Micro Media Industries: Hmong American Media Innovation in the Diaspora by Lori Kido Lopez (review)

Abstract

Lori Kido Lopez’s second book, Micro Media Industries: Hmong American Media Innovation in the Diaspora, draws on her multiyear fieldwork from 2012 to 2018 with Hmong American communities in Wisconsin (Appleton, Green Bay, and Milwaukee), California (Fresno), and Minnesota (Minneapolis– St. Paul) to provide an account of Hmong media industries. The Hmong diaspora is constituted in relation to a nonsovereign homeland that is not bounded by a specific nationstate, for Hmong remain an ethnic minority in countries of origin such as Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and China.1 Hmong Americans face vastly different challenges than diasporic populations originating from and identifying with a nationstate with a strong popular media presence. Lacking a home country of their own limits the scale, power, and available resources of Hmong media. Despite all these difficulties, Hmong Americans have found ways to build and maintain a vibrant media landscape composed almost exclusively of micro media industries and smallscale legacy and new media productions ranging from newspapers to podcasts, from radio shows to social media influencing.