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DRIVE through Frogtown, a seedy bit of St Paul, Minnesota, and the future of Laos is on display. On one side of University Avenue is Foodsmart, a supermarket owned by a Hmong businessman. On the other is the office of the Hmong Times, next door to the Asian-American press. Nearby are a Hmong bookshop, a Hmong chemist and dozens of other Hmong-run shops. Toua Xiong, who owns the supermarket, says he wants "to turn Frogtown into Hmongtown".
Unlike their relations in Communistrun Laos, the Hmong of Minnesota, some 70,000 of them, are evidently flourishing. The Hmong fought with America's CIA against North Vietnam during the Vietnam war. Hmong fighter pilots and troops attacked the Ho Chi Minh trail, part of which wound through Laos. When the Americans withdrew, thousands of...