Book Recommendations - Hmong

[zena]

Would love to read anything that is researched or memoir on the following:

1. Hmong history
2. Chinese history that have something to do with Hmong
3. Anything that has anything to do with Hmong Culture

Also, if you watch Hmong movies on YT, link your favorite.  English subtitles preferred but not required.

And, anything else you'd like to share about Hmong people. 

[lexicon]

Amazon has a good selection.

Books by Kao Kalia Yang and Mai Neng Moua would be a good place to start. And I believe Soul Vang just released another book (poetry?) recently. There are more by other authors who aren't Hmong as well. But 2 of the more well known would be Dia's Story Cloth by Dia Cha and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman.

[zena]

Thanks, Lexicon.  Yes, I do know about Amazon, et. al.  Just throwing it out there in case anyone has a good book they'd like to share. 

As for the books you mentioned, I'm not looking for Hmong authors.  I'm looking for Hmong history stuff and culture in reference to research.  Not so much books written about poems or memoirs written by non-Hmong, etc. 

Btw, I've read the Spirit Catches You and I only got 25% in before I couldn't read further.  I felt like the author was pushing some other "Hmong Culture" down my throat.  Saying, "Hmong people have to do things this way and that, etc."  I spent most the time thinking, "I'm Hmong and my family didn't do any of those things," and being offended because people I know who've read it think I'm like the family in the book and I'm having to explain myself that not all Hmong are like that.

[Believe_N_Me]

MA,

My family was also very different from the Lee family in Fadiman's book. However, it was a great resource for learning traditional Hmong shaman customs and practices. That is how I viewed it. Thus, I highly encourage you to read it again since you mentioned that you were interested in learning about Hmong.

[Rebel]

Colin Cotterill writes a series of mystery novels based in Laos and there are Hmong characters in some of them. You should check out his books, especially "the merry misogynist" and "curse of the pogo stick" there's a lot of humor in there along with mystery...

Tragic Mountain by Jane Hamilton Merritt is a book on Hmong and the secret war. I'm not huge on war books so I haven't read this one but was told it was a good one to read.

The spirit catches you book by Anne Fadiman was very good. I reread the book again and it was completely different from when I first read it. Lots of insights into the culture...