About 260,000 people of Hmong origin live in the United States
By Ellen Wulfhorst
MISSOULA, Montana, Aug 26 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Missoula welcomed a migrant family from the Democratic Republic of Congo this month, part of an effort to resettle refugees in the small western U.S. city where hundreds of Hmong people from Laos began arriving in the 1970s.
Here are some facts about Missoula, a city of 71,000 residents in the northwest of Montana, and the Hmong people.
- About 260,000 people of Hmong origin live in the United States, according to government census figures. Most live in the states of California, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
- Roughly 230 Hmong live in and around Missoula, which is surrounded by mountain ranges, including the Bitterroot Mountains, Sapphire Mountains, Rattlesnake Mountains and Garnet Range.
- Author Norman Maclean, who grew up in Missoula, wrote about the city in his 1976 "A River Runs Through It and Other Stories." It was made into a movie in 1992 directed by Robert Redford and starring Brad Pitt.
- "Gran Torino," a 2008 movie directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, told the story of an ill-tempered retiree in Michigan and his relationship with his neighbors, a Hmong refugee family.
- The Hmong language was not written until relatively recently. The most widely used written form was devised in the 1950s by a group of missionaries. Another form used mostly in one dialect was designed at the turn of the 20th century, and another form came following the Communist revolution using Chinese symbols.
- The Hmong are known for sewing story cloths. The textiles are stitched and embroidered and recount family histories, wars and other tales.
- The book "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down," written by Anne Fadiman in 1997, describes the medical treatment of an ailing baby girl born to a Hmong immigrant family in California and the clash between Western views and her family's traditional beliefs and culture. The book is frequently used in schools to teach medical ethics and cultural sensitivity.
(Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst, Editing by Astrid Zweynert. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)
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