Geography

Geography-

"The Hmong are an Asian ethnic group from the mountainous regions of Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Burma. Hmong are also one of the sub-groups of the Miao ethnicity (苗族 in Simplified Chinese Character) in southern China. Hmong groups began a gradual southward migration in the 18th century due to political unrest and to find more arable land. A number of Hmong people fought against the communist-nationalist Pathet Lao during the Secret War in Laos. Hmong people were singled out for retribution when the Pathet Lao took over the Laotian government in 1975, and tens of thousands fled to Thailand seeking political asylum. Thousands of these refugees have resettled in Western countries since the late 1970s, mostly the United States but also Australia, France, French Guiana, and Canada. Others have been returned to Laos under United Nations-sponsored repatriation programs. Around 8,000 Hmong refugees remain in Thailand." - It was not until the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980 that families were able to enter the U.S., becoming the second wave of Hmong immigrants.  The hostility and pulling to be with their family members are the reasons that led to a massive shift of the Hmong population in the mid-to- late 1980s to central California cities like Fresno, Stockton, and Merced, and to a lesser extent, to Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Today, 209,866 Hmong people reside in the United States the majority of whom live in California (65,831), Minnesota(45,930), and Wisconsin(31,578). Fresno, Merced, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Eau Claire, La Crosse, Madison, Milwaukee, and Wausau, Wisconsin have especially high concentrations of Hmong/Mong people. There are also smaller Hmong/Mong populations scattered across the country, including Linda Vista,  California, Sacramento, California,Stockton, California, Winooski, Vermont, and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, centered around the towns of Ephrata, Pennsylvania and Denver, Pennsylvania.

