June 20 has been declared World Refugee Day, a day to recognize refugees’ struggles and strengths in fleeing their home countries. The numbers are estimated at 60 million.
WUWM’s Pakou Lee’s parents were Hmong refugees who moved to Milwaukee in 1992. They had fled Laos following the Vietnam War, because family members had helped the U.S. and were being sought by communist troops. The two ended up in a refugee camp in Thailand, until they won permission to move to America. Pakou asked her mother Yee Cha about the family’s journey, with daughter Kia translating.