> [!NOTE]+ Meta > Author:: Saqib Rahim > Reference:: https://nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/textiles-show-history-secret-war-laos-women-perceived-conflict-rcna79191 > Date:: 2023 > Tags:: #warp #Laos #textiles #embroidery > WeftLinks:: [[Migrant and refugee value of craft]] > Claim:: [[Claim - Craft improves well-being]] [[Claim - Craft fosters the resilience of a minority cultural group]] > [!SUMMARY] Summary > As refugees, Hmong developed a tradition of story cloths to cope with loss of homeland. ### Highlights ![[Attachments/97fd6ece5295fd1dc89f2ce442f6ad1c_MD5.webp]] A plane douses villages with chemical agents. To escape the violence, some villagers cross the Mekong River to become refugees in Thailand. Weaving also had therapeutic value. As the war concluded, thousands of Hmong families found themselves in refugee camps in neighboring Thailand. It was there that Hmong women developed a tradition of story cloths: grand embroidered scenes of everyday life and the war that shattered it. > “There are many studies on textile-making and its benefits to mental health,” Pachia Lucy Vang, a Hmong American designer, said by email. “These forms of expression helped people deal with what was on their mind. The longing and loss for homeland.” Tounekham Koulabdara, who fled southern Laos as a young woman and later settled in the U.S., said weaving was partly an act of Buddhist temperance: an effort to carry on despite the daily chaos of war.