The first scholarly work to come from inside the Hmong community, "Hmong America" documents Chia Youyee Vang's own migration from Laos to Minnesota at age nine and the transformations she has witnessed in Hmong communities throughout the migration and settlement processes. Vang depicts Hmong experiences in Asia and examines aspects of community building in America to reveal how new Hmong identities have been formed and how they have challenged popular assumptions about race and ethnicity in multicultural America.With an approach that intermingles the archival research of a historian, the...

Countering the idea of Hmong women as victims, the contributors to this pathbreaking volume demonstrate how the prevailing scholarly emphasis on Hmong culture and men as the primary culprits of women's subjugation perpetuates the perception of a Hmong premodern status and renders unintelligible women's nuanced responses to patriarchal strategies of domination both in the United States and in Southeast Asia.

Claiming Place expands knowledge about the Hmong lived reality while contributing to broader conversations on sexuality, diaspora, and agency. While these essays center on...