Wausau ‘Hmong pioneer’ Thao dies at 66

WAUSAU – The patriarch of the first Hmong family to settle in Wausau has died.

Tong Xeng Thao, 66, collapsed Sunday evening at his home, family members said.

Thao arrived at Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee on Good Friday, April 9, 1976. As Thao disembarked the airplane with his wife, Pla Her Thao, their 4-year-old son Ying and Tong Xeng’s cousins Nou Vang Thao and Shong Thao, they were greeted by members of Wausau’s Trinity Lutheran Church, a group of sponsors who volunteered to help the newcomers settle in America.

The event changed forever the lives of the Thaos and the social fabric of Wausau area. Waves of Hmong refugees followed Tong Xeng Thao and his family to central Wisconsin. About 7,500 people of Asian descent, mostly Hmong, live in Marathon County, according to 2013 statistics compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau.

“He was very much a Hmong pioneer, in a sense,” said his son, Ying Thao, 44, of Milwaukee. “He was very groundbreaking for our Wausau community, to have so many Hmong people flourish.”

Starting anew didn’t always come easy.

“Even while I was learning and thinking, there was constantly the feeling that I was a guest in somebody else’s house,” Tong Xeng Thao told the Wausau Daily Herald in 2002. “(But) I haven’t felt that way for probably the past 15 years. I feel like this is home now.”

Tong Xeng Thao came to call central Wisconsin home because he fought in Gen. Vang Pao’s army in Laos. Backed by the CIA, the predominantly Hmong army fought communist forces in Laos in the so-called Secret War while Americans fought the North Vietnamese. After the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam, the Hmong were overwhelmed by Laotian forces, and thousands fled Lao for United Nations refugee camps in Thailand, then resettled in America.

Ying Thao said his family, while supported by church members who sponsored their resettlement, was isolated at first.

“There was no one you could relate to. You’re walking yourself into unknown territory,” he said. “We absolutely had nothing. Everything was a blank page. Even the simple fact of getting rice to eat was an adventure.”

Through it all, Tong Xeng Thao steadfastly worked to make his family’s life better and comfortable. Part of his father’s strength, Ying Thao said, came from his Christian faith, which he embraced while still in Laos. He helped establish the First Hmong Missionary Church, now located near Stettin Elementary School in the town of Stettin.

Tong Xeng Thao got his first American job making windows for Crestline, and went on to become a jobs developer at the Wausau Area Hmong Mutual Association, now known as Hmong American Center.

As a job developer, Tong Xeng Thao helped many other Hmong newcomers establish themselves in the Wausau area, said Peter Yang, the executive director of the Hmong American Center.

“He got to help the community and worked closely with people for many years,” Yang said. “He was just a gentleman who got along with everybody. He treated everybody with respect.”

Keith Uhlig can be reached at 715-845-0651 or at kuhlig@gannett.com. Find him on Facebook or on Twitter as @UhligK.