YANG XIONG
At the time that we filmed his interview, Yang Xiong was a social worker in a non-profit directed towards serving Asian youth located in the city of San Pablo, in the San Francisco Bay Area. His interest in social work comes out of his own childhood. Ethnically Hmong, he was born in Laos and immigrated to the United States as a child of seven. Learn about the hazadous journey through the jungles of Laos that he made with his parents, fleeing his native village in the closing days of the Vietnam War.
At the present time (2016), Yang Xiong lives in California's Central Valley, home to many Hmong. He now directs another non-profit social service agency, and is married with six children. His eloquence in talking about refugees and the refugee experience make the interview with him of special interest in this time where so many tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homelands.
The host of this episode is Jeff Schoenhard, a banker who formerly worked in refugee camps.
