Hmong Memory at the Crossroads (2015)

USA | 105 min | NR | DVD | Dir. Safoi Babana-Hampton

Hmong Memory at the Crossroads is the story of Liachoua Lee, a Hmong-American from Rochester Hills, Michigan, revisiting his past as a former refugee and son of Hmong veterans of the French Indochina War (1946-1954), and of the American Secret War in Laos (1961-1975), by returning to places that carry traces of his personal history and the emotional scars left by the war. Lee’s story begins in Detroit, Michigan, then takes him to France, a place where he and his family sought asylum before immigrating to America, and ends in an emotional return to the homeland Laos for the first time in 40 years. The film documents Lee’s re-reading of key chapters of his refugee history, re-creating memories of wartime as experienced by the child he was then. The film follows Lee’s journey of remembrance, which brings his personal story into conversation with others’ stories in the Hmong community, American Vietnam veterans, French Indochina War veterans, historians and government officials, in the Midwest and France.

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