by Pa Vang
“Growing up in Laos for most Hmong people was devastating. Many families lived in a hut with dirt floors and with no running water. Children were with their parents from morning until sun down in the field farming, or in the forest harvesting edible vegetables. Meat came scarcely, but when there was even just a piece of chicken breast, the whole entire family shared it. I was one of the very few children who did not live that life. I was fortunate to get an education and became who I am today.”
Vang, Pao
My father, Pao Vang, was born into a Military family on March 6th, 1957 in Xieng Khouang, Laos. His life was very different from what I imagined. I’m shocked at almost every turn of his story. As I picked up a photo of my father dressed in his Bruce Lee Kung Fu clothes with his arms crossed like he was Mr. Hot stuff, I asked if he was the most wanted bachelor. He chuckled and asked, “What do you think?” I’ve never seen this side of him as he told his story; he was so funny, sarcastic, and he definitely thought he was Mr. Hot stuff back then. On top of being the handsome man he was, his academics are what he believes shaped him into the man who he is today.
Hmong people lived in small villages outside the cities in the rural areas of Laos. Education is something every Hmong child dreamed to have, but like my mother’s family, most families couldn’t afford to send their children to the cities to board and receive an education. Their everyday life is to help the family survive. Girls were groomed to learn how to be the perfect wife and farm with the mothers. Boys were raised to hunt for meat to feed the family and even harvest for edible greens in the forests. Vang’s life was far from this. He lived a life many children of his time dreamed of having, especially with the Vietnam War and The Secret War happening so close to home.
The Americans started recruiting Hmong soldiers around 1960 to fight in The Secret War of Laos, which began in 1965. This war was related to the Vietnam War, and had been kept in secret for so many years; in fact, it only surfaced in the last 10 years. The purpose of the war was to have the American soldiers and their Hmong soldiers support the South Vietnamese to interdict the traffic of the Viet Cong (North Vietnamese) and the Pathet Lao (Laos Communist) along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which ran through Laos (“Secret”). This is where the Viet Cong stationed themselves for supplies and staged offensive attacks into South Vietnam. There are still some politicians that will argue that this war never happened because evidence to such statements are now destroyed; however, there are videos and articles supporting The Secret War occurred. The Legacy of War organization explains that the Secret War was a brutal time in history where American forces dropped bombs “every eight minutes, 24-hours a day, for nine years,” and by 1975, Laos had been the most bombed country on earth (“Secret War”). With the aftermath of many villages destroyed as physical proof of the war, Channapha Khamvongsa insists “[t]he American public needs to know what’s happening here. That this is what their country, now my country, has done and left behind” (qtd in Diaz). I can say confidently that the Secret War did occur as Pao Vang’s father, Chia Vang, had fought on the frontline along with many of my great uncles. My grandpa’s service to the United States military came with many benefits including a ticket to freedom in America after the war ended, a salary, and my father’s education.
At six years old, my father was sent away to the city of Samthong to start elementary school where he also boarded with his uncle Dr. Cherzong Vang. Dr. Vang was a very well-respected figure in education. Txongpao Lee, executive director of the Hmong Cultural Center in St. Paul, said, “Dr. Vang was one of the few Hmong of his generation to be able to achieve a high level of education… He was well known to many young Hmong men during his service as a teacher back in Laos” (“Hmong”). Dr. Vang and his wife also had a few male students living with them. My father felt the pressure to live up to his uncle’s high standards and status. The competition with the other boys in the house brought the pressure on. Failing or even being average was not an option.
From 1965-1975, the Laos education system was funded by the French through their colonization (Zeck). Through agreements between Laos and France, students who graduated through their educational system would go the France for college without any hassles. “Going to France for college is the dream,” Vang said with lights in his eyes. As many students struggled to speak so many languages, Vang modestly prides himself in his ability to fluently speak his native tongue (Hmong), Laos’ official language (Laotion), the school’s elective language- English, and French as it was Laos’ teaching language. He was also very academically competitive. To ensure he’d pass his major exams to advance to the next school, he studied hard, didn’t party, or even drink on occasions. What motivated him the most to do his best is that the teachers would post everyone’s grades publicly on the chalk board. My father couldn’t even dream to face the hit on his pride if his grades were anything less than awesome. With a big smile followed by a small chuckle, Vang said, “You know how embarrassing that is?! That was motivation to be my best… I wasn’t number one in class, but I was always in the top five. Always!”
However, before my father was able to graduate from high school in 1975 and go on to college in France, The Secret War ended with the Americans defeated. Many Hmong soldiers and their families were left behind to die as the Pathet declared a Hmong Genocide. All Hmong people, whether involved in The Secret War or not, were to be killed. Even today, Hmong people are still running, hiding in the mountains, and fighting for their lives (“The Secret”). Vang said those who were able to flee in 1975 to the refugee camp in Thailand either swam across the Mekong River (where the Viet Cong shot down swimmers), or were lucky to be air lifted to safety like him.
So, my father spent the next four years of his life with some of his cousins and Uncle Cherzong in a Thailand refugee camp. It had been May 14th, 1975 when his life had changed dramatically. No more school. No clothes. No money. Nothing. Everything he knew and lived for had been bombed and destroyed back in Laos. However, my father kept a positive attitude and said, “At least they fed us there and I had my own room… not everything was completely lost. I was interpreting for the Hmong people (not that I was getting paid, but it was better than kicking rocks waiting for news) and that’s how I met your mom and married her in the camp… and we still had a chance to go to America…” Vang didn’t want to talk about the poor living conditions. He explained that focusing on the bad stuff too much will only set the mind for the future and that he needed to stay positive.
The process to come to America wasn’t hard, but rather long. Everyone needed to register themselves and their family, get screened, and take a photo. They are then put into category one, two, or three. According to Vang, category one was priority for the American military and personnel, category two are Hmong military families, and category three was the rest of the people. These categories determined how soon one would get to leave the camp and start a new life in America. “I believe your mom and I were in category two, but I really can’t remember… Everyday we just wait,” said my father.
March 30th, 1979 was a day he and my mother had been nervously anticipating on coming. They were finally coming to the United States of America, where it’s the “Land of Freedom and Opportunities.” With so many thoughts running through his head in the almost twenty-hour travel from Bangkok to Minneapolis, Minnesota, all he can think about is how much of an upgrade life was going to be. Yes, it was an upgrade, but a very difficult start. The English they spoke in America was different in the way he was taught in Laos. When they arrived, they barely had money, no home, and clothes. Fortunately, there were programs for low income housing, so my parents first home was in McDonough Homes. Through a temp agency, my mother found a job at a medical assembly company working fulltime as my father worked part time and headed to college. They were barely surviving, but this life was better than life in a refugee camp.
Colleges today requires proof of high school diploma, G.E.D., or high school transcript before taking Accuplacer exams for college. But my father didn’t have anything to prove his French education in Laos. “Everything was destroyed. There were no records of my education. I just went to the University of Minnesota and took some kind of exam and then started college in fall of 1979,” said Vang. He expressed that college wasn’t something he enjoyed. He didn’t pick his major because of his passion. He just wanted to get his college degree and have a solid career to build his life.
College life wasn’t easy. He and my mother had their first daughter in May of 1980, bringing on pressure and financial struggles. There were times, he felt he may not make it through college. He was constantly worried whether they would have enough money for rent, for groceries, for car payment, and most importantly enough to keep their daughter healthy. My mother was half the reason of his success. She’d sometimes work over-time to make ends meet. And through the hardship they shared, she encouraged him to focus on his studies. With a supporting wife behind him, he was determined to finish college. Four long years later, my father proudly walked across the stage on June of 1984, graduating with a bachelor’s in economics, where he later built the solid career he hoped for by working for Ramsey County Human Services. His academic accomplishments had rebuilt the life he lost in Laos, and, even beyond that, it had built his grand dream home by a body of water.
Reflecting on my life as a child and a teenager, I was unappreciative of the grand opportunities I had. As a young adult I worked hard for everything I have with minimal support. I’ve lived, struggled, made mistakes, had positive experiences then suddenly fallen back to broken again and the cycle repeats. Realizing quickly life isn’t easy if you’re not educated beyond street life. Today, I’ve had the honor to hear my father’s and my mother’s stories in depth. It’s been such an emotional journey and an eye opener in how I see life moving forward.
It’s unreal that my parents came from such different backgrounds of rags and riches, but both lived through a brutal war, escaped the Hmong Genocide, lived in a refugee camp and all of it happened only one generation ago. I think about how different my life would be if my parents never made it to America. Could I compare my broken childhood and abuse to a life in a refugee camp? Would I even exist or would my parents’ lives be taken from them before I take my first breath?
We as Americans, take education and opportunities available to us for granted every day. Life is complicated, that’s without a doubt. But, we’re not in a third world country without food, where farming from a young age is our only chance of survival, where our parents pimps us out for money, where our country is bombed every day, and where our father fights on the frontline for years so that we may be lucky enough to receive an education. It’s a fact that maybe not all of us have the option to go to college nor even finish high school. However, we do have the choice to make something of ourselves. There are programs and resources that can help us grow into someone we never thought possible. We choose where we go for networking, and what type of people we surround ourselves with. Who we become is up to us. In my father’s words, “Losing everything in the war and starting over in a different country with less than one hundred American dollars in my pocket, it did not stop me from making a life for myself. I wouldn’t be who I am now if I just let my education die in Laos.”
Works Cited
“Hmong Community Leader Dr. Cherzong Vang Dies.” Twin Cities Daily Planet, 4 Dec. 2012, www.tcdailyplanet.net/hmong-community-leader-dr-cherzong-vang-dies/.
“Secret War in Laos.” Legacies of War. http://legaciesofwar.org/about-laos/secret-war-laos/.
“The Secret War and Hmong Genocide (Fall 2012).” Historpedia. https://sites.google.com/a/umn.edu/historpedia/home/politics-and-govern….
Diaz, Adriana. “U.S. bombs dropped decades ago in Laos still killing locals.” CBS News, 5 Sep. 2016, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/43-years-later-vietnam-war-still-haunting-….
Vang, Pao. Personal Interview. 23 February 2019.
Zeck, Johannes. “Education in Laos- Part II.” The Laos Experience. 17 Sep. 2017. http://www.thelaosexperience.com/2017/09/17/education-in-laos-part-ii/.