Growing up my Aunt always told my siblings and I that we, the Hmong people, used to have blonde hair and blue eyes. She would tell us that our grandmother used to have blonde hair but as she grew older, her hair turned dark and grey. When I heard this, I thought she was joking or just fooling around, so I asked my grandmother if this was true and she replied, “yes”. She also showed me her eyes. They were not brown like the rest of my family, instead, they were a hazel green. I was beyond amazed and asked her where we came from. My grandmother explained to me how we used to live in China but the Chinese people drove us out due to our people’s ignorance. According to the Hmong Lessons and Traditions, Hmong originated from the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers in China and were a civilized …show more content…
Since my grandfather passed away before the immigration to America, my grandmother decided to take her children, including my father to America; away from the Laotian people. During the immigrating to the United States, the Laotian soldiers were hunting and killing those who helped the Americans (CIA) fight the “Secret War”. Frighten mothers with crying children would feed them a small dosage of opium so that it would help put them to sleep. A sleeping child meant absolute survival for the entire immigrating Hmong community, because if the Laotians heard them, the Hmong people would be killed on spot. Sadly, some children’s body could not take the small amount of opium and they would die along the way, once that happens, the parent of the dead child would either commit suicide or wander around the woods until found by Laotian soldiers. Along with all the troubles of a crying child, there would only be four or five Hmong soldiers to help guide a group of four hundred Hmong civilians across the Mekong River (C. Xiong, personal communication, April 08,