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Talking about the journey from their homeland in Laos to the United States and the struggles her family faced once they got here still brings tears to Sarah Yang’s eyes.

The Yang family — Paul, left, Sarah and Wayne — hope a new museum exhibit in Shawnee helps neighbors understand the Hmong culture of which they are part of.

Speaking in Hmong, her native language, Sarah recounts the Yang family’s story of living in a strange land, knowing no one and having few people understand her language or her culture.

Nearly 30 years since large-scale Hmong immigrations to the U.S. began, some Hmong would say not much has changed. Meeting someone who knows their history and their distinct culture is rare. But thanks to a children’s exhibit that opens this week at Wonderscope Children’s Museum in Shawnee, that could change for the area’s Hmong population — about 3,000 refugees who live mostly in Kansas City, Kan.

The interactive exhibit leads children through the daily life of the Hmong, from a village in Laos, to a refugee camp in Thailand, on to an American Hmong home. The Yang family — Paul and Sarah, their son, Wayne, and his wife, Alina — hope the exhibit helps their neighbors understand who they are.

‘Secret War’

Hmong origins are hard to trace, but they are a culture distinct from any other in Asia.

They are neither Chinese nor Mongolian, and some think they migrated to the area that is now Siberia from the Middle East about 4,000 B.C. They slowly moved south to the fertile lands of the Yellow River, and Chinese persecution forced them even farther south to Laos.

They were a nomadic agricultural society with an animistic religion — they believe there are spirits in everything and they honor their ancestral spirits to protect them from evil spirits. However, most Hmong in the Kansas City area converted to Christianity before reaching America.

Some Americans are familiar with the Hmong because the CIA recruited them to help ambush the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War in what became known as the Secret War. In 1974, after the United States began withdrawing from Vietnam and Laos, the Hmong became targets of the communist Vietnamese for aiding the Americans and, before them, the French.

“Any Hmong that would be left would be tried and killed,” Wayne Yang said. “It left the Hmong the bad guy, or in our words of today, the terrorist.”

The Vietnamese slowly hunted down the Hmong, and they were forced to flee to Thailand, where refugee camps were established. Many then emigrated to America or Europe.

Now the Hmong are a culture in transition, facing an interesting dynamic of becoming American while struggling to hold onto their Asian identity.

Perilous journey

Wayne Yang was born in Laos but spent most of his life in America and understands that some of the younger generations don’t know as much about their culture as their parents. Today he teaches anthropology at Kansas City Kansas Community College while he completes a master’s degree at Kansas University.

Wayne was 5 when he came to the United States in 1979, but he has a few vivid memories of living in Laos, mostly of his family’s escape.

At one point in the jungle, he said, his parents gave him and his siblings opium because they wouldn’t stop crying and were making too much noise. His parents told him sometimes children would die in the jungle because their parents would accidentally give them too much opium; many other Hmong died of starvation in the jungle. Sarah Yang estimates only a third of her relatives escaped the country.

Wayne’s clearest memory is crossing the Mekong River that forms the border with Thailand. Though it was wide, Wayne, his parents and his brother and sister crossed with just an inner tube, purchased from Thai people who sold them to help the Hmong escape, and two trash bags his parents inflated.

“My feet hit the pebbles and I started screaming, and I remember we heard gunshots from down the river,” Yang said. “I fell asleep then because of exhaustion, and when I woke up, we were on the other side in Thailand.”

U.S. Hmong community

For a year, the Yang family lived in a Hmong refugee camp in Thailand. They were brought to the United States thanks to a Lutheran church in Iowa.

While in Iowa, there was no one they could talk to.

The transition was especially difficult because Paul Yang had been a respected teacher in Laos, and Sarah never had to work outside of the home before.

“All they can think of is how great life would have been if they stayed in Laos, without the war,” Wayne said.

Just as the Hmong are adapting to the United States, even after 30 years, Americans are still adapting to the Hmong.

Alina remembers meeting a real estate agent once who was familiar with the Hmong because he was a Vietnam veteran.

“We were really excited, because that doesn’t happen a lot,” she said, explaining what a relief it was to meet someone who understood the Hmong. “They know why you’re here and they know your history. You’re not just an immigrant that showed up looking for a better life.”

Alina sees the exhibit as one way to help expose people in this area to the Hmong, because they may be their neighbors.

“I really want them to have a chance to see who I am, because I am part of this community,” she says.

— Caroline Boyer, staff writer for the Shawnee Dispatch, can be reached at (913) 962-3000.