The College of Arts and Letters Department of Romance and Classical Studies will premiere the documentary film “Hmong Memory at the Crossroads” at 4 p.m. Monday in the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center Auditorium, 219 S. Harrison Road. Admission is free and the event is open to the public. A discussion and reception will follow.
“Hmong Memory at the Crossroads” weaves the stories of three generations of Hmong refugees in the Midwest and France. Liachoua Naolu Lee, a Hmong-American from Rochester Hills, revisits his past as a former refugee and son of Hmong veterans of the French Indochina War and of the American Secret War in Laos.
Lee’s story begins in Detroit and then takes him to France, where he and his family sought asylum before immigrating to the United States, and ends in an emotional return to his homeland, Laos, for the first time in 40 years. Along the way, his personal story is brought into conversation with those of others from the Hmong community, American Vietnam veterans, French Indochina War veterans, historians and government officials in the Midwest and France.
“Hmong Memory at the Crossroads” is a production of MSU, in partnership with the Humanities Without Walls Consortium based at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign. Event co-sponsors include The Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives, The College of Arts and Letters, Asian Studies Center, The Department of English and Global Studies in the Arts and Humanities.
The film was nominated for Best Feature Film at the Indie Fest USA International Film Festival, Garden Grove, California, in October.
With external funds recently secured through the Humanities Without Walls Consortium, a sequel to this documentary is currently in production, tentatively titled “Growing up Hmong at the Crossroads.” It will spotlight the Hmong diasporic experience from the perspective of second- and third-generation Hmong.
For more information, visit the film’s website at http://hmc.cal.msu.edu.