The Hmong People in Minneapolis-St Paul

It was hard being back to Ann Arbor. The past week was really one of the very best week in my life. I had had a truly amazing spring break, a spring break that I will remember for the rest of my life.

Before spilling out all the stories that happened during the week (which I really hope but doubt I have the patience to do so), let me lecture on what the program was all about first. It was an Alternative Spring Break (ASB) program, and since I chose the Immigration and Borders issue, I was assigned to this group called the Como group. Basically, our responsibility was to go to Como elementary in St Paul and get involved in helping the Hmong kids to adapt to their new lives, especially the school life in the States. The Hmong kids we worked with had just recently immigrated from Thailand. Most of them were here not more than one year, and they could speak little or no english.

To trace back their roots, the Hmong people were originally from China. A lot of them stayed in Laos, and during the Vietnam War, they provided help to the US troops. As the result, after the States lost the war, they were exiled and a lot of them seek refuge in Thailand. Recently though, the Thai Government was closing down the refugee camps. The Hmongs had only two choices; they could choose to go back to Laos, or to move to the United States (since they once helped the US in the Vietnam War).

Due to the welcoming environment and friendly policies, a huge population of the Hmong immigrants concentrated in the Minneapolis-St Paul metropolitan area. This was the reason we had to go to the famous twin cities for our spring break. Como Elementary is an elementary school that schools a lot of Hmong kids.