Hmong in Exile: the Double Diaspora of a Non-Han Minority Population

Abstract

The Hmong number some three million people in the southern Chinese provinces of Guangxi, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Yunnan. They are one of three to four major ethnic-linguistic groups, such as the Hmu and A Hmao (see below) classified by the Chinese under the ancient term of ©Miao© owing to remote linguistic and historical connections between them. Since the early 1950s the Chinese government has pursued a policy of positive discrimination towards the 55 peoples or groups of peoples officially classified as ethnic or national minorities under the minzu shibie project of national identification (see, for example, Mullaney 2011). The category of ©Miao© is one of these 55