Center for HMong & East Asian Studies

Do you recognize this village or Lima Site? From the Mac Thompson Collection. Amazing what AI can do with color and photo restoration.

This is the town of Pha Kao, photo restored from black and white using AI.

Saw whole bunch of HMong and Vietnamese movies at our local Goodwill store yesterday.

Students packed the Center today, to study and to build community.

I am glad they put this documentary back on their website. I did most of the interviews for SPNN.

Hmong Pioneers In 1975, at the tumultuous close of the Vietnam War, the Hmong people in Lao fled their homes, livelihoods, and culture, and began to arrive in the U.S. as refugees. Since that time, Saint Paul has become the largest home of Hmong Americans; Hmong Pioneers is their story. SPNN Thanks the countless i...

https://press.fourseasons.com/minneapolis/hotel-news/2025/heritage-dinner/

Mara at Four Seasons Hotel Minneapolis Announces Heritage Dinner with Local Culinary Leaders Mara at Four Seasons Hotel Minneapolis is thrilled to announce its upcoming Heritage Dinner on Thursday, November 6, 2025, at 6:00 pm. Heritage Dinner will showcase the legacy of Hmong cuisine and culture through the talents of local culinary visionaries Thony Yang, Diane Moua, Yia Vang, and Marc He...

Since the founding of the Center for HMong and East Asian Studies, we have received many visitors from the throughout the world. When was the last time you made a visit to the Center?

Honored to give the morning keynote address to participants of the Voices for Kids Summit in St. Paul today. Participants include advocates from throughout the US.

Today I had a long conversation with the head nurse who trained all of the Hmong nurses in Samthong. Diana “Dee” Quill was an American nurse who served during the Secret War in Laos—a covert conflict parallel to the Vietnam War—in coordination with the International Voluntary Services (IVS) and USAID. She worked closely with Choua Thao, a leading Hmong nurse. She is now 85 years old. She came to Laos in the 1960s. Her husband was one of the people who built Phu Pha Thi as well. She said if he hadn’t taken a leave to Vientiane to Laos for vacation, her husband would have been killed on the radar installation.

Thank you Nancy Hembrow for donating over 130 photos of Laos to the Center for HMong Studies. Nancy's father served in Laos between 1971-1975.