History on the Run: Secrecy, Fugitivity, and Hmong Refugee Epistemologies

During its secret war in Laos (1961-1975), the United States recruited proxy soldiers among the Hmong people. Following the war, many of these Hmong soldiers migrated to the United States with refugee status. In History on the Run Ma Vang examines the experiences of Hmong refugees in the United States to theorize refugee histories and secrecy, in particular those of the Hmong. Vang conceptualizes these histories as fugitive histories, as they move and are carried by people who move. Charting the incomplete archives of the war made secret through redacted US state documents, ethnography, film, and literature, Vang shows how Hmong refugees tell their stories in ways that exist separately from narratives of U.S. empire and that cannot be traditionally archived. In so doing, Vang outlines a methodology for writing histories that foreground refugee epistemologies despite systematic attempts to silence those histories.

Author: Ma Vang
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 02/12/2021
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.81lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.57d
ISBN13: 9781478011316
ISBN10: 1478011319
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | Asian American Studies & Pacific
- Social Science | Anthropology | Cultural & Social

About the Author
Ma Vang is Assistant Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Merced, and coeditor of Claiming Place: On the Agency of Hmong Women.