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Three Waves

Camp Conditions

Thai Concerns

Wat Tham Krabok

The Temple and the Thai Government

Generational Responses to Camp Life

New Roles and Opportunities

Growing Up in Refugee Camps

Conditions in the camps varied from barely tolerable
to awful.

The Refugee Experience in Thailand

During the two decades after the communist takeover in Laos in 1975, several hundred thousand Hmong took the dangerous journey on foot through the Laotian countryside and across the Thai border, formed much of the way by the Mekong River. The fortunate who survived the trip ended up in one or more first-asylum refugee camps: Ban Vinai, Nong Khai, Ban Nam Yao, and Chieng Kham.

Three Waves

The early Hmong refugee movements have been divided into three waves. First-wave refugee groups are typically made up of those who have the most to lose by the change in governments, and the Hmong were no exception to this pattern. Lasting from 1975 to 1977, the first wave of Hmong refugees mostly included soldiers from the secret army and their families.

A second wave of Hmong arrived between 1978 and 1982, a period when both lowland and highland Laotians fled drought and crop failure, compulsory farm collectivization enforced by the Lao communist government, and attacks on the resistance movement. These were also the years of the largest exodus of Indochinese refugees, a period when 21 first-asylum, processing, and transit camps were set up in Thailand, in addition to some encampments for Khmer refugees on the Thai–Cambodian border that were not designated as camps. The numbers of Hmong refugees increased as a third wave (1982 to 1986) brought additional asylum seekers. By 1987, about 75,000 Laotian refugees were known to be in Thailand. Of these, the majority—about 54,000—were hilltribe people, mostly Hmong in Ban Vinai and Chiang Kham camps.

Neither Western governments nor their Indochinese counterparts were willing or able to reach a political solution to the refugee situation. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia remained relatively closed, and development assistance from the West was minimal. Repression of the Hmong in Laos, declining economic conditions in that country, and the availability of food and medical attention in the camps contributed to the steady flow of Hmong refugees into Thailand.

Camp Conditions

Conditions in the camps varied from barely tolerable to awful. In a book about the Hmong in America, Vu Pao Tcha, a Hmong in Fresno, California, described conditions in Ban Nam Yao in northeastern Thailand: “The conditions in Camp Ban Nam Yao. . . were terrible, especially when it first opened. There were no toilets. People had no water to wash themselves. There was no clinic for the sick. There were no jobs, no land to grow food, and virtually no way of getting money to buy food.”

Conditions in Ban Vinai were better, though hardly idyllic. In the early years, the Hmong themselves determined housing patterns in Ban Vinai, and observers often compared the camp to an overgrown Hmong village in northern Thailand. But by the mid-1980s, the camp had grown beyond its capacity to comfortably accommodate its many thousands of residents.

In 1986, Lynellyn Long, a refugee-worker-turned-researcher, returned to Ban Vinai for a visit after an absence of several years. “The camp is more settled, dirtier, and more crowded than I remember,” she wrote in Ban Vinai: The Refugee Camp. “With 43,000 to 45,000 people living on approximately 400 acres (slightly less than one square mile), it is one of the most densely populated places in the world…. The camp buildings built to be temporary are showing signs of age and falling into disrepair. The few open spaces in the camp, the small streams and gullies, have become open sewers. Everywhere the thick reddish dust blankets the land.” Without land to cultivate crops, the economic foundation of traditional Hmong life gave way to a dependence on camp rations from the UNHCR and other humanitarian organizations.

In these conditions, refugees nevertheless managed to create a culturally familiar way of life. Residents visited the shaman when ill and conducted funerals and celebrated New Year in the traditional Hmong manner. For the enterprising and resourceful, life in Ban Vinai was not without opportunities. Adults could attend English and vocational-training classes, and children could attend a Thai elementary school. Markets sold everything from fresh fish and fruit to cosmetics and herbal medicines. The camp included blacksmiths, silversmiths, a barber, several small restaurants, and a photographer who took pictures of his subjects against a backdrop of the Swiss Alps. Small family vegetable gardens dotted the grounds.

By 1986, life at Ban Vinai had taken on a semi-permanent quality, with the average length of stay in the camp approaching seven years. The situation was not the result of a U.S. unwillingness to resettle the Hmong, however; because of their role in the war in Laos, more than 90% of Hmong refugees in Thailand had been accepted for resettlement to the United States. Rather, the large number of long stayers in Ban Vinai was largely the consequence of a Hmong reluctance to leave Thailand. Many hoped to stay in Thailand until they were certain that they could return to Laos without suffering reprisals, or until relatives in Laos could join them to resettle together in a third country. Other Hmong were active in the resistance movement in Laos, and were using Thailand as a base, with support from conservative Thai and American factions. Still others hoped to remain permanently in Thailand. Stories from relatives and friends about the difficulties of life in the United States also contributed to the decision to stay put.

Life for Hmong refugees in Thailand became more difficult as the government consolidated camps and tightened control over camp life.

Thai Concerns

To the Thai government, the Hmong reluctance to leave Thailand was of great concern. While over the years Thailand had allowed temporary asylum for up to 200,000 Hmong, it had always made clear that local resettlement in Thailand was not an option for the Hmong.

Not only was the Hmong population in the camps in Thailand not decreasing, it was growing, despite a gradual drop in refugee arrivals. The reason for this growth was the Hmong birth rate in the camps, one of the highest in the world and roughly three times the Thai rate. Worried about the growing Hmong population, the Thai government put into place a policy of “humane deterrence” designed to deter asylum seekers and to encourage those already in Thailand to resettle to the West or to return to Laos.

As part of this new policy, the Thai government instituted stricter border screenings, using U.S. resettlement criteria to determine who would be allowed into Thailand. Interviewing refugees for resettlement in the West was periodically halted as a way to send the message to others to not come to Thailand. Then, with no warning, interviews would recommence in order to reduce the size of the camp population.

Life for Hmong refugees in Thailand became more difficult as the government consolidated camps and tightened control over camp life. Authorities reduced food rations to the minimum and limited opportunities for work and education. Assistance to the camps from Western governments declined. In this atmosphere of uncertainty and deteriorating living conditions, the prevailing mood among the refugees was one of anxiety alternating with boredom.

In 1992, as pressures mounted to find options for the Hmong who remained in the camps, the Thai government made the decision to close Ban Vinai. Those not resettled in a third country would be sent to a transit camp pending repatriation to Laos. As the closure date drew near, several thousand Hmong fled into the hills of the northern Thai countryside. Others journeyed south to Tham Krabok Monastery, known in Thai as Wat Tham Krabok.

Wat Tham Krabok afforded protection and offered
an alternative to
repatriation to Laos and resettlement in the West.

Wat Tham Krabok

A Buddhist temple complex about 80 miles north of Bangkok, Wat Tham Krabok was headed by a charismatic abbot, Phra Chamroon Parnchand. Before becoming a Buddhist monk, the abbot had served as a policeman in northeastern Thailand, where he had fought a communist insurgency and become acquainted with the Thai Hmong. At his temple complex, the abbot began a drug rehabilitation program that received worldwide renown. Making use of herbs, the program was open to everyone, including foreigners, and among those the program helped were many Thai Hmong. For his work, the abbot received the Magsaysay Award in 1975, the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

The abbot was sympathetic to the plight of Hmong refugees in Thailand, and word quickly traveled to the Hmong in Ban Vinai and elsewhere that Wat Tham Krabok afforded protection and offered an alternative to repatriation to Laos and resettlement in the West. Although most of the monastery’s early residents were from Ban Vinai, residents from other camps also made their way to the monastery. Later, a repatriation program that sent Hmong to Nap Pho Camp in northeastern Thailand from other refugee centers, in preparation for their eventual return to Laos, triggered another exodus to the monastery. Even a few Hmong on administrative hold who had been studying in a three-month English and Cultural Orientation program in the Phanat Nikhom Refugee Center in preparation for resettlement in the United States managed to make their way to the monastery.

The early 1990s were years of relative freedom for the Hmong at Wat Tham Krabok. In fact, the refugees proved useful in what had become a booming Thai economy. The abbot found jobs for the Hmong in construction work on a new road nearby, and others took jobs in neighboring towns and in quarries in the area, to which they commuted daily. In what became a bustling community, shops were opened and Hmong handicrafts sold to tourists and to Hmong in the United States. Hmong silversmiths and blacksmiths produced and sold their wares. Others sewed paaj ntaub (pronounced pan dau in English) the traditional embroidered story cloth, much of which went abroad for sale. Some residents received money from their resettled relatives. By the early 1990s, the Hmong population at Wat Tham Krabok was estimated at 30,000.

While the atmosphere in the monastery was welcoming, services were minimal. Hmong cleared land for their homes and built their own houses using whatever materials were at hand. Unlike in the first-asylum camps, Wat Tham Krabok offered no free medical or social services, and Hmong residents continued their traditional healing practices. In November 2003, a Hmong-run school began teaching Hmong and Thai literacy to residents.

The Temple and the Thai Government

Although for years the Thai government tolerated the situation at Wat Tham Krabok, not all Thai officials were comfortable with the Hmong presence at the monastery. Rumors that Hmong residents were involved in resistance efforts in Laos created tensions between Thailand and Laos at a time when the Thai government had wanted to improve relations with its neighbor. In addition, reports of drug trafficking on the part of some Thai Hmong prompted concern in Thailand that the Hmong at Wat Tham Krabok could become involved in the drug trade.

When the abbot died in 1999, the Hmong lost an important benefactor, and the Thai government decided to change the situation at Wat Tham Krabok. In 2003, after registering the monastery’s Hmong residents, the Thai government officially closed Wat Tham Krabok to any additional Hmong. Access to work outside the monastery was greatly restricted.

Word began to circulate of Thai intentions to send all Hmong at the monastery to a camp in the northeast for eventual repatriation to Laos. Thai efforts to repatriate the Hmong came to naught when Laos refused to accept the Hmong because of their past involvement in resistance activities. News that the United States was considering a resettlement program for the Hmong eventually appeared in the Thai media and in December 2003, the United States announced its intentions to consider for resettlement the Hmong at Wat Tham Krabok.

When this publication went to press, the U.S. resettlement program was restricted to those Hmong at the monastery who had been registered by the Thai government in September 2003.4 Lao Hmong refugees who had been living in Thai Hmong settlements outside of the monastery were not eligible for resettlement. These included a group who had left the monastery during the registration, apparently fearing that the registration was the first step in a process to repatriate the Hmong back to Laos. The status of these Hmong remains unclear at this time.

Different generations develop marked differences in the way they pattern their daily lives and envision life beyond the camp.

Generational Responses to Camp Life

The Hmong at Wat Tham Krabok have lived at the monastery and at other camps in Thailand for many years; indeed some of the younger Hmong have known no other way of life. What impact has this experience had on the Hmong? After all these years of refugee camp life, how do the Hmong view resettlement in the United States? What skills and strength will they bring with them?

As Lynellyn Long noted in her Ban Viani study, in prolonged camp situations different generations develop marked differences in the way they pattern their daily lives and envision life beyond the camp. In the refugee camps in Thailand and at the monastery, Hmong elders typically focused on doing things in a traditional way, including carrying out traditional rituals and, for some, using traditional medicines such as opium and herbal remedies. The “middle” or “war generation”—that is, those who fought in the war in Laos—generally grappled with their immediate situation, seeking ways to supplement their family’s meager ration; they have gathered food and charcoal outside the camp or earned day wages by harvesting crops for nearby villagers or, at Wat Tham Krabok, working on construction jobs. The young “camp generation” showed the most interest in studying; some seemed willing to take up whatever course was offered. In Ban Vinai, where dozens of international agencies provided social services, it was not unusual to encounter young Hmong who had managed to pick up several of the many languages that were taught and spoken in the camp.

These different generational responses to camp life sometimes caused tensions when decisions about the future needed to be made. Many elders wanted to stay put until they could return to Laos. Stories circulated about elders sabotaging a family’s chances for a resettlement offer by smoking opium, thereby making it impossible to pass the required drug screening. Children, in contrast, were often keen to start new lives in the West. The war-generation adults were caught in between, wanting their children to have a future but not willing to leave aging parents behind. This also is the generation that has been most active in resistance activities.

All Hmong at
Wat Tham Krabok, whatever their age and generation, have been exposed to modern urban life during their long sojourn in Thailand.

New Roles and Opportunities

Life in the camps and at the monastery has also had an impact on traditional family roles. Women, who can make money through sewing handicrafts and clothing, have often had more success at earning wages than men. Young people have learned English (and Thai) faster than adults—skills that have sometimes helped them find coveted jobs with camp service providers. Because of their proficiency in language, younger Hmong have often been the ones to translate documents or interpret for the family with camp authorities, service providers, or resettlement interviewers from embassies. This has given younger people an influence in the family that can upset the traditional family dynamics.

All Hmong at Wat Tham Krabok, whatever their age and generation, have been exposed to modern urban life during their long sojourn in Thailand. Through work, recreation, and television, most have been exposed to the latest technology, modern modes of transportation, and even world politics. This makes them different from the first groups of Hmong refugees who were resettled in the United States.

While camp life has been filled with challenges and pressures, many Hmong have been able not only to survive, but also to begin the process of rebuilding their lives. At Wat Tham Krabok, as in the refugee camps, the Hmong have proven to be industrious and resourceful, taking advantage of whatever opportunities for work and education have existed.

Since the United States announced its resettlement program for the Hmong at Wat Tham Krabok, English languages classes there have been in great demand. A Hmong-run English language school with Hmong teachers, primarily young men who learned English in other refugee camps, is filled to capacity (with more than 1,800 learners of all ages as of March 2004). The school uses curricula and materials from English language programs in the Ban Vinai and Phanat Nikhom camps. In addition, Hmong teach classes in their homes, which are also very popular. This keen interest in learning English is a positive sign and bodes well for the resettlement of the Hmong in the United States.

Growing Up in Refugee Camps

Wat Tham Krabok residents Kao Lee, 33, and her husband, Meng Chang, 38, have lived most of their lives in refugee camps, reporter Todd Nelson writes in a March 7, 2004, article about the couple for The Twin Cities Pioneer Press.

Meng Chang and Kao Lee were children when they arrived with their parents at Ban Vinai Camp in 1975 and 1979, respectively. They met and were married at Ban Vinai and had the first three of their children there. They left for Wat Tham Krabok in 1992 and have remained there to this day. The last three of their six children were born at the temple.

Until he broke his collarbone in a motorcycle accident, Meng Chang worked outside the camp as a day laborer. Kao Lee sews traditional Hmong clothing, which she sells locally and in the United States. They expect to resettle in Minnesota, where Meng Chang has a brother. "Before, even though the life is like this for a long time, we thought maybe we would die in the camp," Meng Chang told The Pioneer Press. "Now life is different. Now we have hope."

The Cultural Orientation Project--http://www.culturalorientation.net, for more information contact sanja@cal.org
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