The etymology of compassion is Latin, meaning co-suffering.. Compassion involves feeling for another and is a precursor to empathy, the feeling as another capacity for better person centered acts of active compassion, in common parlance active compassion is the desire to alleviate another's suffering.
The Hmong people are in the U.S. as victims of US policies in the Vietnam War and then victims of persecution by Laos after the war. There are others who supported the U.S. but are still in Asia, facing persecution for their support of America. Many escaped to Thailand, but many of them have been forced back to Laos.
Social scientists estimate that there are between six and seven million Hmong in the world. Until recently, almost all Hmong lived in the mountains of southern China, Laos, Thailand, and northern Vietnam. Chinese oppression during the nineteenth century and the rise of communism in Vietnam following World War II pushed many Hmong into Laos, where about 300,000 Hmong lived peacefully during the 1960s.