Welcome to The First Hmong Missionary Alliance Church
The history of the Hmong (sometimes spelled 'Hmoob') people is long, and filled with oppression and tragedy, but is also filled with resilience and survival. Oral histories and ancient Paj Ntaub story cloths tell of their origins in the mountainous regions of China. After thousands of years, they were forced to emigrate to Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, and Vietnam starting about 1790, an exodus lasting at least 70 years.
In 1893 the Kingdom of Laos became a protectorate of France, part of what was known as French Indochina. This control was lost when at the end of WWII, Communist forces battled fiercely for control of Laos and Vietnam, and in 1954 France surrendered control of the region to Viet Minh. Vietnam was split into two countries, and a short-lived peace settled on the region.
A coup d'état in Laos in 1960 seriously destabilized the region and the United States started the "Secret War" in Laos under the leadership of John F. Kennedy, followed rapidly by the Vietnamese war. In 1968/1969, over 18,000 Hmong soldiers died in Vietnam fighting on the side of the US. It was in 1969 that the US Congress finally learned of the decade-long covert military operation in Laos where the CIA used mostly Hmong fighters to attempt to gain control over the region.
In 1975, the North Vietnamese Army and the Pathet Lao movement captured Royal Lao positions, and South Vietnam fell to Communist North Vietnam. Gen. Vang Pao and about 2,500 Hmong military forces and family members were airlifted from Long Cheng air base to Thailand. As many as 30,000 other Hmong crowded into Long Cheng, hoping for escape.
1975-Date: After overthrowing the Laotian monarchy, the Pathet Lao launched an aggressive campaign to capture or kill Hmong soldiers and families who sided with the CIA. Hundreds of thousands of Hmong people fled to Thailand, or went into hiding deep in the jungles. The bloodiest part of the escape, which left an indelible chapter in the minds and Paj Ntaubs of the Hmong was the crossing of the heavily patrolled Mekong River, which for a time ran red with the blood of the escapees.
Humanitarian efforts, and the passage of the US Refugee Act of 1980 led to large-scale immigration of the Hmong to the United States, partly as payment for the estimated 40,000 Hmong fighters who died in Laos and Vietnam fighting as our allies. (The official death toll for US citizens was 58,000.) Many of those refugees arrived in St. Paul, MN, under the support and sponsorship of the Lutheran Church.
The First Hmong Missionary Alliance Church was founded in 1983, and the building you see in front of you was completed some years later, the product of hard work and hands-on self-reliance that is typical of the Hmong culture. The congregants collected aluminum cans, sold crafts and ornaments, sold food, worked in ginseng farms, painted walls, spread seed, did gardening, and everything they could to create their place of worship. More than any other church in the region, the people of this congregation have put their lives into the building to make it what it is today.
More information can be found at fhmac.org.