From Myanmar to Minnesota: Historical Context
The stories in this collection begin long before the journey to Minnesota. They emerge from distinct cultures, generations of community life, and a history of shifting borders, colonial rule, and struggles for freedom. Understanding that history helps us recognize both what people have endured and what they bring to the places they call home.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, is home to many ethnic nationalities with their own languages, traditions, and identities. Being from Myanmar does not necessarily mean being ethnically Burmese, or Bamar. Many peoples share this homeland, each carrying their own histories, traditions, and ways of belonging. The communities that have made their way to Minnesota reflect part of that diversity. Not every ethnic group from Myanmar is represented in this project, and twenty stories cannot speak for everyone. They offer an invitation to begin knowing one another.
Before Displacement: A Diverse Homeland
Long before British colonization, the region was home to kingdoms, principalities, and villages whose relationships shifted through trade, migration, alliances, and war. Mon kingdoms, Bamar dynasties, Shan principalities, and the kingdom of Arakan were among the societies that shaped its history. Communities maintained connections across lands that would later be divided by national borders. Their languages and identities are older than the boundaries on today’s maps.
Britain conquered Burma through three wars between 1824 and 1885. Colonial rule changed how land and people were governed, administering many upland communities separately from the lowlands. As independence approached, people held different hopes for what freedom would mean. The 1947 Panglong Agreement brought Aung San and representatives of Shan, Kachin, and Chin communities together around promises of cooperation and autonomy, but not every people had a place at that table. Burma gained independence in 1948. The question of how its many peoples would share power—and have a meaningful say over their own lives—remained unresolved. Armed conflicts followed.
Those conflicts reached into ordinary life. A school closed. A parent left to find work and did not return for months. A family heard that soldiers were approaching and gathered what they could carry. Across the interviews in this collection, history takes these intimate forms.
Distinct Peoples, Connected Histories
The people living through this history were never one interchangeable community.
Bamar, or Burmese, communities make up Myanmar’s largest ethnic population and have played a central role in the country’s language, literature, art, cuisine, and Buddhist traditions. Bamar kingdoms shaped much of the region’s political history, and the Burmese language eventually became the country’s primary language of government and education. Although national institutions and the military have often promoted Bamar language and culture at the expense of other peoples, Bamar identity should not be confused with support for military rule. Bamar families have also experienced poverty, political imprisonment, violence, and displacement, and many participated in the democracy movements of 1988 and 2021. Their experiences, like those of every community, contain different beliefs, choices, and relationships to power.
S’gaw K'nyaw and Pwo Communities carry languages, weaving traditions, stories, and spiritual practices rooted in southeastern Myanmar, the Ayeyarwady Delta, and neighboring Thailand. We use K'nyaw, a name native speakers use for themselves, rather than defaulting to the colonial-era term Karen. Pwo communities have their own languages and self-designations, which we also honor. Since fighting began in 1949, generations of families have experienced displacement, with many finding refuge across the Thai border. Yet their memories also hold village celebrations, shared meals, and neighbors who cared for one another despite hardship.
Karenni communities come from eastern Myanmar, especially the homeland officially called Kayah State. Karenni encompasses 7 distinct tribes, including Kayah and Kayan; the names Karenni and Kayah do not mean the same thing for every family. Their history includes self-governing principalities and struggles over incorporation into Burma. In this collection, that larger history lives alongside memories of childhood games, parents’ sacrifices, and efforts to keep culture present through food, celebrations, and community gatherings.
Kachin communities, including Jinghpaw, have deep roots in northern Myanmar and neighboring borderlands. Language, kinship, music, and, for many families, Christian faith sustain connections across distance. Conflict and religious discrimination have separated families and displaced communities, including after a seventeen-year ceasefire broke down in 2011. The Kachin stories here also speak of singing, teaching, caring for siblings, and finding ways to do meaningful work in a new home.
Chin communities carry many languages and identities rooted in western Myanmar and adjoining areas of India and Bangladesh. Village relationships, textiles, stories, and Christian faith hold an important place in many families. Military abuses, religious persecution, and hardship have pushed people to leave. For Ram Lian Thang, whose story appears here, the journey is also about education—and wanting his son to know opportunities beyond the hunger he remembers from childhood.
Lisu communities maintain their own languages, clothing, family traditions, and identity across Myanmar and neighboring countries. Lisu participants in this project emphasize the importance of being recognized as a distinct people. Their stories show how community travels: through a grandfather’s care, a church that welcomes a newcomer, a teacher’s encouragement, or a restaurant owner helping another family build a livelihood.
Mon communities have longstanding roots in southern Myanmar and Thailand. Their kingdoms, language, literature, and Buddhist traditions helped shape the region long before the modern nation existed. Conflict and restrictions on language and education have made cultural preservation an enduring concern. For Bi Jae, preserving that connection also means remembering his parents’ simple reminder: never forget that you are Mon.
Shan communities, many of whom identify as Tai, have deep ties to eastern Myanmar and neighboring countries. Their languages, literature, Buddhist traditions, and histories of Shan principalities remain sources of belonging. Struggles for autonomy, military violence, and forced relocation have driven many families into Thailand, carrying connections to places they could no longer safely remain.
Rakhine communities have deep roots along Myanmar’s western coast in the land historically known as Arakan, now called Rakhine State. Their history includes an independent kingdom shaped by connections with South and Southeast Asia, and their language, literature, Buddhist traditions, food, and coastal way of life remain important sources of identity. Rakhine communities have experienced poverty, political marginalization, armed conflict, and displacement. Although Rakhine and Rohingya families share the same region, they are distinct peoples with different histories and identities. The pain carried by one community should not be used to erase the pain or humanity of another.
Rohingya communities are a predominantly Muslim people with generations of history in northern Rakhine State. For decades, they have faced restrictions on citizenship, education, employment, movement, marriage, and family life. Myanmar’s 1982 citizenship law left most Rohingya without recognized citizenship, making them one of the world’s largest stateless populations. In 2017, military violence drove more than 750,000 people into Bangladesh, where many remain in refugee camps separated from the homes, villages, and family members they left behind. Their story is not defined only by persecution. Rohingya families continue to preserve language, faith, memory, and community across displacement.
Wa communities live primarily in the mountainous borderlands of northern and eastern Shan State and across the border in China. Wa languages belong to the Austroasiatic language family, and Wa communities carry traditions connected to village life, farming, oral history, and relationships with the land. Their homeland has often been described mainly through stories of armed groups and the drug trade, obscuring the lives of families whose identities are much older and more complex than the conflicts surrounding them. Borders and political struggles have divided communities, but language and kinship continue to connect people across them.
Pa-O communities have deep roots in southern Shan State and Mon State, with communities also living in Thailand. They have their own language, literature, clothing, and traditions, and many families practice Theravada Buddhism. Pa-O identity is often expressed through distinctive dark clothing, colorful head coverings, community festivals, and efforts to preserve language across generations. Their history includes struggles against feudal control, demands for greater self-determination, and the continuing effects of armed conflict. Pa-O people share cultural relationships with neighboring communities while remaining a distinct people with their own ways of remembering and belonging.
Naga communities belong to many distinct tribes whose ancestral lands stretch across the mountains now divided between northwestern Myanmar and northeastern India. Each carries its own language, village history, clothing, songs, and traditions. For generations, people moved between villages and relatives without thinking of themselves as crossing an international boundary. Modern borders divided families and, in some places, even cut through villages. Many Naga communities have also faced geographic isolation, armed conflict, and limited access to education, healthcare, and roads. Their lives remind us that a line drawn on a map cannot easily divide a people’s sense of home.
There are many more histories than these pages can hold. Ta'ang, Danu, Kokang, Lahu, and numerous other peoples belong to Myanmar’s story, whether or not their voices appear in this collection. Among them, Rohingya communities have faced systematic exclusion and mass displacement, including the military violence of 2017 that forced hundreds of thousands to flee to Bangladesh. The limits of this project are not the limits of whose lives deserve to be remembered.
Why Families Left
Military rule following the 1962 coup deepened repression across the country. The violent suppression of the 1988 democracy movement forced another generation into exile. Reforms beginning in 2011 brought hope, but the military retained substantial power and fighting continued in ethnic homelands. The 2021 coup overturned the civilian government and brought renewed repression and widening displacement. For families already abroad, it also brought fear for loved ones and renewed uncertainty about when—or whether—they could return.
These histories matter because the word refugee can make a complicated journey sound simple. A person does not simply wake up one morning and become a refugee. Behind that word may be years of moving from village to village, interrupted schooling, separation, and waiting. Some families spent decades in camps in Thailand. Others lived without secure documentation in neighboring countries. Some children knew their parents’ homeland only through stories. Still others came to the United States for education or to join family. There was no single journey here.