Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir

After Laos gained independence from France in 1954, the region became a focal point for Cold War rivalries. The Pathet Lao, supported by North Vietnam and the Soviet Union, aimed to establish a communist government, while the Royal Lao Government, backed by the United States, sought to prevent the spread of communism in the young nation. In the late 1950s, the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) initiated a covert operation in Laos to support anti-communist forces. The agency began arming and training Indigenous Hmong people, led by General Vang Pao, to fight against the Pathet Lao and their North Vietnamese allies. As war escalated in the 1960s and 1970s, the CIA used these Hmong soldiers to conduct airstrikes, establish a network of secret bases, and wage guerilla warfare against communist forces. Stories of American Hmong collaboration feature prominently in the collection.

When American forces left the region at the end of the Vietnam War, CIA support for the Hmong also disappeared, and the remaining soldiers and their families were left vulnerable. The communist government viewed the Hmong, particularly those who had worked with the CIA, as the enemy, and the remaining soldiers faced persecution, reprisals, and displacement. Thousands of Hmong soldiers and their families fled to neighboring countries, particularly Thailand.