Hmong Culture

The Hmongs are an ethnic race, originally migrated from Eurasia and settled in river plains of China. The Chinese hated them, calling them ‘Miao’ or ‘Meo’ meaning barbarians and tried to gain mastery over them but the Hmongs wanting to be left alone began to migrate. By the beginning of the 19th century, half a million Hmongs had migrated to Indo-China. Disliking persecution, some settled in Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. They detest being ordered or bullied, do not like to lose, are fighters who would rather die than surrender. Though they never possessed a country of their own, they have marched through the pages of history as free men desiring personal liberty. The Lee family travelled to Merced, California along with other Hmongs who fled to Laos in 1975, when their country became a prey to communism.

This source provided by Coffee House Press has included an interview with Annie Choi and Kao Kalia Yang. Choi has asked about Yang memoir of her well-known book, The Latehomecomer, has started. During the secret war, her Hmong family went through difficult times. Coming to America, Yang had to learn English and it became a challenge. However, she was able to learn it and grew a passion to write more on papers. When writing her book, she ties in how love and Hmong family relationships are like others making it a universal theme. She hopes that the readers would get an understanding of the Hmong culture and state that it will strengthen America as unique. This is important because we get an insight of Kao Kalia Yang inspiration when writing a book of the Hmong culture and tying it together of being an American.

Specific Purpose: I will Educate the audience about the Hmong Culture and Who we are.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a book by Anne Fadiman about a Hmong family (the Lee’s) that moved to the United States. It deals with their child Lia, her American doctors, and the collisions of those two cultures. In Fadiman’s unbiased book I learned that there are many cultural differences between Hmong and Americans concerning opinions, stubbornness, and misunderstandings.

“Role loss” occurs when people lose their roles that they have within their families and/or society. These roles give us a sense of identity, it is essentially who we are and what we do. Moving to America had many consequences for the Hmong. They went from being self-reliant farmers to people who rely on the government for food and health care. The Hmong despised the idea of being on welfare, but when it pertained to work, the only things they knew how to do, there were no jobs for. Consequently, the fathers could not provide for their families. The mothers, who traditionally would teach their children in the home were required to send them to school. Several of their custom traditions were looked down on in the U.S, and therefore the Hmong

The Hmong people, who fled the country of Laos when communists took over, are people of many cultural

In “The Right Road to America?,” Amy Chua informs her audience about the possibility of America’s national identity becoming lost due to the influence of immigrants. Chua’s defines her thesis by stating “Around the world, nations face violence and instability as a result of their increasing pluralism and diversity,” (336). The key points of the text includes Chua explaining why America and other nations could lose their core identities, how the United States could become unglued from its true meaning, and how citizens can fix this imminent problem. The information in this text is significant, especially in today’s society. With all of the issues about immigration coinciding with our current president, this text relates to current subjects

In The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, there are many different intercultural misunderstandings. A Hmong girl’s life was forever changed because of these misunderstandings and some things could have easily been avoided, had each side taken the time to better understand the other.

What do you think of traditional Hmong birth practices (pp. 3-5)? Compare them to the techniques used when Lia was born (p. 7). How do Hmong and American birth practices differ?

Conrad Richter, in his novel The Light in the Forest, conveys the important role culture plays during the White’s settlement of Indian lands. Cultural differences have sculpted people’s idea of the world and the people whom they share this space with. Events linked to cultural diversity enhance how stereotypes and engrained judgment shape our world and life today.

However, alternating between Hmong and English at school confused this crowd of people I went to school with, thus creating a boulder of stereotypes of the Hmong language. In fifth grade, it was my first time I ever heard, “Do you speak Chinese?” Trying to be in an environment where learning and diversity should be welcome it only confused my sense of self because now I felt that I couldn’t express who I am at school in words that could’ve been explained properly in Hmong. This idea that alternating between languages can produce stereotypes of one’s culture made me aware of how I can speak to others in the public.

Hawaiians have experienced difficulty with understanding their identity since the arrival of the first haoles. Since then, with the promise of labor and tropical paradise, people of all different races and cultures have flocked to the islands. Before the arrival, the language, beliefs, and traditions that solidified their culture had already been established and practiced solely by the Hawaiian people for generations.

Being a Hmong-American in the United States was hard. Growing up in a community that was full of Americans, and being in a private school in my early years, (consisting mostly of Americans and little diversity) was difficult. In that kind of environment, I never saw each person differently. The characteristics that I saw were our skin color, and another distinction that I saw was our religious and cultural backgrounds. I started to lose touch of my own culture and identity as a Hmong-American girl. My family told me that in the stages of my toddler years, I used to be good at speaking my native tongue until I started school.

     The Hmong had trouble adapting to American life. With no driver’s license or bank account, they had to make a living doing whatever they could. Not knowing the language in a foreign land doesn’t help either. The Hmong women adapted much more quickly than the men did because of the fact that they interacted more with English-speaking people. While the men were at work, the women were spending time interacting. The Hmong men also refused to change more that the women did. This shift of power caused a lot of changes in Hmong households. What even caused more of a power shift was the fact that the Hmong children learned about the culture easier than the women did. Instead of the father having control over the family like it was back in Southeast Asia, the children now had the upper edge. The children could communicate, interact and even drive with Americans. You could see a 16-year-old Hmong

“According to the 2009 ACS estimates Hmong were strongly concentrated in production, transportation, and materials moving occupations and were somewhat overrepresented in service occupations” (Pfeifer, Chiu, and Yang, p.60, 2013). Compared to the overall U.S. population there was a small representation of Hmong in management and professional related occupations. A few of the Hmong population also worked in farming, fishing, and forestry. When compared to the U.S. population the Hmong were employed more often in the field of arts and entertainment, as well as recreation and accommodation. They were also employed more often in retail trade and food services. The Hmong were least likely to be found in construction positions. “The Hmong were underrepresented compared to the U.S. population as a whole in finance, insurance, real estate, whole sale trade, utilities, public administration, professional, scientific, management and administrative services and several other fields” (Pfeifer, Chiu, and Yang, p.63, 2013). Although the Hmong Americans lag behind in many job related fields they have come a long way from when they first came to this country and are slowly making advances in many fields of employment and socioeconomic