Hmong in America

Written out of museum work at the Chippewa Valley Museum in Wisconsin, this traces the arc from 1961, when the CIA began recruiting a secret army in northern Laos, through fifteen years of fighting along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, to the resettlement that brought Hmong families to Eau Claire. The exhibition origins show in the best way: photographs, objects, and first-person accounts carry as much of the story as the narrative does. It is short, physical, and built for a reader who wants to see the period rather than only read it. Pairs with Hmong in Wisconsin for the state's fuller story. For general readers, museum visitors, and Wisconsin libraries.