Hmong Culture Research Paper

“She had never said it was love. Neither had he. They were shy. They had been unsure. Now, there would be no time for love. It was in the moment of parting that she knew she loved him” (21).

With the centrality of the family in Hmong culture, having sons or a son is very important as they are the ones who will take on the last name and lead the future generation of the family (Cha, 2010). Cha states, “The clannish nature of Hmong society favors a son. A family that does not have a son is viewed as a burden to the clan and community, because such a family will not contribute much to the community,” (p. 24). In the culture, the son(s) will take care of the parents as the daughter will get married and move to live with the husband’s family. Religion also plays a role since the traditional belief is that although the daughter can take care of the parents physically when they are alive, they cannot take care of them spiritually after they pass away. This is because the daughter becomes a part of the other family and cannot worship her parents’ spirits after death (Cha, 2010).

Lia Lee born and raised in America, but brought up as a Hmong, faced health issues specifically epilepsy. Her parents who practice the Hmong culture had a different view on how to handle Lia critical condition. Hmong did not believe in traditional medicine but believed in Txiv neeb, person with a healing spirit. Not only do they believe in a person with healing spirit to help cure their illness but also consider epilepsy as power; “Their seizures are thought to be evidence that they have the power to perceive things other people cannot see, as well as facilitating their entry into trances, a prerequisite for their journeys into the realm of the unseen” (Fadiman, 1998, p.21). Right at this moment is where you can tell conflict is going to occur.

But this division is not inevitable; Pamela Cotant’s article concerning a Hmong Literacy Club in Wisconsin is proof. The literacy club sends home Hmong homework for students to complete with their parents (Cotant), allowing parents the ability to take an active role in their children’s educational lives. No longer useless or inferior, the simple act of a parent and child working on homework together can bridge divides gouged by the American school system. The literacy club also helps Hmong American children connect with their relatives by teaching them their shared language and culture (Cotant). It is obvious that a language barrier can obstruct connection and communication, and that common language and community are essential to success. Due

At birth, the Hmong view their newborns as a gift and extremely special. At birth, it is called “Mus Thawj thiab, “go become again” or more simple, “reincarnation,” is a traditional Hmong belief (Bankston 2000). When a child is born, they are automatically seen as a gift and reborn as a reincarnated soul. Though, if a child dies after three days of living there are “no funeral ceremonies…since the child did not have a soul yet” (Bankston 2000). The Hmong believe if the child lives past three days, their soul is present though if they die, the infant never had a soul to begin with. If the child lives past day three, then a shaman is brought in and he “evokes a soul to be be reincarnated in the baby’s body” (Bankston 2000). This is considered

The Hmong people are a people of diaspora and are an ethnic minority group who, have been a group of people who were basically unknown up until three decades ago. They are of unknown origin and are often misplaced from country to country and often have to assume many different hyphenated identities to fit in with the mainstream culture. As Hmong Americans they have gone from being unable to read and write to being educated; which has led to Hmong writers, congressmen and women, to scholars, and to many other respectable occupations. Though, before being able to become a writer or a scholar, a Hmong American student is often troubled and stressed about their ethnic identity and that can lead to struggles in their academics. This topic is important to me because being a Hmong American and a college student; these two aspects of life are playing a big role in my life right now. Through my paper there is one question that I am hoping to answer and the question is: How does having a hyphenated identity affect Hmong American students in their academics?

Even though I am a Hmong person, I still need to do more research about the Hmong Population in Minnesota. At the University of Minnesota, Morris, I took a class called Southeast Asian’s history, which the professor went over a brief history of Hmong people. In this class we had to do a presentation and write a paper at the end, so I chose to do my research on Hmong people. By doing this research I learned about their history and why they came to the United States. In addition, I learned about other Southeast Asian’s history from the dominant groups to the minority groups. At ILCM, I was not working with Hmong clients only, I helped other immigrants coming from Africa to Asia. “Minnesota is home to more than 400,000 immigrants and refugee”

The main purpose of this article is for the nurses to provide a successful caring for the minority. Hmong are one of the largest minority group to lived in the United States. In order for the health professional to provide care for them. As Torry Cobb said, they need to be aware of the “history, culture, social structure and belief systems” of the Hmong people. The health care providers need to respect the Hmong American medical practices because they believe in their own use of traditional medication and using the shaman will help heal their spirit and physical illness. They also do believe in the western medication, but sometimes they don’t have confidence in the health care system because of their beliefs and practices. In addition to that,

The Hmong are group of people who are deeply committed to maintaining their “ethic identity” (pg. 229) and way of life. There is no modern technology, western practices or beliefs that (previous to arriving in the USA) that influence their ways of “being”, “doing” or “believing”. Moreover, a connection ingrained by generations of other Hmong people, their surroundings and

Nomadic lifestyle consist of living life with no more than what is needed to sustain life and as such poses no need for materialistic possession. Historically, the Hmong are a people without a country of their own, residing predominately in Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand (Tatman, 2004). Supplementing a living by farming and often used to labor in poppy fields, they earned just what they needed to support family life. With the end of the Vietnam War, many were subjected to violent retaliation leading to acts of genocide for their allied support with the United States, resulting in many immigrating to America by way of refugee camps in Thailand. Though coming to America may not have been as much of a factor for a nomadic people, it was a cultural

I have found the stories of the Hmong's very fascinating! I would say that when you come from a different culture, everything seems to be so familiar. However, when traditions are so strong and hold a very important place in the lives of individuals, it is very hard to accept changes or adapt to a different culture. People have so much faith on their traditions that everything new is interpreted as a something wrong. In the few pictures I have of me as a child, I am wearing a bracelet with red beads and a seed that has the shape of an eye. According to my mother, children had to wear them in order to be protected from any type of illness or from any harm. It was a type of amulet. I come from a catholic family, and supposedly I was baptized

As an Asian-Hawaiian child growing up in Hawaii, I was brought up with a lifestyle that mixed traditions from Hawaii and the Orient. Looking back into my childhood, I noticed that a lot of customs from my Japanese culture were more prominent in the mixture of conventions I was taught to practice in life. Celebrating holidays like “Hina Matsuri”(Girl’s Day), wearing traditional Japanese clothing like “Kimono”, and not being able to wear my slippers or shoes in the house, or else I would risk getting two left hooks to my ribs from grandma, are just some of the aspects of tradition that were incorporated into my life. Today, these customs are deeply rooted and have contributed

A dugong is a mammal weighing up to 600kg and can be 3m in length when fully grown. They do not have feathers like a bird to keep them warm they have a thick layer of blubber underneath their wrinkly grey skin to keep them warm when they are cold. To push through the water Dugongs use their tails, but use their flippers to balance and steer. To spot them in small groups you will be lucky, but spotting them in herds of hundreds or small groups are not rare at all, although they are not usually found with their own children. It is rare to live up to 70 years but in some cases that can happen, I am saying it is rare because the food supplies is limited now. The shape of their body makes them look slow but if they need dugongs can speed up 15 miles

In my ideal future, I want to be able to pick my spouse and for my spouse to have the choice to decline me or not. I do not believe that it is right to force someone into marriage no matter the circumstances. In a very traditional Hmong family, all marriages are determined and approved by the parents of the couples or by the elders of a community. However, my family is not a very traditional family because all my siblings assimilated into the “Western culture”, which influences my parents’ beliefs even though they were born and raised back in South East Asia.