The Hmong are subsistence farming mountain people who live in China and Southeast Asia. Many of those in Laos allied themselves with the U.S. during the Vietnam war, hoping to protect their way of life. They are one of the montangard groups referred to in discussions of the war. Many worked directly with the CIA in northern Laos and some were part of the Hmong guerilla/Royal Lao Army under General Vang Pao. In May, 1975, following the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam and the communist victories in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, the CIA evacuated 2,500 Hmong from Long Cheng, the CIA stronghold. Over the course of the next ten years, it is estimated that more than 100,000 Hmong fled to Thailand. The first almost 35,000 refugees arrived in the US in December, 1975. They were re-settled in various towns across the US, including Minneapolis (MN), Providence (RI) Portland (OR), cities in Wisconsin (WI), and several cities in California. Although many eventually moved to the central valley of California, Long Beach was home to a thriving Hmong community. The first five Hmong families arrived in Long Beach in 1975 and by the mid-eighties, over 500 Hmong families lived there, drawn by family, climate, and social service support. Secondary and tertiary migration to places with more jobs and lower cost housing resulted in a dwindling population, estimated to be only about sixty families in 2005. Traditional Hmong society was self-sufficient, agrarian and isolated, with no running water or electricity. A written language was not developed until the early 1900's, and formal education was limited. Although most the immigrants have limited literacy, they brought with them a rich culture dating back thousands of years. The Hmong series, developed by Karen Harper, focuses mainly on some of those culture bearers and community members who were striving to preserve the culture as well as provide support to the community. Initially, to understand the art form of the story cloth, Harper was interested in recording the folk stories associated with the story cloth. This naturally led to a focus on the historical experience of their life in Laos and to an interest in understanding their adjustment to American life in Long Beach. Integral to that adjustment was both the development of the Hmong Association of Long Beach, a refugee mutual assistance organization and the role that traditional arts played in the lives of the refugees. Because both the narrators' and the interviewer's primary focus was on community program development and grants funding rather than a cohesive oral history plan, the interviews took place over the course of several years. During this time, the interviewer worked with the members of the Hmong community to help facilitate cultural preservation, beginning with the production of and funding for the Hmong New Year celebration in Long Beach. Later, as part of the plan to seek funding to support the work of artists and the Hmong Association of Long Beach, additional interviews were conducted, including two that were done jointly with ethnomusicologist and cultural preservationist Terry Liu. These were intended to provide documentation of the artists' lives in Laos, their artistic development, and the integration of Hmong culture into their American lives. With the encouragement and guidance of Liu and the Sandra Gibson, then director of the Long Beach Public Corporation for the Arts, the dream of a Hmong culture school began to take shape. As the Long Beach population of Hmong has dwindled and leaders and master artists have moved out, a central core of outstanding old and new leaders continue to serve the Hmong community with extraordinary dedication.