lao. The Hmong soldiers continued to help the American CIA during the Vietnam war. After the war ended in 1975, many Hmong escaped to Thailand and later resettled mostly in the United States. By 1990, 120,000 Hmong had left Laos.
The Hmong who came to the United States had lived up in the mountains of Laos. Most of them had been farmers and then soldiers. Some of the people had been teachers.
Hmong people first came to the Winona area in the 1980's.Ross Graves, an American man, had the idea to bring 100 Hmong people to farm in Homer. He thought of this idea because the Hmong people had been farmers in Laos and Thailand and he hoped they could learn about American ways of farming. He planned for them to raise hogs and plants like cucumbers on the farm. Some people in the community did want the Hmong people to come. In May,1983, seven Hmong men came and brought 6000 cucumbers plants with them. The men started to work and more Hmong people came and worked. The plan was for the Americans to help the Hmong people learn to farm the American way. The buildings were not very good and the Americans had problems with the money for the farm. In 1984, they had to close the farm. In May, 1984, all the Hmong people left the farm in Homer.
In that same year, some Hmong people came to Winona to go to Winona State University. Today about 280 Hmong people live in Winona. Some Hmong people wanted a different life so they moved away from their cities to Winona. There is less violence in Winona and better education. As recently as 1994, a family came from a camp in Thailand.
Winona is a quiet place. Some of the elders say the bluffs around Winona make them homesick for Laos.