The Importance Of Hmong Culture

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 were well known for being a self-sufficient people producing their own food, making their own weapons, hunting their own game including birds, monkeys, deer, wild pigs, tigers, and more. They fished, gathered fruit, wild vegetables, and honey. These individuals were farmers and have very intimate relationships with the natural world(pg 120). Foua Yang grew up in a mountainous clan such as this. She had revealed that everyone in her village performed the same tasks therefore causing no class system. “Since no one knew how to read no one felt deprived by the lack of literacy.” They believed that anything of importance that the children needed to know could be learned through spoken word or by example. The elders were essential for teaching the younger generation among many things how to hold sacred their ancestors, play the qeej, conduct a funeral, how to court a lover, how to track a deer, and how to build a

For many researchers, the notion of Asian students are hereditary more intelligent than other race groups as believes by Arthur Jensen, an educational psychologist, is not a valid explanation for why Asian students perform better than their counterparts. While it is evident

History class is not the only issue among students; the nation’s standardized test also leaves Native students behind their peers. Many questions are “Eurocentric and culturally bias” resulting in many students who have grown in a traditional customs unable to answer the questions (Robertson). Many school curricula does not build on the students strength of the student, it is only if the strength and skill is of the dominate culture that it will get attention (Landsman and Lewis 182).

     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

Firstly, increasing one’s cultural competence is instrumental to becoming a more empathic and understanding person and teacher. Cultural competence involves understanding another person’s culture without judgement and realizing that even if their ideas or beliefs are different, that does not mean they are wrong. If one learns about their students’ cultures and backgrounds, they will be able to speak and interact with these students in an appropriate way. If the students are refugees and come from a traumatic past, teachers should approach any personal questions they have sensitively. Sometimes people have prejudices or believe stereotypes and they may not even realize it. The Hmong people were widely dispersed and no two Hmong people will be the same. It is crucial that teachers do not assume that each person has the same values and

The culture of the Mexican-American is very identical to each other as the aspects of family, religion, and respect towards other. The central concepts of the Mexican American “cultural values include familismo (familism), the traditional gender roles of machismo and marianisom, religiosidad (religiosity), and respeto (respect)” (Morgan, 2013). The cultures are identical the only difference is the introduction of individualistic viewpoints that they learn in the education system. The individualistic views that they learn from the school are culture shocks to those who have a heavy ideology of collectivistic viewpoint. The culture of Mexican-Americans has interfered time and time again in the results of the intelligence test. The definition of intelligence which examine all forms of skill as like language,

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 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.

Cultural differences pose several barriers for students and may impair their opportunity to learn. These barriers are created by differences in language expression, communication style, preferred learning style, gender-role customs and behaviors, and limited parental involvement due to these cultural or socioeconomic barriers

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”

Gladwell proves how focusing can make a difference when it comes to math test. In "Rice Paddies and Math Tests" Gladwell proves how people of Asian descent can focus more because it's in their culture. Every 4 years a test is given to elementary and middle school students worldwide called the TIMSS. The TIMSS test the students over math and science, but at the beginning the student has to fill out a questionnaire that is 120 questions long. It turns out majority of students leave about 15 to 20 questions blank. Gladwell explains, “In other words, countries whose students are willing to concentrate and sit still long enough and focus on answering every single question in an endless questionnaire are the same countries whose students do the best job of solving math problems” (Gladwell 247-248). If teens could also apply the same focus on everything, which Asians can on math, then they could make further into their education. Then after being educated and all that good stuff can use their amazing focus to get a job that they could get promoted in. After getting that job and using the focus they can get promoted to a position of authority and become more successful.

YANG, Kou. An Assessment of the Hmong American New Year and Its implications for Hmong-American Culture [on line]. In: Hmong Studies Journal. Volume 8, 2015, 32 pp. Available at : < http://hmongstudies.org/KYangHSJ8.pdf> (Accessed November 25, 2016).

Evidence of why racism should be eradicated is imbedded in the fact that students reject their parental and culture values. In a sample of more than 500 high school students more than half the Indigenous and Asian students reported experiencing racism, significantly associated with the level of maths ratings. When being abused for their culture, based on stereotypical views of their people, that all Asian people are good at maths, they begin to alter themselves to fit the criteria of the social normalities of the area they're in and as a result, their cultural and parental values are hidden to avoid discrimination. This ensues identity

Mathematics, like every creation of man, have evolved without really knowing how far you can get with them: the scope of the computer, physics, chemistry, algebra, all are evidence of this. Every aspect of our culture is based in some way or another in Mathematics: language, music, dance, art, sculpture, architecture, biology, daily life. All these areas of measurements and calculations are accurate. Even in nature, everything follows a precise pattern and a precise order: a flower, a shell, a butterfly, day and night, the seasons. All this makes mathematics essential for human life and they can not be limited only to a matter within the school curriculum; here lies the importance of teaching math in a pleasure, enjoyable and understandable way. Mathematics is an aid to the development of the child and should be seen as an aid to life and not as an obstacle in their lifes.