On a Hmong Poetics of Ecocide

Abstract: This article explores chemical warfare through Hmong American poet Mai Der Vang's book Yellow Rain . A scientific, political, and cultural incident, "yellow rain," according to countless Hmong survivors, is the name for the yellow sticky chemical substance that fell from the sky across Southeast Asia in the aftermath of the US war in Vietnam. While initial investigations found that yellow rain was a chemical weapon, scientists later dismissed Hmong testimonies to assert that it was, instead, a result of local bee feces. I approach Vang's text as a formulation of an ecocidal poetics that exposes the relationship between local, place based Indigenous knowledge in the context of neocolonial warfare. Dwelling deeply within the ecocidal discourse of US state archival erasure and documentary practices, Yellow Rain materializes Hmong epistemologies of their local ecological system as a form of historical reckoning. Vang's work offers a distinct contribution to critical refugee studies' critiques of US empire.