A Field of Secrets; The Annex Gallery
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
a Field of Secrets directly confronts two enduring legacies of the U.S.’s secret war in Laos (1962-1975). First, that the war itself was kept a secret from Congress and the American people. And secondly, that HMoob and other Southeast Asian refugees who resettled to the U.S. came for “free.” By combining and layering declassified documents, portraits of everyday HMoob living, and refugee documents, this exhibit asks what archives (that of the state or the refugee) reveal and/or conceal about the realities and agency of war, trauma, living, and home-making.
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The general American public assumes that Southeast Asian refugees’ resettlement in the United States was a charitable gesture, where refugees came for free. Contrary to this belief, the Promissory Note seen in a Field of Secrets shows how the Yang family signed an agreement to repay the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services a total of $1,472. Greeted by this Promissory Note, the audience also encounters the lives of HMoob families who resettled in Wisconsin. All of the photographs, scenes, and stories presented throughout the exhibit reveal an overlooked aspect of this public secret: HMoob people continue to make and remake home(s) in a place that has kept U.S. imperialism a secret and minimized refugee lives as a charity.
The HMoob Story Project invites all of us to reflect, leave, and create new memories as a way to reconcile with the erasure of the Secret War from America’s national memory. The exhibit in its interactive medium will enable audience members to recognize shared human experiences beyond racial and ethnic lines, to establish new obligations to one another, and to create new forms of remembering and healing for communities haunted by ongoing war and racial trauma.
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Acknowledgements:
This material is supported in part by the: AmeriCorps, National Endowment for the Humanities, Wisconsin Humanities Council, Community Foundation of the Fox Valley, Green Bay Area Community Foundation, Oshkosh Area Community Foundation, Wisconsin Arts Board, Wisconsin Historical Society, and the Morgridge Center for Public Service (University of Wisconsin-Madison) Community Research Project Grant.
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Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this {article, book, exhibition, film, program, database, report, Web resource}, do not necessarily represent those of the funders.
Our Team.
This HMoob Story Project is uniquely driven by humanities experts in their respective fields such as HMoob Studies, Arts, Design, and Teaching. We utilize community-based participatory research (CBPR) methods to guide our community curation processes.
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Our community partners includes Cia Siab Inc. (La Crosse, WI), Freedom, Inc. (Madison, WI), Hmong American Women Association (Milwaukee, WI), Appleton Public Library (Appleton, WI), Wisconsin Historical Society (Madison, WI), the Hmong Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, the Critical Hmong Studies Certificate Program at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and the Hmong Studies Emphasis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ​
Our work, studies, and exhibitions have been co-sponsored by the Institute for Regional and International Studies (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Center for Southeast Asian Studies (University of Wisconsin-Madison), and Pepsi Programming Allocation Fund (University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh).
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Research, object collection, and planning are enabled by the Wisconsin Arts Board Creative Communities Grant, the Morgridge Center for Public Service (University of Wisconsin-Madison) Community Research Project Grant, and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Public Humanities Planning Grant.
Past Collaborators:
Amy Xiong, Emily Xiong, Kong Peng Pha, Liseng Xiong, Maij Xiong, Mai See Thao, Mickenzie Thao, Nou Lee, Paser Yang, Xong Xiong, and Yer Yang
Team during the "a Field of Secrets" opening at the Annex Gallery, UW-Oshkosh, 2025
Our exhibit takes a community-based and decolonized approach. Our vision is to:
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Center around HMoob experience
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Empower HMoob communities, cultivate collective healing, and promote cross-cultural understanding among the wider public.
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Center the theme of “cia siab” (hope) to understand HMoob lived experiences of war, resettlement, historical trauma, and healing.
How can you contribute?
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We are looking for objects you may have or would like to create; such as traditional objects, digital art, photography, artistic representation (2D, 3D, sculptures, mixed media, videos, audio) or objects of use in Wisconsin (e.g. couch, household items, etc). We are looking to capture youth, women, LGBTQ and elders’ stories.
We are interested in multigenerational stories, thus we need YOUR HELP to achieve and capture these stories.
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Questions to think about when submitting stories:
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What does "cia siab" means to you?
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What is your HMoob Wisconsin refugee story?
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What does healing look like for you?
Submission
Take a photo of object or have your audio file
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On a White background/ neutral background
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Preferred to take a high-quality photo with a ruler to show dimension. This will help with how to display your object in our exhibition design.
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Limit of 10 submissions, but no limit on file sizes.
SUBMIT YOUR STORY