The Hmong first arrived in Australia in 1975 from war-torn Laos, settling in Australia as a small population of under 2,000. In Australia, as in other resettlement countries, the Hmong have been active in founding local and national associations, and there is alarm about the younger generation's loss of traditional cultural heritage. The Australian Hmong is a small community, but a dynamic and rapidly changing one. This collection of interdisciplinary papers-ranging across anthropology and linguistics, musicology, material culture, gender issues and sociology-gives the general reader an introduction to this fascinating and relatively unknown community as well as an understanding of the wide range of issues that research on the Hmong in Australia has covered to date. Both editors have extensive experience |