Lisa Lee Herrick reads from her recent essay Eating Thirty In Fresno: Finding Home At Hmong New Year in the online publication Boom California and talks with FM89’s news director Alice Daniel about why so many Hmong refugees came to Fresno after the CIA’s secret war in Laos under the guidance of their leader General Vang Pao and why decades later, the city’s Hmong New Year is still a global draw.
Boom California is an online journal published by the University of California Press designed to inspire conversations about social and cultural issues. It’s now housed at Fresno State. Herrick’s article is part of a new and ongoing series of essays about the Central Valley.