*I was born in Wisconsin and I still reside there.
I am Hmong-American.

comment by Vietnam Vet — 12.08.04 @ 4:32 pm

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SCSIwuzzy – I didn’t miss the point. My first two statements were full of sarcasm. Articles such as these will only feed more ideas and give people an “excuse” to continue to hate. Very well said Vietnam Vet. Not alot of people know why the Hmongs are here. In almost all the articles I’ve read so far, it gives off the impression that they left their country for a hand out in this country.

My response to this:

Well son let me tell what the real truth is, If you served in the arm forces during the Vietnam war then you would know who the hmongs were.
Its not they are here because they are looking for a helping hand, but we left them there to die, its harsh but yes we recruited the hmong to help us fight the viet kongs, and promised them freedom and help. They also risk their lives save thousands of soldiers even a uncle, cousin , farther, grandfarther who has served in the long war. If you do have relatives ask them who the hmongs were and why they are here.

We broke our pledge to them when they needed us and left leaving them to fight the war and being slaughtered like animals during the war. We however did promised to allow them to settle in the US for this cause, otherwise they would be just like the Jews killed. So son, go read a book called Raven. Or look up Raven in the search engine and you will find these people helping and fight with us hand and hand side by side to the end…

I have lived in Wisconsin and has many freinds who are other ethnicity and repect them all.

Hmong are my freinds…

A vietnam vet.

From a American as myself and a vietnam Vet, this is absurb and disgracefule. Im patriotic, but to say that this bumper sticker saying kill the hmong save the deer, if this was to say white folks hunting season. There would be charges pressed on the person with the bumber sticker, but since it says save the deer kill the hmongs its ok there only hmong. Be an american and stand for what you beleive in…..

The bumper sticker is wrong and racial, thats not what America is about. The shooting was wrong and unjust but lets get the whole picture the judge one person and not a whole race of people for one wrong doing.

If you are a Raven and worked with the hmong or been saved by them in the CIA Vietnam campaign I urged you to write on this article.

May freedom ring to all..

Vietnam Vet

-lanora

DETROIT – Last week’s column about the six hunters killed in Wisconsin brought a lot of e-mails and telephone calls from black hunters in Michigan. A Hmong immigrant was charged with the shootings, and the black hunters didn’t condone them. But they said they had been subjected to the same racist slurs and threats that might have triggered the Asian man’s rampage.

I don’t doubt those stories because I have been with white hunters who made racist comments when we saw black hunters in the fields. What really amazes me is how white hunters born and raised in northern Michigan, where they grew up with almost no contact with black people, are often as racist as any Ku Klux Klan member born and raised in the black belts of Mississippi or Alabama.

It was interesting that most of the black callers thought I was automatically accepting the word of the surviving white hunters, who said there was no reason for the killings and denied that anyone on their side made any racial slurs. The truth is I have no idea what happened other than what I’ve learned by reading the accounts of the incident and talking to people who probably don’t know much more than I do.

And while I don’t want to seem like a bleeding-heart liberal apologist for bad acts by the racially oppressed, I have learned enough about Hmong-white relations across this country in the last week that I would give 6-1 that one of the white hunters did say something nasty, and this time he said it to the wrong guy.

Chai Vang, the 36-year-old Laotian immigrant charged with killing six people and wounding two more in what began as a trespassing dispute, comes from a culture with a long tradition of hunting but no tradition of game laws, bag limits and formal hunting seasons as they are understood by Americans.

That lack of understanding has created resentment among some hunters, who say the Asians are notorious poachers and game violators and often trash rural areas with litter and garbage. Chai Vang once was ticketed by a Minnesota game warden for a fishing violation, taking 93 crappies above the legal limit.

The Hmong are here because they were armed and trained by us to fight on the American side during the Vietnam War. They have a long tradition as fighters and their courage was legendary, and sometimes so was their savagery. When we decided to bug out, so did many of the Hmong.

Police in Wisconsin said Vang admitted the shootings, but they still don’t understand why he climbed down from the tree stand where he was trespassing, methodically removed the telescopic sight from his SKS rifle and shot at the other hunters until the 20-shot clip was empty.

Several black hunters in Michigan said the police need look no further than the racist epithets that Vang said the white hunters unleashed on him when they found him on their land. He also claimed that the white hunters were the first to fire a shot at him, something the two survivors denied.

It might turn out that Vang was an isolated nutcase. With more than 186,000 Hmong in the U.S., as of the 2000 census, and about 40,000 of them in Wisconsin and Minnesota, there is as much potential for violence perpetuated by a few deranged or evil people among the Hmong as among any other group. But the more I read about the tension between the Hmong community and its white neighbors in Minnesota and Wisconsin, the more I understand the feelings of the black hunters who called.

Several of the black hunters said they had been in situations through the years where white hunters leveled guns at them or even fired shots nearby.

“I was rabbit hunting with a black friend near Newaygo a few years ago when we met a group of six white guys who were rabbit hunting, too,” said one black man, who, like the others, asked that his name not be used. “Three of them started on us right away, asking what we were doing in their hunting place, and why didn’t we stay in Detroit where we belonged.

“The other three white guys didn’t say anything, just stood there. One of the loudmouths told us that we had better leave if we knew what was good for us. We were on public land, and I was so mad I was about ready to make a stand. But my friend is a lot cooler head, and he said that it wasn’t worth it and we should just go. So we left, and as we walked back to the car, I could hear three loudmouths laughing and calling us every nasty name you can think of and saying how we better never come back if we knew what was good for us. I wasn’t ready to go kill them all because of what they said, but can you imagine how I felt?”

If white and black Americans still feel those tensions after living side-by-side for nearly 400 years, how do we adjust to a people as exotic as the Hmong?

One problem is that many Third World people have such a tough time surviving day-to-day that they haven’t had the luxury of developing a strong conservation ethic. A few years ago in San Francisco, police found Hmong with handmade bows and arrows hunting squirrels, marmots and other furry critters year-round in Golden Gate Park. When they were ticketed, the Hmong couldn’t understand why anyone would deny them such a bounty.

Though there is real and sometimes justified resentment from white hunters for what they see as unethical hunting practices by the Hmong, you only need to talk to a Wisconsin or Minnesota hunter for a few minutes before the criticisms change from hunting activities to social issues like polygamy and marrying girls at 13 and 14, practices many whites think are common among the Asian immigrants.

And you only need to talk to black hunters in Michigan for the same amount of time to hear stories about confrontations with whites that had the same potential for violence that we saw in Wisconsin. This one should be a lesson to every hunter.

Note: let give this a twist lets say the hmong hunter was killed by the hunters this story would be no headline , basicall a dead asian .

If the hmong guys get shot because the white hates asian there would be no press. The story would just go away… no justice , but since its the other way around its not called in self defense but a mass murder..

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Responses:

DETROIT – Last week’s column about the six hunters killed in Wisconsin brought a lot of e-mails and telephone calls from black hunters in Michigan. A Hmong immigrant was charged with the shootings, and the black hunters didn’t condone them. But they said they had been subjected to the same racist slurs and threats that might have triggered the Asian man’s rampage.

I don’t doubt those stories because I have been with white hunters who made racist comments when we saw black hunters in the fields. What really amazes me is how white hunters born and raised in northern Michigan, where they grew up with almost no contact with black people, are often as racist as any Ku Klux Klan member born and raised in the black belts of Mississippi or Alabama.

It was interesting that most of the black callers thought I was automatically accepting the word of the surviving white hunters, who said there was no reason for the killings and denied that anyone on their side made any racial slurs. The truth is I have no idea what happened other than what I’ve learned by reading the accounts of the incident and talking to people who probably don’t know much more than I do.

And while I don’t want to seem like a bleeding-heart liberal apologist for bad acts by the racially oppressed, I have learned enough about Hmong-white relations across this country in the last week that I would give 6-1 that one of the white hunters did say something nasty, and this time he said it to the wrong guy.

Chai Vang, the 36-year-old Laotian immigrant charged with killing six people and wounding two more in what began as a trespassing dispute, comes from a culture with a long tradition of hunting but no tradition of game laws, bag limits and formal hunting seasons as they are understood by Americans.

That lack of understanding has created resentment among some hunters, who say the Asians are notorious poachers and game violators and often trash rural areas with litter and garbage. Chai Vang once was ticketed by a Minnesota game warden for a fishing violation, taking 93 crappies above the legal limit.

The Hmong are here because they were armed and trained by us to fight on the American side during the Vietnam War. They have a long tradition as fighters and their courage was legendary, and sometimes so was their savagery. When we decided to bug out, so did many of the Hmong.

Police in Wisconsin said Vang admitted the shootings, but they still don’t understand why he climbed down from the tree stand where he was trespassing, methodically removed the telescopic sight from his SKS rifle and shot at the other hunters until the 20-shot clip was empty.

Several black hunters in Michigan said the police need look no further than the racist epithets that Vang said the white hunters unleashed on him when they found him on their land. He also claimed that the white hunters were the first to fire a shot at him, something the two survivors denied.

It might turn out that Vang was an isolated nutcase. With more than 186,000 Hmong in the U.S., as of the 2000 census, and about 40,000 of them in Wisconsin and Minnesota, there is as much potential for violence perpetuated by a few deranged or evil people among the Hmong as among any other group. But the more I read about the tension between the Hmong community and its white neighbors in Minnesota and Wisconsin, the more I understand the feelings of the black hunters who called.

Several of the black hunters said they had been in situations through the years where white hunters leveled guns at them or even fired shots nearby.

“I was rabbit hunting with a black friend near Newaygo a few years ago when we met a group of six white guys who were rabbit hunting, too,” said one black man, who, like the others, asked that his name not be used. “Three of them started on us right away, asking what we were doing in their hunting place, and why didn’t we stay in Detroit where we belonged.

“The other three white guys didn’t say anything, just stood there. One of the loudmouths told us that we had better leave if we knew what was good for us. We were on public land, and I was so mad I was about ready to make a stand. But my friend is a lot cooler head, and he said that it wasn’t worth it and we should just go. So we left, and as we walked back to the car, I could hear three loudmouths laughing and calling us every nasty name you can think of and saying how we better never come back if we knew what was good for us. I wasn’t ready to go kill them all because of what they said, but can you imagine how I felt?”

If white and black Americans still feel those tensions after living side-by-side for nearly 400 years, how do we adjust to a people as exotic as the Hmong?

One problem is that many Third World people have such a tough time surviving day-to-day that they haven’t had the luxury of developing a strong conservation ethic. A few years ago in San Francisco, police found Hmong with handmade bows and arrows hunting squirrels, marmots and other furry critters year-round in Golden Gate Park. When they were ticketed, the Hmong couldn’t understand why anyone would deny them such a bounty.

Though there is real and sometimes justified resentment from white hunters for what they see as unethical hunting practices by the Hmong, you only need to talk to a Wisconsin or Minnesota hunter for a few minutes before the criticisms change from hunting activities to social issues like polygamy and marrying girls at 13 and 14, practices many whites think are common among the Asian immigrants.

And you only need to talk to black hunters in Michigan for the same amount of time to hear stories about confrontations with whites that had the same potential for violence that we saw in Wisconsin. This one should be a lesson to every hunter.

In this case the hate crime would be the white folks,

but the slaying of 6 people was unjustice even if it was self defense.

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