The Spirit of Fearless Living

A Hmong Journey Through War and Refuge

Kao Choua Vue

Available October 2026

Minnesota Historical Society Press

Description

An unfiltered, deeply personal account of war and survival as told by the author’s mother—a Hmong woman who endured bombings, famine, and forced displacement during the US Secret War in Laos.

The Spirit of Fearless Living is a memoir shaped by over fifty hours of oral storytelling between Kao Choua Vue and her mother, Mee Thao—a Hmong refugee who lived through war, exile, and the precarious search for safety in a dangerous world. 

Born in the mountains of Laos, Mee Thao survived the broad devastation of the Vietnam War, escaped government persecution, and lived in Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand before immigrating to the United States with her children in 1986. Her story spans ancestral traditions, wartime survival, addiction and family turmoil, and the layered realities of motherhood in exile. 

Vue writes through her mother’s eyes, preserving Mee Thao’s voice, memories, and cultural wisdom in a narrative filled with emotional depth and historical insight. Along the way, Vue offers readers a powerful record of Hmong ancestral life and a woman’s survival across landscapes of violence and upheaval. The Spirit of Fearless Living is a testament to the enduring power of oral history to carry truth through generations. Rooted in reverence and authenticity, it offers readers a rare, firsthand window into a cultural experience that remains largely untold.

Author Information

Kao Choua Vue is a graduate student in Buddhist classics training for chaplaincy. Dedicated to preserving Hmong history and offering spiritual care, she splits her time between graduate school in Northern California and her home in St. Paul, Minnesota.

• Hardcover
• 230 pages
• 5 1/2 in W | 8 1/2 in H
• ISBN: 9781681343471