Personal Narrative: Hmong Traditions

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.

Cultural implications were evaluated from the Hmong perspective, using the book “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.” The assessment was based on the Hmong people and followed the Geiger and Davidhizar’s transcultural assessment model. Five areas were focused on in particular from their model: Environmental Control, Social Organization, Communication, Space, and Time Orientation. The result reaffirmed that there is a huge cultural divide that caused many errors in the care of young Lia Lee, including many miscommunications that could have been prevented. I briefly touch on the importance of cultural awareness in the health care industry and why it is important to be sensitive to the culture of others.

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

     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

I am Hmong and comes from a family of nine. My parents are refugees from Laos who came to the United States to escape communism after the Vietnam War. I was born in Oroville, California in the year 1994 and moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1997. My parents moved here in hope to find a good job to provide for the family as well as a better education for their children. As I got older, I realized that how important it is to help out one another. I am where I’m at because of the support I received from my family and my community. This is the reason why I tried my best to be a part of my community when I was in high school and while I am in college. In high school I took the opportunity to be involved with my school by joining school organizations.

Along with the stubbornness of the Hmong is my last point that the Hmong and Americans have cultural misunderstandings. Fadiman came “to believe that her [Lia’s] life was ruined not by septic shock or noncompliant parents but by cross-cultural misunderstanding” (Fadiman 1997:262). Hmong once believed some crazy things about Americans. “It was said that Hmong women were forced into slavery, forced to have sex with American men … and with animals; that dinosaurs lived in America, along with ghosts, ogres, and

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, her American Dreams, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman

Native Americans are always struggling with identification with their tribes traditions compared to Euro-American traditions. Counselors need to recognize that many Native Americans feel uncomfortable when talking about things outside of their context.

The Hmong people do not call any one country home, but have relocated several times throughout history due to war and political oppression. An article published in the Journal of Multicultural counseling and Development finds that the Hmong primarily lived in Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand. They had a great impact in helping western forces during the Vietnam War, and wars in Laos in efforts to end Communism. The article continues and describes how many tried to escape from Laos; those that survived settled in refugee camps that had terrible living conditions. (Tatman, 2004). Although the Hmong are diffused around the world, their distinct cultural traditions and customs create a strong cultural identity. After discussing of the traditions and social customs of the Hmong culture learned through two different interviews, the cultural traditions and social customs will be compared and contrasted with European-American culture, and will be concluded with the impact that Hmong culture has on today’s society.

Social scientists believe that there are anywhere between six and seven million Hmong around the world. The Hmong never had a country that they could call their “home” country and to this day this is still the case. Until relatively modern times, the majority of the Hmong people resided in the mountains of Southern China, Laos, Thailand, and northern Vietnam. As an ethnic group, the Hmong are fascinating in this sense. Today there is a large Hmong population in the United States. However, unlike a majority of the other Asian American communities present in America, the Hmong reached American soil through much difficulty and hardships. As observed in the experiences of many other immigrant groups, becoming a part of American society is not an easy task. In order to understand the circumstances of Hmong Americans today, one must comprehend the different political, economic, and social pressures that may have aided or hindered these people’s integration into American society. The first part of my paper will consist of a brief background of the Hmong. Grasping the background will allow for a thorough analysis of the reasons for Hmong immigration and the issues that they may have faced attempting to establish their own individual identity in the United States.

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.

The Hmong, an Asian ethnic group, came from an oral culture, where they did not have any written form until the 1950s (McCall, 1999). The Hmong lived an agricultural lifestyle in the hill and mountain areas in Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand (McCall, 1999; Tatman, 2004). They focused on physical labor to provide food for the family and lacked formal education, as it was not essential (Lee & Green, 2008; McCall, 1999).

The main religion of the Hmong people is animist which is the belief in the spirit world and the interconnection between all living things. It revolves around an important figure in each hmong village called the Txiv Neeb or shaman which is a master of spirits, this shaman can be a man or woman and they have the power to access the spirit world. When someone gets ill or suffers misfortune the Hmong believe it is the evil spirits called dabs who have scared off or kidnapped the person’s soul. When this occurs it is the job of the shaman to perform rituals in order to ward of the dabs and bring back the soul thus restoring health and harmony to the person’s

Indeed, the answer of this question aims at examining the significance of the Hmong community of Saint Paul and their efforts to maintain their cultural practices and identity within the American culture by the organization of a Hmong Festival. The organization of this festival is the reflect of a successful dialogue between the Hmong cultural minority of Minnesota with the local government. It symbolizes therefore the possibility for other Hmong community all around the world to be engaged in a dialogue with the local government to be recognized

As far as I know in any Asian culture, there is a strong sense of competition. The ranking system discourages people from helping each other. I had teachers who admired my ability to learn and give, but that didn't matter to my “competitors.” Most of them thought I was unusual and fake for caring less about being a topper. I chose Hampshire for the very reason of no grade system.