National differentiation and imagined authenticity: The Hmong New Year in multicultural Laos and the United States.

This article examines the transformations of the Hmong New Year's celebrations in two diasporic communities—one in rural Laos and the other in the United States—highlighting how cultural authenticity is shaped by differing national economic conditions and multicultural ideologies. In Laos, economic constraints and state policies aimed at promoting labor productivity have led to a reduced and privatized New Year's festival, whereas in the U.S., the celebration has expanded into a large, commercialized ethnic festival supported by capitalist resources and multicultural acceptance. Both communities recognize that their current practices differ significantly from past traditions and engage in discourses of "imagined authenticity," locating a more "authentic" version of the New Year either in the ancestral homeland of China (for Lao Hmong) or the natal homeland of Laos (for U.S. Hmong). The study underscores that cultural authenticity among diasporic peoples is a fluid social construct with temporal and spatial dimensions, influenced by historical displacement, economic realities, and state ideologies rather than fixed or original cultural forms.