HMONG-AMERICAN POPULATION

BACKGROUND AND POPULATION

The Hmong is a Laotian hills people group. Their culture dates back over three thousand years to China. For centuries, Hmong kingdoms and independent settlements fought with China’s armies to maintain their independence. Finally they were defeated by numerically superior forces. Survivors fled to the mountainous regions in southwest China, where many still live today. The Hmong began migrating into Laos and Vietnam between 1810 and 1820. Between 1960 and 1975, the U.S. recruited the Hmong to fight communism during the Secret War in Laos. The objective of their involvement was to stop communist expansion and take pressure off U.S. troops in South Vietnam. After the American withdrawal from Southeast Asia, the Hmong were slaughtered by communists in Laos and the Vietnamese forces. To escape, thousands of Hmong fled to Thailand. There they stayed in refugee camps until they could be resettled in another country. Between 1975 and 1988, many Hmong refugees came to the United States.

A study was done by the Lao Human Rights Council in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and United Hmong International in the United States in August 2001 and collected national population data for Hmong-American people in the United States and reported the following:

• There are about 300,000 Hmong American people in the United States.
• There are approximately 80,000 Hmong American people in Minnesota.
• There are about 80,000 Hmong Americans in Wisconsin.
• About 40,000 Hmong Americans moved from California to Minnesota, Wisconsin, and other states between 1996 and 2001.
• About 70,000 Hmong Americans still live in California.
• Many Hmong Americans moved from California to Minnesota and Wisconsin and other states because of the problems of welfare reforms and unemployment problems.
• About 70,000 Hmong Americans live in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Colorado, Washington, Kansas, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Michigan, Oklahoma, Missouri, Alaska and other states.
• About 3,000 Hmong Americans live in Eau Claire, Wisconsin; 1,000 in Menomonie, Wisconsin; and about 3,400 in LaCrosse and more than 15,000 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
• Mee Moua is the first Southeast Asian refugee (she is Hmong-American) to be elected to a state legislature in the US and serves as Minnesota state senator: “We have well over 800 Hmong businesses in the Twin Cities alone”.

Top 15 states of Hmong –American Population from 2000 Census as compared with 1990 Census:

As of 2003, the Southern Baptist church data base lists 31 Hmong congregations members of the convention as follows:

• Contact the state conventions with a significant number of Hmong-American population.
• Assist in conducting a Probe 2 type activity in the above mentioned states to gather updated data on the Hmong American population.
• Write a Worldview for Hmong-American people and share it with the state and associational partners.
• Assist the above mentioned states and their respective association in reaching out to Hmong American population.
• Assist in Enlisting sponsoring churches to assist in planting contextual churches among the Hmong American people in North America.