'We’re very fortunate': North Carolina's Hmong farmers regrow after Helene flooding

Show Caption

MORGANTON, N.C. −  On the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, Tou Lee walks through a muddy field as he surveys the damage on his 11-acre farm.

Limp kale, moldy rice and pumpkins scattered like basketballs − all lost when Hurricane Helene, downgraded to a tropical storm, swept through the region Sept. 27.

Set in the small Burke County town of Morganton about an hour east of Asheville, Lee’s One Fortune Farm is part of a community of Hmong farmers who have been growing produce here for decades since they immigrated as refugees after the Vietnam War. 

Lee, 49, is known for his unique Asian produce, which he brings to the local farmers markets each week. This season he planned to introduce new items like winged bean and black rice, but now those plans are gone. In total, he suffered more than $62,000 in damage.

It’s a big hit for a small family farm, but Lee said other people have lost much more.

“We’re very fortunate,” he said. 

Helene was one of the deadliest natural disasters on the U.S. mainland in nearly 20 years. It killed at least 103 people in North Carolina, including 43 in hard-hit Buncombe County and one person in Burke County, where the Lees live.

Walls of water washed away homes and flooded farmland across the region, raising concerns over possible soil contamination.

Lee’s farm was flooded with more than 2 feet of water from a nearby Canoe Creek, a deluge that wiped out most of his fall crops. His relatives’ small plots also were damaged.

But the Hmong, especially the elders, are no stranger to loss, he said. And they know how to grow and rebuild.

“Many of them will say the same thing: ‘We went through worse,’” he said. 

A new life in North Carolina 

Lee said his family and other Hmong people were drawn to North Carolina because it reminded them of their mountainous homeland in Laos. And their vegetables grew well in the humid climate.

Their culture is based on farming, and knowledge has been passed down from generations. 

“We are taught as children that this is the way of life,” said Lee’s wife, Chue Lee, who manages the business. “It’s ingrained in us that we have to put our hands in the dirt to get anything out of it.”

North Carolina has the nation's fourth-largest Hmong population − about 13,000 people, according to the 2020 U.S. census.

Many have settled in the Morganton area, where their homes are easily spotted by the small vegetable patches outside. 

Tou Lee grows his food the traditional way, with organic compost and no chemical pesticides. His customers at first were wary of some of his more unique offerings, but he’s now a favorite at the farmers markets in Asheville and Black Mountain. His produce is used in some of the area’s upscale restaurants.

Chinese broccoli, yu choy (a sweeter form of bok choy), and heirloom rice from the mountains of Laos are big hits.

The Hmong, an ethnic group from Southeast Asia, have fought for generations to preserve their cultural heritage as they fled imperialist China in the 1800s and scattered to the mountain regions of Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

Many Hmong soldiers served as allies to the U.S. in the Vietnam War. Their villages were destroyed and thousands died as they were forced into the jungles and made their way into refugee camps in Thailand before eventually finding refuge here.

There legacy is one of survival and rebuilding, and for Lee, it’s crucial to continue that legacy in the U.S. and share that hope with the community, especially in the wake of the Helene disaster. He said the Hmong farmers keep a positive outlook. 

“Everybody is actually not depressed,” Lee said. “They said: ‘This is nothing. We can go back and grow this in a day or two.’ It’s an optimistic view coming from a land and time where everything literally was taken from you.”

Lee’s story 

Lee and his wife came to the U.S. as children in the 1980s after they were sponsored by family members.

He said he was 3 months old when his father was killed during the Vietnam War while helping U.S. pilots on scouting missions over the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

As his town collapsed in the war’s aftermath, Lee and his family fled into the jungle. His brother and sister died before they were able to make it to a refugee camp in Thailand. 

Eventually, his uncle helped him and his grandmother come to the U.S., where Lee met his wife. The couple have six children, but they don’t have much interest in farming.

“When you say 'farm,' they’re like vampires to this garlic,” Lee said with a laugh as he held up some garlic in the field.

It’s a common feeling with the younger Hmong generations, who prefer to live in cities and carve out new career paths, but Lee hopes to change that. 

He himself worked in tech and as a product manager for a pharmaceutical company before returning to his roots on the farm several years ago. He plans to use his business experience to create a culture center in partnership with local colleges and universities that will teach the community about the Hmong’s way of sustainable mountain farming. 

“We know there’s food insecurity,” he said. “We want to teach how you can overcome that food insecurity by having the knowledge that we all bring together.”

Regrowth 

On an early Friday in November, six weeks after the region’s historic flooding from Helene, Lee and his family were on the farm sharing some good news: Soil tests that week showed no contamination. 

A few feet away, his 73-year-old aunt, Shoua Vue, dug up kale with a hoe while wearing a traditional woven bamboo basket on her back. He said the elders still stick to the basic tools. 

Lee planned to till and plow the land in the next several days. If he plants now, he said, he could have new kale crops by Christmas. 

As he walked through the field, he pointed to a few green patches. Vegetables were already growing.

Kelly Puente is a journalist with the Paste BN Network reporting for the Asheville Citizen Times in the wake of Tropical Storm Helene.