Hmong Americans at 400,000: California Leads With 110,000, From Laos Refugees to U.S. Mayors and an Olympic Champion
About 400,000 people in the United States identified as Hmong in the U.S. Census Bureau's 2025 American Community Survey. California is home to about 112,000 of them, roughly three in ten of the national total and more than any other state, followed by Minnesota with about 110,000 and Wisconsin with about 66,000. Most of their parents and grandparents arrived as refugees from Laos after the Vietnam War ended in 1975; half a century on, the U.S.-born second and third generations are now the majority, and the community has produced mayors, state lawmakers and an Olympic champion.
By metropolitan area (2020-2024 five-year estimates), Minneapolis-St. Paul in Minnesota has the largest Hmong community in the country, at about 97,000. Fresno, California, is home to about 37,000 Hmong residents and Sacramento to about 35,000. St. Paul's roughly 33,000 Hmong residents make up about one in ten of the city's population, the highest share of any U.S. city. Counting only those who identify as Hmong alone, the population grew 114 percent in 25 years, from 175,000 in 2000 to 375,000 in 2025.
The Hmong trace their origins to southern China and migrated over centuries into the mountains of northern Laos. During the Vietnam War, the CIA ran a "secret war" in Laos and recruited a guerrilla force drawn largely from the Hmong, some 30,000 to 40,000 fighters who aided U.S. forces against North Vietnam and the Pathet Lao, under Royal Lao Army General Vang Pao (1929-2011).
When the Pathet Lao took over Laos in 1975, Vang Pao and others were airlifted out of Long Tieng that May; by the end of 1975, about 40,000 Hmong had crossed into refugee camps in Thailand. Between 1975 and 1982, a total of 53,700 Hmong and other highland Lao refugees were resettled in the United States, with further waves arriving through the 1980s and 1990s. Sponsored by churches and charities, families were first scattered across many states; over time, kinship, climate and work drew them together again, forming today's large communities in California's Central Valley, Minnesota's Twin Cities and Wisconsin.
The year 2025 marked 50 years since large-scale Hmong arrivals in the United States began, and the population has flipped: immigrants were 55 percent of Hmong Americans in 2000 but only 31 percent in 2023, while the U.S.-born number about 225,000. The median age is 26.8, and just 19.3 among the U.S.-born. About 73 percent of those aged 5 and older speak Hmong at home, and 71 percent are proficient in English, rising to 85 percent among the U.S.-born. Among adults 25 and older, 26 percent hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the median Hmong household income was $85,700 in 2023. Nine in ten immigrants have lived in the United States for more than a decade, and 85 percent have become citizens.
Public office tells the story of the community's roots. In 1991, Choua Lee won a seat on the St. Paul school board, becoming the first Hmong American elected to public office in the United States. In 2002, Mee Moua won a special election to the Minnesota Senate, the first Hmong American in a state legislature; today, more than a dozen Hmong Americans hold elected office in Minnesota's legislature and local governments. In 2022, Sheng Thao was elected mayor of Oakland, California, the first Hmong American mayor of a major U.S. city (she was removed by a recall vote in 2024). In November 2025, Kaohly Her was elected mayor of St. Paul, the city's first woman mayor and first Hmong mayor, and took office in January 2026.
In sports, the best-known name is gymnast Sunisa "Suni" Lee, born to a Hmong family in St. Paul. At the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, she won the women's all-around gold medal, becoming the first Hmong American Olympian and Olympic champion; across two Olympic Games she has won six medals.
For a community of 400,000, Hmong-language media barely exists. St. Paul has two community newspapers: the Hmong Times, founded in 1998 and the longest-running Hmong newspaper in the country, and Hmong Today, founded in 2004. Both publish every two weeks, mostly in English, alongside community radio programs and small television operations. Researchers note that there is no daily newspaper published in Hmong and no nationwide, general-interest Hmong-language news organization; day-to-day news still travels largely through mainstream outlets and word of mouth within the community.
The Hmong New Year, Noj Peb Caug, literally "eat thirty," marks the end of the rice harvest, when the old year is farewelled and the new one welcomed; young people still court through pov pob, a ball-tossing song exchange. Every late December, the Hmong New Year celebration at the Fresno Fairgrounds in California, organized by the nonprofit The Hmong, Inc., runs for about four days and draws more than 100,000 visitors each year, widely regarded as the largest Hmong New Year celebration in the United States. The 50th edition, held in late December 2025, coincided with 50 years of Hmong life in America. St. Paul and other cities hold their celebrations in November and December, staggered so families can travel between them.
GSM Global publishes news in 23 languages, including a Hmong edition.
Source: GSM · USA
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 加州Chico市苗族新年庆典上，身着传统服饰的苗族居民合影（资料图）。Carol M. Highsmith 摄，美国国会图书馆藏，美国国家公园管理局发布，公共领域。 / Hmong residents in traditional dress at the Hmong New Year celebration in Chico, California (file photo). Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress collection, via the U.S. National Park Service, public domain.
