In Gary Yia Lee’s “Diaspora and the Predicament of Origins,” he presents the various myths surrounding the origins of the Hmong. After analyzing and assessing all the possibilities, he concludes that the most likely origin of the Hmong is that they originated from the southern geographic region of China; and due to sociopolitical reasons, they were forced to move southward into Southeast Asia. As a Hmong person myself, this article opened my eyes to the various myths surrounding the origins. When I asked around about our origins, I did get different responses; and with each new answer, I thought that maybe my previous informer was misinformed. Since I did not know much about the origin of my people, I did not feel I should question the credibility of the other’s thoughts about our origins. Now I know that there is definitely no one myth behind our origins. Even though Lee concluded that our most likely possible origin is from southern China, it’s still important for me to be critical about our origins since there are so many different myths and opinions surrounding this topic. What I still question though is the origins of the genesis myths that are similar to those in the bible. Were theses genesis myths a result of missionaries during the colonial and imperial era? Or are these geneses original to us, and if they are, does that connote a different study about the origin of man?
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