Hmong In The End Analysis

Omar Housini Writing 001 Professor Trook October 10, 2016 ~Ending~ What is an ending? People pay attention to endings for different reasons. Perhaps it’s that final piece of information that connects everything together. Or, it may even be the loss of something that once had meaning and value. “In How Do I Begin? A Hmong American Literary Anthology” uses poems and short stories to show real experiences from Hmong-American writers, who survived through war, persecution, and exile. Endings”, by May Lee Yang, “In the End” and The last drops” by Soul Choj Vang, follow different types of endings, as one emphasizes the importance of endings in language, while the other expresses the ending of Hmong tradition. Through the literal sense in poems, endings

As both carry the main significance to the Hmong people, it is your language and tradition that composes one’s ethnicity. As a result, it would be the ending of tradition and the lack of language that caused them to lose their identity. Similarly but slightly different, Yang states “endings are everything”, while Soul Choj Vang the author of “In the End” shows a bit of doubt towards endings. Vang states, “And I think your right. But in the end, we’ll probably never know.”(pg.13) Furthermore, Vang wrote a different poem "The last Drops" with similar subjects. Vang expressed that “Years ago, we ignored the old men who gathered when there was a feast or funeral, regaling any who would listen to their tales of war and little conquests back in the mountains. ”(pg12). This implied that the new generation was voluntarily being ignorant to the wisdom and traditions of the older generation. It seemed as though the old men were trying to entertain the younger generation or any who would care to listen to their

The speaker states that “In the end, all we may be able to do is to present our very best. And let the next take it over.” Similarly, the old men were doing their best in trying to influence the younger generations to not lose their identity. However, in the end, they could only do their part and leave the rest for the newcomers. Also, the title of the poem “The Last Drops” gave the impression that there were last drops of tradition carried by the old men. Through the metaphorical sense, endings can be a symbolic figure to the meaning of life and loss of tradition. As Yang expressed, the beginning of the word is irrelevant, but it's the ending of a word that is crucial for one to understand what’s being said. Similarly, in Hmong culture, death is an ending of this life and a symbolic beginning of the afterlife. It may even be taken as “endings determine everything” because “death is often considered the most important time for practicing rituals in the Hmong community. For that reason, without practicing the necessary rituals the soul will roam for eternity”(Nikki Tundel · ST. PAUL, Minn. · May 6,