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The Refugee Soldier: A Critique of Recognition and Citizenship in the Hmong Veterans' Naturalization Act of 1997
- positions: asia critique
- Duke University Press
- Volume 20, Number 3, Summer 2012
- pp. 685-712
- Article
- Additional Information
This essay examines the Hmong Veterans' Naturalization Act of 1997 to critically engage with the context of the "secret war" in Laos (1961-75) and the "refugee question." In doing so, it explores the ways in which the state deploys the concept of citizenship: first, as a validation of the Hmong soldiers' sacrifice and, second, as a reward for the Hmong refugee who inhabits a condition of statelessness. This essay foregrounds the link between the refugee and soldier figures to formulate the refugee soldier, a conjoining of the soldier who fought abroad and the refugee who lives at home, as a critical category of analysis that imbues the refugee figure with social and political critiques of the nation-state.