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Mai Der Vang: For the Hmong, an Enduring Sense of Exile

[The writer, a commentator for New America Media, lives in Fresno, Calif.]

Buried in a closet is a suitcase where my mother hides an heirloom from the war. I have seen it only once, by chance when she was reorganizing. It is a traditional Hmong jacket. Instead of being pristine and vibrant like the ones I wear to the Hmong New Year, it is thin, tattered and faded. This is the jacket my mother wore as a girl, growing up in the mountains of Laos. It is what she wore the night her family fled their village in fear of retribution from the Communists following the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam.

Underneath this jacket is another one, also old and ragged. It belonged to my mother's youngest sister. Like many others, my aunt and mother were forced to separate that fateful night. In the final seconds of good-bye, my aunt pulled off her jacket and handed it to my mother to keep in case they never met again. Eventually, they found each other in a refugee camp in Thailand, and my mother kept the jacket.

Born and raised in this country, I was not privy to the experiences of my mother's generation. I can only listen to the stories and feel the tangible remnants, such as my mother's jacket. I have come to know these remnants as objects of exile that speak of a different era and a life left behind....
Read entire article at WaPo