I'm not very well versed into the subject, but I remember a documentary depicting the hardships the Hmong community faced (faces?) in MN, most notably the climate, and being forced to convert to fundamentalist christian beliefs. I seem to remember the relocation was part of the deal some Hmong made with the US during the Vietnam war: they would get to emigrate if they granted their help to the troops.
Why was MN chosen for this, given that the climate is radically different than Vietnam/Laos, and that the culture is predominantly Scandinavian?
It seems that the Minnesota Agricultural Extension Service and the generally well established social services infrastructure in the St. paul area were important factors:
"In the 1980’s the majority of the Hmong population growth in Saint Paul was from Hmong in America sponsoring family members; previously settle Hmong sponsored fifty-six percent of all arrivals in 1984 (Deinard: 182). During the 1980’s many Hmong families chose to settle in the Twin Cities area because of a program started by the University of Minnesota Agricultural Extension Service. The agricultural service provided over six million dollars in education, equipment, and land to Hmong farmers and their families. Since the 1980’s program support for Hmong refugees continues to remain strong.
In Minnesota, there are over 1,000 churches that work with the Hmong community to sponsor refugees. Many of these programs support individuals and families by supervising the immigration process from its beginning in the camps to the resettlement process once the immigrants have arrived in the United States. Other popular services offered by Minnesota agencies include employment services and English classes. Some of the most popular Hmong service agencies and organizations include the Hmong Cultural Center, the Hmong Times, and the Hmong American Partnership." Source
Another interesting source, contemporaneous with the first wave of settlement, is here: http://www.cura.umn.edu/sites/cura.advantagelabs.com/files/publications/M8400.pdf
It's interesting to note, though, that there are more Hmong in California than Minnesota, primarily in Central CA. My understanding is that this largely had to do with General Vang Pao's residence there.
being forced to convert to fundamentalist christian beliefs.
Can someone address this? I'm having trouble understanding or believing this part of the story. If there is some truth to it I would like to know more.
There's a special able to be viewed online from Wisconsin Public Television. Because of such, it doesn't directly talk about the MSP area of Minnesota. It may give some insight on how tradition and religious belief plays into the modern Hmong household in the Midwest however.
Why is the Lutheran church so willing to sponsor and help non-Christians?
On a supplementary note, there's a book called The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman that focuses on resettled Hmong in the US, though in this case in California, and specifically on one family and their epileptic daughter. The book is a study on what culture is, through the lens of culture clash, using this immigrant family's experience as a demonstration. In order to demonstrate the clash, the book must explain the Hmong culture and the mindset, so you get a lot of context and background about the Hmong culture and what it was they wanted out of life. According to the author, what they wanted was the simple agrarian life they had always had in Laos.
The CIA had promised if they helped the US in the Vietnam War that they could come be US citizens and get what they needed to live here. To them, with little knowledge of life outside of their hills, it would be a transplant - same life in a different place. But that kind of life was difficult replicate in some of the places they settled - the first chapter of the book demonstrates the absolute rift between what they knew in Laos and what they found in the US, down to basic concepts of reality. There was a feeling of having been cheated, of America having broken its promise in many ways and of the Hmong having been forgotten and abandoned once they were no longer useful.
So what I am seeing here that other people are saying about the Agricultural Extension Service programs offered in MN makes sense within that context. If the author is correct that they just wanted their plots of land to tend and to live amongst themselves as they always had, agricultural assistance programs toward that end would be magnets.
The book is fascinating, by the way. You can read the intro chapter here and see if it... catches you.