Many Hmong immigrants live in poverty and superstition in Michigan

Francis X. Donnelly:

The Hmong, concentrated in Detroit, Pontiac and Warren, are one of the fastest-growing immigrant groups in Michigan. Officially, their numbers more than doubled during the 1990s, from 2,300 to 5,400, although group leaders say the population is undercounted and closer to 15,000.

They have turned to schools and social service agencies for help, forcing the financially strained institutions to expand services. Nearly a third of the group lives in poverty.

Even those who are forging successful lives in the United States worry that their culture is quickly slipping away.

Despite the growth of the group, Michigan residents know little about their newest neighbors.

The Hmong, primitive farmers from the mountains of Laos, were recruited by the United States to fight communists during the Vietnam War. They've been around for 5,000 years with customs that date back just as far.

The eldest Hmong (pronounced "mung") believe in spirits, good ones and bad, community members said. Instead of doctors, they go to shamans, who heal them by invoking those spirits. They chase away trouble by sacrificing chickens and hogs inside their homes.

The Hmong "have a defined hierarchy," said Lynn Crotty, director of child development for the Oakland Livingston Human Service Agency. "You work through the men, present everything to them."

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