Hmong (people)

The Hmong are people of Asia originating in the mountainous regions of the south of the China (especially the area of Guizhou) in the north of the Vietnam and Laos. They are also called the Miao , 苗 (Miáo) what means “believed rice” and for a long time indicates little integrated wandering populations. Hmong themselves often employ the denomination “ mountain ”.

Demography

It is the fifth ethnicity in term of individuals among the 56 Nationalités of China. The Chinese census of 1989 estimated their number at approximately seven million, and that of 2000 with nearly nine million.

Hmong living with the Laos account for 7,4% of the Laotian population, that is to say approximately 438 300 people. They belong to the 49 ethnos groups listed by the Laotian government in 1989. Today, part of Hmong is still taken refuge in the jungle, in the zone of Xaysomboun, because tracked by the armies Laotian and Vietnamese to have helped the French during the Guerre of Indo-China then the Americans during the Guerre of Vietnam. In 2005, they are nothing any more but 8 there; 000 whereas they were more 30 000 some ten years ago. Used by the opponents with the Communist regime of the time, this ethnos group thus pays today a heavy tribute.

During last decades, a strong population of Hmong emigrated in the United States, in Australia, in New Zealand, in Canada, in Germany, in Japan, in Argentina and France (estimate with 30 000 according to Chô LY, 2004), of which approximately 2 000 in French Guiana. The greatest part still lives in Southeast Asia: China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Burma.

Language

History

The only certainty on the origin of Hmong is that they occupied, with other ethnos groups miao, the basins of the river Huang He before even the arrival of the first Chinese on this territory, as the latter announce it in their annals. In spite of the assumptions put forth by the anglophone ethnologists or the French missionaries, the only known and attested migratory movements miao are those announced by the Chinese. The remainder is only assumption.

Initially established towards the center of China, Miao were pushed back little by little by the Chinese towards the south of the country because they never accepted sinicization in spite of several millenia of life in liaison with their neighbors. With the wire of the wars, rebellions and defeats, Miao were seen dispersing through China and, in particular, in the mountains of the provinces of the south. Thus one finds today the majority of the Miao in the provinces of the Yunnan, the Guizhou and the Guangxi.

At the beginning of the XIXe century, of Hmong crossed the sino-Laotian border to go to be established in the areas of Nong Het, Hua Phan, Phongsaly, Oudomxay, or of Muang Sing. It is on the mountains of Laos that they were encouraged to cultivate the Pavot and to produce Opium. Initially by and for the Chinese, then by and for the French.

Laos

Hmong knew peaceful beginnings in Laos, alive in autarky on the tops of the mountains. With the colonization of Indo-China, they were encouraged to produce opium for the French. The latter, like the Laotians, called them Méo, a deformation of Chinese Miao with a pejorative connotation (meaning mountain savage).

Accumulation of the taxes and various taxes, as well as the fact of being made manage systematically by non-Hmong and the many cases of corruption are as many factors which led Hmong to be raised against the colonizer. This named revolt “War of insane” will last five years (1917-1922), until the death of Pa Chay, the leader hmong of the revolt. This episode led the French to change their policy with this ethnos group in particular. They are transfered to designate persons in charge hmong, of which one, Ly Foung, became administrator of under-district.

This station made it possible Ly Foung to send his/her children to the school, and one of its sons, Touby, obtained even the baccalaureat, rather rare fact at the time. Its education and its talents of bureaucrat were worth in Touby Ly Foung to quickly climb the levels in the French colonial administration and especially, to become one of the large leaders hmong of the recent history. In spite of its death, it remains for Hmong of the diaspora a character of very first importance. He will occupy successively the posts of minister of Health, Minister for the Posts and Télécommunications and the station of Advising of the King. He was the leader of Hmong de XiengKhouang, at the end of the second world war, to help the French Army to reconquer the city and to take again the control of the country. He will benefit from his rank of leader to push Hmong with the education on a side and to fight the Vietnamese Communists of the other.

The French employed Hmong, known for their effectiveness to move in hostile environment, at the time of the battle of Diên Biên Phu. They were given up by France after the defeat, in 1954.

In 1962, the United States again recruits them, during the war of Vietnam, to fight the presence of the Vietnamese soldiers in Laos. This operation called “US War Secrecy” was financed by the CIA. It consisted in making safe the zone and recovering the American pilots killed while coming to bombard the Ho Chi Minh track. With the withdrawal of the latter of Vietnam in 1975, they closed the camps of drive and suspended any military aid and financial towards Laos and Hmong. When the Communist party of Pathet-Lao took the control of the country, Hmong then were persecuted, regarded as traitors. Their political leader, Touby Lyfoung, were imprisoned and died in detention, while their military leader, Vang CAM, flees in the United States.

The Laotian reprisals and Vietnameses towards Hmong continue at the present time. The reports of Philip Blenkinsop in 2002, Thierry Falise in 2003, of Gregoire Deniau and Cyril Payen in 2005, and of the American Roger Arnold in September 2006, in the Western press, showed the disastrous situation of Hmong in the Laotian forest. They have been tracked and exterminated for more than thirty years now, without being able to hope to flee the country. Those of them which reach that point flee in Thailand from where they can be accommodated, for some of them, in other Western countries. However, much also remain in a delicate situation in Laos. In Thailand, parked in prisons with open sky, they do not have the statute of refugees, but that " of economic immigrant illégal". Approximately ten thousand of them are locked up in these prison camps, in the province of Phetchabun, for example, or in other prisons of North and center of Thailand. The humane situation is alarming there as testifies some a French association, which had access to Hmong of the camps and the prisons inhabitants of Thailand.

Guyana

In the year 2000, approximately 1 600 Hmong live in Guyana, of which the half has less than 18 years. They are divided into three villages which they themselves built;

Cocoa created in 1977 in full forest, of not very easy access.
Javouhey, founded in 1979, to 30 km of Saint-Laurent-of-Maroni the, on the site of the old leper-house of Acarouany, founded in 1822 by the Mother Javouhey.
Rococoua, founded in 1990 around Iracoubo with about fifteen families.

They are descendants of village groups originating in Laos. After having fled China towards the Vietnam, the Thailand and especially to the top Laos at the end of the 19th century, minority, they are still persecuted there. Fleeing Communism, they are found in 1975 in refugee camps inhabitant of Thailand. The recognition by Office of the High Commission with Refugees (HCR) of UNO of their statute of political refugees enables them to be accommodated in various Western countries. The United States will accommodate some 100 of it; 000 and France 10 000. One prepares to them in Guyana of the villages created of all parts with the idea to transfer to it from the groups of families being able to find their former conditions of social life.

Hmong arrived to Guyana in 1977. It is thanks to the assistance of a President of District council of Asian origin favorable to their installation, and the catholic organizations requested by the Father Bertrais (deceased on May 27th, 2007), Co-inventor of the alphabet hmong called Alphabet Barney-Smalley, which they could settle over there. Let us not forget either the efforts and the great implication of Pierre Dupont-Gonin for the reception of Hmong in Guyana. Its work testifies to its implication in this operation.

Hmong were very badly accommodated by the Guianese community, very hostile on their arrival. According to our advisers, they spent their the first six years to living in the jungle, going to Cayenne only to provide itself out of rice (they accounted for 75% of the rice total intake in Guyana in the first years after their arrival). For the remainder, they quickly found their practices of Laos: culture of the ground to produce the fruit and vegetables which they needed, and breeding of pigs, cows and hens for the meat, without counting hunting and the fishing which they practice still today without reserve.

However, they had been installed in Guyana in an precise idea: to help to repopulate Guyana and to develop agriculture. This project fit in the Plan Green, initiated by the Secretary of State with the DOM-TOM of the time, Olivier Stirn. It started from a report overpowering for this overseas department: under-populated, it was a department which counted only 55 000 inhabitants for a territory representing a fifth of the metropolis, with non-existent resources and a quasi-nulle." economic activity;

Through clearing (they transformed hectares of forest into gardens), construction, amendments and experiments of farming modes, in spite of the grounds very poor, acid and difficult to work, the co-operative organization paid: on 200 hectares with Cacao and 300 ha of grounds a little less poor with Javouhey, Hmong succeeded where the Guianeses and the administrations (INRA, CIRAD, ONF) failed.

Today, while the beautiful co-operation of the origins is surbedded near the young generations, more attracted by the consumer society than by the agricultural work (cf closing of the agricultural cooperative of the origins), the hmong produce the main part of the local fruit and vegetables sold on the markets and in the supermarkets of Guyana (20 has 30 t/semaine for the only markets of Cayenne, the St. Lawrence of Maroni and Kourou). This result is obtained in particular thanks to a more or less anarchistic deforestation, and with employment in great quantity of various chemical treatments (sometimes of the prohibited substances bought with the Surinam - personal communication of a representative of the room of agriculture of the St. Lawrence of Maroni). Congenital problems involved in the contamination by the chemicals employed start to appear (myriads of insects fall down on the cultures of Hmong which must use insecticide floods to hold them in respect); perhaps that will lead to an awakening and behavioral changes. The use of Brazilian labor clandestine paid with 20€/jour for work in the fields also resulted in attracting populations disadvantaged near the village of Cacao, which partly explains the explosion of the acts of delinquency in this sector (steerings of Hmong regularly reported in the local newspaper France-Guyana). In addition, the lack of coordination between the farmers led to the culture of the same fruit and vegetables by everyone (lemons, Ramboutan S), which leads to an overproduction and a price collapse to most extremely of the season (lemons to less than 50 centimes/kg on the market of Cayenne).

Hmong in Metropolitan France

Their number is estimated at nearly 10.000 people out of more or less 150.000 inhabitants in French Guiana. Most of Hmong in France is found in the area of Nimes, where they are farmers. This especially in the Vistrenque that Hmong are farmers.

Hmong in the United States of America

The strongest Hmong community in the USA is in the State of Minnesota, in the “twin” cities of Saint Paul and Mineapolis. One estimates this community at nearly 60.000 people. Hmong immigration in the USA dates from the years 1970-1980, a direct consequence of the Guerre of Vietnam. After findhaving initially found refuge in California, in particular with Fresno, Hmongs moved towards Minnesota and other areas of Middle-West, mainly for economic reasons. As much to other original Community in the Far East, Hmongs testify to a good integration in the economic system and educational of the USA. Their rate of school failure is particularly low.

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