Hmong Americans in the context of "Romanized Popular Alphabet"

Gran Torino is a 2008 drama film produced and directed by Clint Eastwood, who also stars in the lead role. It features a significant Hmong American cast, a first for mainstream American films. The score was composed by Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens, with Jamie Cullum and Clint Eastwood providing the lead track.

Set in Highland Park, Michigan, the story follows Walt Kowalski (Eastwood), a recently widowed Korean War veteran alienated from his family. When Kowalski's neighbor Thao Vang Lor is pressured by his cousin into stealing Walt's prized Ford Torino for his initiation into a gang, Walt thwarts the theft and develops a relationship with the boy and his family.

Hmong or Mong (/ˈmʌŋ/ MUNG; RPA: Hmoob, CHV: Hmôngz, Nyiakeng Puachue: 𞄀𞄩𞄰, Pahawh: 𖬌𖬣𖬵, [m̥ɔ̃́]) is a dialect continuum of the West Hmongic branch of the Hmongic languages spoken by the Hmong people of Southwestern China, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. There are an estimated 4.5 million speakers of varieties that are largely mutually intelligible, including over 280,000 Hmong Americans as of 2013. Over half of all Hmong speakers speak the various dialects in China, where the Dananshan dialect forms the basis of the standard language. However, Hmong Daw and Mong Leng are widely known only in Laos and the United States; Dananshan is more widely known in the native region of Hmong.

Summit-University is a neighborhood in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States, that stretches roughly from University Avenue in the north, Lexington Parkway to the west, Summit Avenue to the south and to the east along John Ireland Boulevard, Kellogg Boulevard and Marion Street. Summit-University, Selby-Dale, St. Anthony Hill, Cathedral Hill, Woodland Park, Crocus Hill, Ramsey Hill, Hill District, Historic Hill District, Uni-Dale, North Quadrant, and Central Village all refer to parts of the neighborhood that is broadly known as Summit-University.

The neighborhood is an ethnically and economically diverse community. In 1983 the neighborhood was home to Saint Paul's largest concentration of minority residents. Among the many groups living in Summit-University are the Hmong community as well as the city's other Asian communities, of whom Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians are represented in large numbers. Summit-University also includes the historic Cathedral Hill neighborhood, as well as what remains of "old Rondo" - a former neighborhood of the city. Rondo was the center of Saint Paul's African-American community since the Civil War, but was broken apart by the construction of Interstate 94 in the 1960s. Famous Summit-University natives include baseball great Dave Winfield. Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in this neighborhood, although he is generally associated with the Summit Hill neighborhood where he later lived.