There is also a huge diaspora of , Hmong refugees who left Laos after the end of the Silent War in in Laos, fearing retaliation and persecution from the Laotian government for supporting the United States. The majority of these Hmong refugees were resettled in the United States and by they had established a Hmong American community comparable in size with the current Hmong community in Laos.
Hmong population worldwide:. The Hmong people are an ethnic group in several countries, believed to have come from the Yangtze River basin area in southern China. The Hmong are known in China as the Miao, a designation that embraces several different ethnic groups.
There is debate about usage of this term, especially amongst Hmong living in the West, as it is believed by some to be derogatory, although Hmong living in China still call themselves by this name. Chinese scholars have recorded contact with the Miao as early as the 3rd century BCE, and wrote of them that they were a proud and independent people. However, after the Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty attempted to impose several new taxation systems and continued expansion of their empire, the Hmong are reported to have rebelled.
In Laos they are called Meo, with basically the same translation and connotation. These Southeast Asian people use the term Hmong also spelled h'Mong , which means "free man," as their real and preferred name. A minority among the lowland Lao, the Hmong have fiercely struggled to maintain their independence and ethnic culture. They are aided, in part, by the extreme geographical isolation of the Laotian mountains and jungle in which they had established their homeland.
The Hmong largely worked as farmers, utilizing the slash-and-burn method. Their primary cash crop, opium, was encouraged by both the Laotian and French regimes. In , under pressure from the US, the Laotian government declared opium cultivation and sale to be illegal.
Their previous pattern of subsistence farming had been barely adequate simply for survival before; with this change in their economy in , survival had, for some Hmong, become nearly impossible. Many of the farmers continue to deal illegally in the supply side of the opium market simply because they have no other choice.
During the Indochina war the country of Laos held an officially neutral position. The Hmong, however, fought of both sides in this political struggle. The Pathet Lao victory cost the Hmong an estimated 30, lives, approximately 10 percent of their total population.
The position for the surviving US-allied Hmong was politically very sensitive because of the role they had played against the Pathet Lao. Not anticipating defeat, the US government had no provisions for evacuating the stranded Hmong. From on, the Hmong fled Los for Thailand.
Since the mids, a large portion of Hmong refugees have immigrated to the US. In the relocation process, efforts are made to keep the nuclear family intact, but not necessarily the extended family. Because the Hmong give such importance to the extended family, many "secondary" migrations have occurred in order to reunite that extended family.
Socially, the Hmong practice a patrilineal clan system. All of the people are divided into social groups referred to as clans, of which there are approximately 20 in their entire population. All of the clan share the same last name. These secondary migrations have led to several "impacted communities. More than 15, Hmong live in Fresno, California, today.
This is believed to be the largest clustering of Hmong outside of Asia. It is on my experiences as a nurse in Fresno that I base my observations. One of the most difficult areas of assimilation for the Hmong has been within the US health system. This article will first examine the traditional Hmong health system and then relate it to that of the US. The rest of the article will focus on the pediatric Hmong population.
The Hmong view illness as a supernatural event, caused by spirits, called tlan. These animistic beliefs cloud their conception and perception of illness and also give "validation" to many of their cultural practices.
The Hmong spiritual world is composed of several tlan. One is the txi neng, or the shaman spirit. The txi neng is thought to give a severely ill person the ability to serve as an intermediary between the spirit world and the physical world, and thus survive the illness. After being trained by the spirit and a senior shaman, that person becomes a shaman also called tu-ua-neng or trix neeb.
The shaman can ten diagnose and treat villagers' illnesses, using magical powers to summon benevolent spirits. Another form of tlan is the body spirit, which consists of three basic types: ancestors, dead friends and animals. If a person passes out, the good body spirits can escape. If a shaman cannot restore the good spirits to the body in time, the Hmong believe the person will die. This works as a promoter of good health, keeping the good spirits in and the bad spirits out.
These strings are tied in position during a ceremony known as Baa and should not be removed. Sometimes the body spirits are believed to cause illness because they want an animal sacrifice.
If the correct animal is sacrificed, the victim will recover. The "cure" varies little regardless of the disease. A tuua-neng pays a house call. He chants with the ardor and the exaggerated gestures common to faith healer anywhere. All the while a black mask over his head closes out this world. Jangling a ring of noisemakers with a clippety-clopp rhythm, he "rides off on a horse" to find the soul. Along the way the tu-ua-neng gathers a posse of friendly spirits; one of these may bring field glasses, another an airplane.
The villains may be lurking at the bottom of a pond, in the clouds, or far beyond China. Once the spirit doctor meets them, excited haggling ensues. Leaping, dancing, sweating, he is driven by a trance that defies exhaustion.
Tirelessly he bargains for the captive. Finally, the spirits demand a sacrifice - a pig if the family, can afford it, a chicken if not. An assistant dispatches a chicken or pig and burns paper "spirit money" on the carcass. With luck the homeward journey from the vale of the spirits requires only another hour or so, long enough to cook the sacrifice.
Family, friends, and tu-ua-neng then sit down to a pork or chicken dinner, hoping the patient will recover. More and more the patient does, partly because on family altars you will now often find bottles of antibiotics among the holy artifacts. It would be a foolish tu-ua-neng who turned his back on such powerful allies.
Another type of healer is the kws tshuaj, who uses nonspiritual methods - herbs and plants - to cure the sick. These healers practice from personal choice, not "divine appointment.
The Hmong view illness in terms of symptomatology, that is, through pain, weakness, fever, coldness in extremities, injury, change in color or anything else that is out of the ordinary. Once a person is diagnosed as being ill, the observers then have to decide the cause of the illness. The chosen treat-medicine, or a combination of both. Western medicine is often in the form of drugs; many pharmaceuticals available only by prescription in the US are readily available over the counter in Indochina.
If all else should fail, the patient might be taken to a hospital, although this is a fairly uncommon occurrence. Through collective farm business development, education and advocacy, we are building paths to wealth creation, not just income generation, toward a sustainable, fair food economy for all. We are dedicated to advancing the prosperity of Hmong farmers through cooperative endeavors, capacity building and advocacy.
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