The Hmong culture is found today in southern China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. The original homeland of the Hmongs was in Central Asia, but they eventually moved southward until they settled in the mountains of Southern China. They were driven from their homes by the Chinese and again moved to the south, gradually seeping into their present ethnic enclaves. More than half a million Hmongs have fled from southern China since the beginning of the nineteenth century, though 2.5 million still live in china. Prior to Vietnam in April 1975, there were some 50,000 Hmongs in Thailand, 225,000 in Vietnam, and 350,000 in Laos, while some 50,000 came to America as refugees in the mid-1970s. The Hmongs were uprooted from their homeland by foreign invaders. They fought against the Japanese in World War II, then siding with the Royal Lao in opposition to the Pathet Lao, with fighting between the two sides from 1955 to 1975 (Kim, 1986, 294-295).
One of the most important Hmong populations to the United States has been that of Thailand, for the Hmong of that region fought on the U.S. side in Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia and subsequently migrated in large numbers to the United States. Northern Thailand is home to a number of different peoples. The lowland areas have for eight centuries been home to the Lanna or Yuan people, also called the Northern Thai, while the mountain slopes are home to a variety of tribal people who converged on the region from all directions and who now eke out a precarious livelihood in the area. These tribal peoples are the Karen, the Hmong, the Mien, the Lahu, the Akha, and the Lisu, and they occupy what is now the Golden Triangle area. All but the Karen retain in their culture many residual elements from their historical contacts with the Chinese. The Lahu, Akha, and Lisu have common linguistic roots in the Yi (Lolo) subdivision of the Tibeto-Burman family of languages. The Hmong and the Mien spe...