Suni Lee: the daughter of refugees represents America
Sunisa (Suni) Lee made history on July 29th, 2021 when she won the all-around gymnastics gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. She is the first Hmong-American Olympian and the first Asian American to win the all-around gymnastics gold. Lee retweeted a video of her family and community jumping for joy in reaction to her historic win—referring to them as “the people I do it all for.”
In the weeks since her win, the public has applauded Lee for making history, but her achievement is even more inspiring in the context of the challenges her family and her community of Hmong people have faced as refugees in America. The Hmong are an ethnic group with a distinct language and culture. In the 1960s, the United States CIA recruited the Hmong people to execute covert operations against the North Vietnamese communist Pathet Lao in what became known as the Secret War.
After 30,000 to 40,000 Hmong men were killed and the Secret War ended, the Laos government captured or killed Hmong soldiers and families who had sided with the CIA. With their lives on the line, hundreds of thousands of Hmong refugees fled Laos. Suni Lee’s parents were children at the time, and they fled Laos with their families to refugee camps in Thailand before settling in Minnesota.
Suni reminds us of the America we can be — a country where refugees and the children of refugees are respected and accepted.
Although Lee’s family gained entry to the United States, the struggle for her family and her community was not over. The United States did not guarantee citizenship for refugees and, at the time, a Gallup Poll indicated that 54 percent of Americans opposed the resettlement of Southeast Asian refugees. After suffering through the trauma of the Secret War, the Hmong people had to build a life from scratch in a new country where they were not welcome.
Fast forward to today, and the Hmong people are still facing xenophobia and racism exacerbated by COVID-19. In 2020, hate crimes against Asian Americans increased by 150%, fueled by racist rhetoric and misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Suni reminds us of the America we can be—a country where refugees and the children of refugees are respected and accepted. If we are proud of Suni Lee, we can also be proud of the refugees, migrants, and immigrants in our communities. Now that the Olympics have drawn to a close and the news cycle turns, let us remember how Lee’s win made us feel, and let that drive us to advocate for policies that protect refugees, the children of refugees, and Asian Americans more broadly.
