The war was secret. The journey was forced. The arrival was quiet.
Fifty years later, the Hmong story in California’s Central Valley is loud with life. It echoes through farm fields, school gyms, courtrooms, and city council chambers.
This month, the Hmong community will gather at the Merced County Fairgrounds to celebrate the New Year and mark the half-century anniversary since the first Hmong refugees arrived in the United States.
“After 50 years, I think we have a long way to go, but we’ve come such a long way,” said Paul Lo, presiding judge for the Merced County Superior Court. “When you look back, we can say those were very difficult times, but they were not for nothing. A lot of people lost their lives. My parents’ generation sacrificed so much.”
See Lee, who previously led the Boys and Girls Club of Merced, said the Hmong have carried their identity across borders for centuries.
“We migrated south for protection,” she said. “We stayed in the high mountains of Southeast Asia. We don’t have a country. We have – what I call – a nation.”
Within the community, you will hear people refer to themselves as Hmong, Mong, or HMoob. The words come from different parts of the language, not from other identities. Hmong became the standard English spelling after families resettled from Laos, but many still use Mong, the term they grew up with.
The Central Valley became one of their strongest homes. Fresno, for example, grew from one Hmong family in 1977 to more than 35,000 by the early 1990s. By 1986, more than 46,000 Hmong people were settled in California, accounting for over half the total of Hmong immigrants nationwide.
Today, more than 107,000 people who identify as Hmong call California home, according to the U.S. Census.
How history came to the Valley
The path to the Valley trekked through the war-torn mountains of Laos, moved to refugee camps in Thailand, and crossed an ocean into exile.
During the Vietnam War, thousands of Hmong soldiers aligned themselves with the U.S. Army and blocked supplies headed to South Vietnam while serving as the primary anticommunist force in Laos.
Their help made them targets in South Asia, forcing the Hmong people to seek refuge in the U.S.
Under federal placement programs, Hmong families were scattered across the U.S. in the 1970s and early ‘80s. But many sought each other out again.
By the mid-1980s, a secondary migration brought thousands to California, drawn by familiar farmland and family networks.
Merced became part of that growing wave.
Dr. Chai Charles Moua, a public health researcher and longtime cultural advocate in Merced, said early settlers saw the Valley as a place where they could rebuild the farming life they once knew.
“It was a vision for Mong farmers in hope of establishing a large-scale agricultural community to further draw their relatives and friends that were from the same regions back in Laos into resettlements,” he said.
Lo, the Merced judge, was 11 years old when his family fled Laos in 1975. They spent four years in a Thai refugee camp before arriving in the U.S. in 1979. His father fought in the Secret War, a service that did not translate into an opportunity.
Throughout the 1980s, Lo’s family moved between Southern California, Denver, and Stockton as they tried to find their footing.
Lue Yang, a community advocate and nonprofit leader, also fled Laos as North Vietnam increased its military presence. He reached Nam Phong Camp in northern Thailand, then Ban Vinai Refugee Camp, before arriving in Honolulu on Oct. 4, 1976.
“They think that if we come to the U.S., (we) will be able to survive,” he said about his arrival in the U.S. “Because you are a refugee, they don’t respect you. They see you as somebody who cannot maintain a life in your country.”
After the fall of Laos in 1975, General Vang Pao helped evacuate Hmong allies and resettle them in the United States.
Pao’s role, Lo explained, was not a minor footnote in the history of the Vietnam War. It was the cornerstone of a secret war effort run by the United States.
“He was really the key person that the CIA went to establish the biggest CIA operation in the (Vietnam War), with over 30,000 Hmong soldiers,” he said.
For many, the journey to the U.S. carried the weight of war and duty.
Fresno City Councilmember Brandon Vang came to Fresno at age 6 in 1979. His father fought on behalf of the U.S. during the Secret War as a major in the Special Guerrilla Unit.
People often misunderstand why Hmong families came, he said.
“We did not come to the United States for economic reasons,” Vang said. “We came here to escape communist persecution.”
He praised the sacrifices and contributions of the first generation of soldiers who fought alongside American troops.
“They fought and died for democracy and freedom, the very ideals that were enshrined in the Constitution by the Founding Fathers of this country,” Vang said. “These Hmong soldiers are truly our greatest generation.”
“I applied myself and was the first in my family to graduate from college. I never imagined that I would be a Fresno City Councilmember. I survived communism, COVID, and cancer, and I’m living my American dream.”
Brandon Vang
Early struggles
Resettlement brought safety, but not ease. Many families arrived speaking no English, with little money, and skills tied to a rural life. Yang moved from Hawaii to Iowa, then to Fresno, where he helped Hmong refugees find jobs, housing, and schooling. His nonprofit office began with almost nothing.
“We only had one desk, two chairs, and one old typewriter,” Yang said.
He helped families find farm work that matched their experience, but he also saw the hardship of large families surviving on small wages and public assistance.
For Lo, those early years were stark.
“We grew up on public assistance,” he said. “We didn’t have very much at all. We grew up on welfare. We were destitute.”
Vang felt the same struggle while growing up in Long Beach, Sacramento, and Fresno.
“I grew up poor and graduated from a local Fresno high school,” he said. “I applied myself and was the first in my family to graduate from college. I never imagined that I would be a Fresno City Councilmember. I survived communism, COVID, and cancer, and I’m living my American dream.”
Others worked to break down barriers inside the system. Blong Xiong, the first Hmong person elected to Fresno’s City Council in 2007, remembered how hard it was to access basic services.
“The opportunity for access to services was not actually there,” Xiong said.
Moua said families faced more than paperwork.
“Most important of all, they faced cultural and language barriers and tended to resist the established community,” he said. “Children helped their parents translate at social services agencies, schools, or public places.”
Xiong said cultural expectations also shaped job choices.
“Venturing outside of agriculture was a big challenge for us,” he said. “A lot of folks probably didn’t know who the Hmong community was, or what the Southeast Asian community was. I think there’s still prejudices that we face. I think those factors played into how the community was able to transition and move forward.”
Moua said gender norms shaped education.
“Cultural norms led to a significant gender imbalance in high school enrollment,” he said. “Many young Mong girls felt pressure to get married as early as 14 when they were found talking or courting outside of the home of the girls’ parents.”
Some pushed through these limits. Lo earned a law degree in 1994 and opened his first office in Merced.
What kept people going, Lo said, was each other.
“That was really important in the heart of the community because there were those tight-knits,” he said.
Assimilation
Community support did not shield families from national policy changes.
In the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton enacted the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, families received welfare for a maximum of five years only. This hit Hmong households hard, Yang said, especially large families still learning the language and the job market.
This pushed leaders to build new systems fast. Yang helped expand programs that supported job placement and aided families during the large Hmong resettlement to Fresno in the mid-2000s. His organization grew from two staff members to more than 120, now known as the Fresno Center for New Americans.
“When you look back, we can say those were very difficult times, but they were not for nothing. A lot of people lost their lives. My parents’ generation sacrificed so much.”
Merced Superior Court Judge Paul Lo, talking about the Hmong exodus from Southeast Asia to the Valley.
In 2013, Lo became the first Hmong American judge in the United States.
“The community really needed somebody who is bilingual, bicultural, and can understand the law,” he said.
For Bousavanh Lor, executive director of the Hmong Culture Camp in Merced, his role mattered far beyond the courtroom.
“He didn’t have a Hmong attorney mentor,” she said. “Now he can be a mentor to the rest of the community. That’s why it was so important for me to have him share his experiences too.”
Legacy and renewal
Looking back, Lo sees how the size of the Hmong community has changed since he came to Merced in 1994.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 American Community Survey 5-year estimates, there are around 7,500 people of Hmong descent in Merced County.
“Probably less than half of what it used to be,” Lo said.
Some families still struggle. Others have become teachers, business owners, and leaders in the Valley.
“There’s still pockets of the community who are poor and who are struggling,” Lo said. “But you also have pockets of the community who are professionals, who are educators, who are full participants in the community – not only in the Hmong community, but in the larger community.”
He also sees pride and purpose in the next generation.
“I think there are a lot of bright spots about this place,” Lo said. “I see many of our young people really taking advantage of the educational opportunities in this country. They have a unique identity, and at the same time, they’re not afraid to do it.”
The first 50 years in the Valley were shaped by war, survival, and rebuilding. The next chapter belongs to the children who grew up inside those rebuilt lives.
They faced gangs, isolation, and pressure from both home and school. They searched for identity in a new country while carrying the weight of tradition.
“Being the first generation coming from refugee camps into the United States, going into the school system, they were just seen as these other kids,” said Lee.
Part two of “50 years in the Valley: The Hmong Journey from War to Home” will focus on the first generation of Hmong Americans born and raised in the United States. It follows their struggles with poverty, gangs, and cultural pressure as they came of age between two worlds. Look for it in Tuesday’s edition of The Merced FOCUS.