I Am An American (.) period!
After 40 years in America, I never once called "Laos" my home country, but never denied I was born in that part of the country before the communist pathet Laos took over in 1975. In Fact, I personally have no memory of my birth country how it was before the war ended and I have no personal grudge against the current Laos government because all I know is that I am an American. In America, there are a lot of different types of immigrants; each group came from different corners of the world and with their own story. For Hmong, however, we are not "immigrants", we were forced political refugees made American - that is who we are. We did not choose to come to America to be rich or for a better life, but we came to America because we sided with the American (not by choice, but by recruit) and stood against their number 1 (ONE) enemy (the fearful "Communist) at the time, specifically, the North Vietnam and its powerful allies such as China and the Soviet Union.
Brief history from our elders and Veterans, at the beginning of a new year of 1973, while the Hmong special forces (SGU) or Special Guerrilla Unit were at the frontlines destroying the American enemy, President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger met quietly with Chairman Mao in Beijing and signed the Vietnam war peace agreement in January of 1973. The agreement meant Hmong has been tossed to a world of chaos or to Washington at the time - (we don't care and don't know who they are). They have served us and served our purposes and it was time to forget them. No worry, they'll be just fine. There was no plan to help the Hmong wind down and re-assimilate into the after war environment. It's more like pulling a life support of a patient and just let it goes.
Why "I AM AN AMERICAN"? Because America is our country. Many families that I know including my own family rather celebrate the date we came to the U.S. than the date we left the jungle of Laos to Thailand. After 40 years, it's time to retain the Hmong heritage, but become truth American despite all the negative rhetorics from the recent presidential campaign.
