The Hmong Culture
The Hmong Culture of South Asia is a very interesting ethnic group. Between 300,000 to 600,000 Hmong live in Southeast Asian countries, such as Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar. About 8 million more live in the southern provinces of China. Since the Vietnam War ended in 1975, Hmong refugees from Southeast Asia have settled in Australia, France, Canada, and the United States. The largest Hmong refugee community lives in the United States with a population of about 110,000. The U.S. Department of state has tried to spread Hmong refugees out across the country to reduce the impact on any one region. Because Hmong families tend to be large in numbers, the community grows rapidly.
Facing considerable challenges while adapting to the American Culture, the Hmong have fought to keep their traditions and culture alive in the United States. Because of the lack of fluency in English and education, the Hmong have had trouble communicating, which complicates learning. Though their work skills are poor, some Hmong have had success starting a their own small businesses such as restaurants and grocery stores. By selling their beautiful, colorful needlework, some Hmong women make a living. Although some of the Hmong immigrants have been successful, their children have had more success while competing in the job market.
The Hmong refugees that fled from such countries as Vietnam, Laos and Thailand had some trouble adapting to the American culture. An arriving refugee and his family would probably have sold all of their worldly possessions so they could have enough money to live off of until the father got a job or the mother was able to produce some textile goods to sell. In Southeast Asia, The Hmong lived high in the mountains. The Hmong men tended to be farmers, while the women would stay in the village and tend to the household needs while also helping with the crops. They grew all of their own food, and had no farm machinery to aid in the reaping of their crop. There was also no form of transportation except walking. This was very hard labor, so the Hmong needed a lot of help to grow food, everyone in the family helped in the household chores and working the land.
The Hmong have a strong tradition in everything they do. T...
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... Southeast Asia due to the wars taking place, it was hard for the Hmong to find jobs in America. With little work skills and hardly and language understanding, Americans were getting frustrated with trying to teach a Hmong how to do their job. The Hmong were also taking up all the jobs because they would work for less than an American worker. This angered some Americans because they could not find jobs. The Hmong were also gobbling up Welfare and resources provided by a government that they didn’t even belong to. The Hmong were just trying to make a living for themselves but this was making many lower class Americans frustrated when trying to find a job to feed their families.
Most of the Hmong populations in America now reside in California, Minnesota and Wisconsin. They have now adapted to a society and culture that looked down upon them. Even though they have adapted, they still possess the traditions and rituals that their ancestors practiced in Southeast Asia. These traditions are held very sacred in the Hmong home. This is understood because every culture likes to keep a little piece of the past with them.
What are the most important aspects of Hmong culture? What do the Hmong consider their most important duties and obligations? How did they affect the Hmong’s transition to the United States?
In their pursuit of assimilating and calling the US home, they had forged a new identity of Hmong Americans. (Yang, 203) Being Hmong American meant striving to move up the economic ladder and determining one’s own future. They understood that for them to realize their American dream and their “possibilities”, it could only be done so through “school”. (Yang, 139) Yang realized her dream by attaining a Master’s of Fine Arts from Columbia University and publishing books about the Hmong story.
I thought it would be an interesting idea to enlighten and inform people about the Lao Iu Mein and our process of immigrating to the U.S. as well as the challenges we have to overcome. I interviewed my parents, Lao Iu Mein refugees who immigrated to the United States from Thailand. Through this interview, I had a chance to hear for the first time the story of my parents' struggles and experiences as they journeyed to a place where they became "aliens" and how that place is now the place they call "home."
Immigrants such as the Japanese. The Japanese had already been through some racial discrimination, but it wasn’t until World War II that it got much worse. During the war the US decided it was best to be neutral, but the longer the war went on for, The more the US’ neutrality was on the verge of breaking. It wasn’t until December 7, 1941, that the US
The Hmong people, an Asian ethnic group from the mountainous regions of China, Vietnam and Laos, greatly value their culture and traditions. The film “The Split Horn: Life of a Hmong Shaman in America” documents the seventeen year journey of the Hmong Shaman, Paja Thao and his family from the mountains of Laos to the heartland of America. This film shows the struggle of Paja Thao to maintain their 5000 year-old shamanic traditions as his children embrace the American culture. Moreover, the film shows that one of the major problems refugees like Paja Thao and his family face upon their arrival to the United States is conflict with the American medical system. Despite the dominant biomedical model of health, the film “The Split Horn” shows that
Initially, when the refugees and their children first arrived in America, primarily California but also Minnesota and Wisconsin, the American educational system identified Hmong children as LEP and placed them in English as a Second Language classes. Very few schools offered academic programs to integrate Hmong students into the society of the school and those that do, have not had any flourishing success. Due to the resulting segregation, both socially and academically, the teaching methodology for these students suffered; become haphazard and improvised. During the initial years of integration, there were very few Hmong bilingual teachers. Hmong students were placed in classes based on an expectation that they would not go on to a higher education and that their ma...
The Hmong culture is firmly rooted in their spiritual belief of animism, ancestral worship and reincarnation. These beliefs connect them to their sense of health and well-being. They view illness as having either a natural or a spiritual cause. A spiritual cause results in a “loss of souls” or is an action or misdeed that may have offended an ancestor’s spirit (California Department of Health Services, 2004, Purnell, 2013, p. 317). The soul escapes the body and may not be able to find its way back home. The Hmong also believe that a combination of natural and supernatural cause’s results in illness, and spells or curses, violation of taboos, accidents, fright, and infectious disease are other causes for illness (Centers for Disease Control
Tradition is defined in the dictionary as the handing down from generation to generation of the same customs and beliefs. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, I believe has two main topics addressed: the traditions of the Hmong people, and the dangers of being unable to communicate. The misunderstanding of these two consequential points, I believe caused the majority of conflict that arose.
The Hmong people fought with the U.S. in the Vietnam War, but when they were in danger we did not help them. The Hmong people lived in Vietnam. They are now being harassed and killed because they helped us in the war. This is unjust and not fair and all our government did was send the Vietnamese government a letter “urging” them to stop killing the Hmong. This is truly unfair that our government doesn't help at all, even when the Hmong just helped us in the war.
Within the United States, the attitude towards Asian American immigrants have changed from being seen as a menace to society to becoming praised as the model minority. Under the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, the United States was looking to accept model immigrants by prioritizing those with higher education and desirable skills for the workforce. This immigration policy caused an influx of middle to upper class Asian immigrants to come to the United States, which is the root for the model minority stereotype that is attached to the Asian American community. Yet, the idea of being the model minority does not extend to all Asian immigrants especially those who came to the United States seeking refuge from various conflicts such as the Vietnam War. Thus, the model minority myth is damaging for the Asian American community because it ignores those who do not fits this stereotype which is reflected in Erika Lee’s book, The Making of Asia America, and the film Children of Invention.
Throughout their history in America, Asian immigrants have struggled in many different ways to encourage this country to accept and respect the diversity of its citizens. Through efforts in labor strikes and military aid such as that in World War II, the American society has gradually moved to accept racial minorities. Asian today have much more freedom than when they first began traveling across the Pacific. However, many still find that they are unjustly viewed by society and treated as “strangers from a different shore” (474).
Just like the durian, my Vietnamese culture repulsed me as a young child. I always felt that there was something shameful in being Vietnamese. Consequently, I did not allow myself to accept the beauty of my culture. I instead looked up to Americans. I wanted to be American. My feelings, however, changed when I entered high school. There, I met Vietnamese students who had extraordinary pride in their heritage. Observing them at a distance, I re-evaluated my opinions. I opened my life to Vietnamese culture and happily discovered myself embracing it. `
Although working Hmong families in the United States typically are self-employed as small farmers or work in the fast food industry, production companies, in the professional field and in the medical field (Vang, 2005). Many working Hmong families remain financially poor due to low wages and large family size. Data collected from the 2000 Census reported that the Hmong and Cambodian families had the lowest median income of all Asian groups. The approximate median incomes of Hmong and Cambodian families are $32,400 to $35,600 (Reeves & Bennett,
Families changed overtime by becoming more Americanized as they resided here. Few families still carried normal Cambodian traditions, but they had the
Within this critical analysis, I hope to show that the lack of communication and compromise between the Hmong family and the American doctors, was the defining blow to Lia’s ill health. I hope to do this by addressing the following three main points of interest in relation to this miscommunication; the views held by the American healthcare professions on the causes of Lia’s illness, contrasted with the opinions of Lia’s parents. I will then discuss the health-seeking strategies of Lia’s parents and how they were influenced by different resou...