This article analyses the social implications of the recent mass conversions to
Protestantism by one-third of the one million Hmong in Vietnam. The conversions
have been condemned by the Vietnamese state, while being understood by international
human rights activists as acts of conscience on the part of the Hmong converts.
This article focuses on the internal debate and divisions surrounding conversion
among the Hmong themselves. The converts believe that Protestantism is the only way
to alter the ethnic group’s marginal status in Vietnam while the unconverted Hmong
see conversion as a betrayal of Hmong ethnicity. Such conflicting views have been
causing deep fractures in Hmong society.