The U.S. effort came to rely on locals like Yang’s father and other members of the Hmong community, viewed by the CIA as a self-reliant people eager to protect their independence from ...

But one morning in November 2023, a Hmong driver came to pick us up and set out on a journey from the capital to the former CIA-run airbase. Long Tieng was so secret when the Xiongs lived there ...

On the 50th anniversary of the Hmong arrival in the U.S., first-generation immigrants remembered the rocky early years, even as they celebrate how far the community has come.

LONG TIENG, LAOS – We met in the Laotian capital of Vientiane, not far from the spot on the Mekong River where the Xiong family fled to Thailand one night in May 1975. At the time of their ...

A bomb-cratered runway and crumbling control tower are relics of when a remote village in Asia was one of the world’s most ...

The CIA recruited and trained thousands of Hmong people to fight on behalf of Americans during a clandestine operation in Laos during the Vietnam War, known as the "Secret War." Now, those ...

At its height, tens of thousands of inhabitants — Hmong soldiers, their families, refugees from other parts of Laos, Thai soldiers and a small contingent of American CIA operatives and secret US ...

He was the CIA's personal case officer for Gen. Vang Pao, and the two of them helped direct Hmong troops in their resistance against communist forces both inside the country and from neighboring ...