Hmong New Years Interrupted By Suicide

As if the Hmong didn't have it bad enough as Seattle's Leading Minority That You Know The Least About, over the weekend Terry Barlow took his own life in dramatic fashion during their New Year celebration at the Seattle Center. Barlow slashed himself with a razor despite the best efforts of security guards, vendors and the general air of celebration and he later died at Harborview.

The Hmong are aboriginal Chinese who now live in areas across Asia in places such as China, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar. There's also a sizable population of Hmong here in the US which really got going after the war in Vietnam. The Hmong were active in that conflict as US military surrogates in Laos where we couldn't operate officially. Washington state isn't know for having a particularly high concentration of Hmong residents, but Minnesota is and that state houses the Hmong Cultural Center.