Pioneers of the Highlands: Touby, Tougeu, and Toulia Lyfoung

Education is arguably the most transformative element in colonial society, especially in the ways that education allowed for “imagined communities” to emerge in the new states of twentieth century Southeast Asia. This paper examines the identity transformation of the three Lyfoung brothers who left the Hmong highlands at a young age for a colonial education in the lowlands of Laos. Touby, Tougeu and Toulia Lyfoung would eventually emerge as pioneering Hmong leaders by virtue of their colonial education, multilingualism, and multiculturalism—their hybridized identity as Lao-Hmong in a Francophile Indochina. Examining the processes of how the Hmong entered the Lao state, I argue that the three brothers played a central role in integrating Hmong society into the newly created Kingdom of Laos in the post-independence period. Together, the three pioneers changed the direction and history of the Hmong and significantly impact Hmong identity.