Hmong American Food

Hmong Americans are descendants of the Hmong who lived in the central Chinese lowlands approximately 2000 BCE. After domination by Chinese dynasties in the eighteenth century, the Hmong people lived as agrarians in the mountains of Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia before immigrating to the United States to escape persecution after the Vietnam War. Hmong Americans live throughout the United States but are most represented in California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Today’s Hmong American food is a combination of traditions that have been preserved from their Chinese and Southeast Asian history, with slight variations due to ingredient and food availability in the United States.