Gary Yia Lee

Who is Gary Yia Lee?

Gary Yia Lee is a Hmong anthropologist and author based in Australia. Lee was born in Ban Houei Kouang, Muong Mok, Xieng Khouang, Laos. In 1961, his family was displaced by the civil war and they joined other Hmong refugees in the city of Vientiane. He excelled in a Lao school system run by the French, and had hopes of attending college in France. In 1965, after winning a Colombo Plan scholarship, he traveled to Australia instead to finish high school

Lee confesses that he was taken aback by a country and a schooling system so different from the French model under which he had been previously educated. Sports were emphasized and valued, he says, perhaps even more than academic skill. Nonetheless, upon finishing high school in 1969, Lee enrolled at the University of New South Wales. "I chose social work because every time I came home, there were all these poor, starving refugees with nowhere to go, and no food," said Lee in a 2005 interview. "I thought I might be able to do something for them, but . . . after I did two years of social work, it’s all about . . . case work, working on advising people on how to sort out their personal problems. And I thought, ‘How can I do this in Laos? There are thousands of starving people! I can’t just give advice—and nobody would employ me." As a result, Lee pleaded with his brother-in-law and his uncle Touby LyFoung to help him stay in Australia to earn a Master's degree in community development.