Hmong Nurses Association

Hmong Nurses Association (HNA) incorporated in 2018 and is a 501c(3) non-profit and professional organization in the United States that brings together Hmong nurses and the community. Currently there is no other organization representing Hmong nurses. Our vision is to empower Hmong nurses to strengthen their career and reach their fullest potential in the nursing profession allowing for an increase of influence, advocacy, mentorship, capacity building and in impacting community health. 

Hmong arrived in the United States in 1975 as political refugees after a devastating war. Hmong are a tight knit community with distinct culture, oral traditions, and healing practices. Like other minority community, Hmong have suffered from racism, stigma, and poor access to resources. Besides socio-economic challenges, Hmong faces debilitating health disparities including mental and physical health that will require community specific strategies.  Currently about 1,000 Hmong nurses provide care to Minnesotans; however, they do not have a platform to have their voices heard. The goal of this professional organization is to engage Hmong nurses and to increase the confidence level of Hmong nurses to address the pressing community health care needs of Hmong. 

Currently, there are no other organization or association of its kind that represents the Hmong nursing profession. In an effort to bridge this gap, the Hmong Nurses Association (HNA) was formed in 2012. Hmong Nurses Association was created to provide a platform for Hmong Nurses to share their experiences, ideas and goals of improving the Hmong community and to foster professional growth and development amongst Hmong nurses. HNA provides a unique opportunity for Hmong nurses as well as the communities they serve because of its mission and purpose. HNA was incorporated in 2018 and is a 501c(3) non-profit and professional nursing organization in the United States that brings together Hmong nurses and the community.

HNA aspire to document the Hmong sacrifice, the origin, and evolution of a Hmong ethnic healthcare work force, memorializing the story of a group of Hmong women among the first of its people to be trained in Western healthcare to work as nurses on the frontlines of the Secret War in Laos.