Hmong people are often treated as if they are unintelligent when they are interacting with professionals in the wider Minnesota community. Because when they are communicating with other professionals, they talk with an accent, but that doesn’t mean that, that person can’t read or write English. Hmong people are just as intelligent as everyone else here, they have put their effort into going to school to learn how to read, write and speak English so they will be able to communicate with others. Even though Hmong people don’t know how to use big words, they are still able to communicate and understand what is being said to them. And as for some Hmong people, like the elderly, they don’t understand too much English, and that is probably because they never really got the chance to learn when they first arrived here in the United States.
The issue of being a Hmong person can be very challenging, especially here in the United States, like the elderly Hmong people don’t know how life is really like here, and they need assistance to learn how to live here like everyone else. They don’t know how things are to be done or what they’re supposed to do after receiving a letter in the mail from the county. So this gives us a way to think about what to do to make things better for the Hmong people, so they’ll understand how to live their lives here. One thing that will work is that, if there are a few people from the Hmong community who are willing to step up and speak for the other Hmong people who don’t speak English, will help resolve all the conflicts that are going on with them. Like at doctor visits, social worker meetings and school conferences, because these seem to be the most important meetings to be at when it comes to their kids’ he...
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... lack of diversity, Hmong people are always looked down upon and not given any knowledge for the work they do. So this is a very big issue that needs to be given out to the Hmong community. They need to have group leaders to set up meetings, to meet with certain people, to interact with other races and community. But I think the reason for the lack of diversity is that they fear other races, because they think they are going to get robbed for what they have, but that is not always the case. They can go to community centers to interact with the non-violent communities who wants to stay away from the violence going on in their communities, and to lower the causes of violence by getting more and more people involved with what they’re doing, especially children. This can also show others that some Hmong people can read and understand English just like everyone else and
The Latehomecommer by Kao Kalia Yang is a beautifully crafted memoir. Yang’s distinct prose style is captivating combined with her powerful narrative about the Hmong immigrant experience in America creates an unforgettable and insightful piece. She masterfully captures not only her story as an immigrant, but that of her whole family and to some extent the entire culture. Yang’s use of voice, particularly her use of a distinctly different more child-like voice when depicting her younger self, is a large contributing factor to what makes this memoir so unique and engaging. In The Latehomecomer, Yang captures the voice of herself as a child in a way that is so effective that it inspired me to go back through my memoir and attempt to do the same.
In The Latehomecomer, by Kao Kalia Yang shares her story and the story of her family’s search for a home and identity. Her family’s story voices the story of the Hmong people and their plight. From every stage of their journey, from the mountainous jungles of Southeast Asia to the freezing winter of Minnesota, Yang and the Hmong were compelled to redefine their identity, willingly or unwillingly. While growing up, Yang’s parents would often ask her, “’What are you?’ and the right answer was always, ‘I am Hmong.’” (Yang, 1) For “Hmong” to be the right answer, then what does it mean to be “Hmong”? From the personal story shared by Yang, and the universal story of the Hmong people, the Hmong identity cannot be contained in
How would it feel to flee from post-war Communist forces, only to face an ethnocentric population of people in a new country? In Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, a portrait of a disquieting, often times touching, ethnography (i.e. a book that details particular data of an extended period of time an anthropologist spent living closely with a community of individuals during his or her field work) of Fadiman's experience living in Merced, California, which was home to the largest population of Hmong refugees, such as the Lee family, from Laos who suffered mass confusion when trying to navigate the American health care system. Because the Hmong could not speak sufficient English until the children gained language skills native to the United States, residents of California were not accepting of the Hmong community. Fadiman aims to better understand how knowledge of illness among Hmong and Western medical practitioners differ, which pushes the reader to understand how the complicate medical treatment in the past as well as the present from a perspective of an American observing a Hmong family's struggle with the system. In America, it isn’t uncommon to be judged for your clothing, your house, or the amount of money your family makes, so it is easy to believe that the Hmong people were not easily accepted into American society. As a whole, ethnocentrism, or the tendency to believe that one's culture is superior to another, is one of America's weaknesses and this account proves ethnocentric behavior was prominent even in the 1970-80's when Fadiman was in the process of doing her fieldwork in post-Vietnam War Era California.
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
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
The Hmong also believes 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 of illness (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008, Queensland Health, 2004). As our textbook states, “Communication includes the willingness of individuals to share their thoughts and feelings” (Purnell, 2103, p. 21). To that end, the Hmong people are primarily illiterate. For this culture, they have a belief that Americans are rude because direct eye contact is maintained when conversing, as well as asking direct questions.
Cobb, Torry Grantham, DHSc, MPH,M.H.S., P.A.-C. (2010). STRATEGIES FOR PROVIDING CULTURAL COMPETENT HEALTH CARE FOR HMONG AMERICANS. Journal of Cultural Diversity, 17(3), 79-83. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezp-01.lirn.net/docview/750318474?accountid=158556
Share the story of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures.
The subject of this paper is Liz, a 52-year old, 1.5 generation female immigrant from Hong Kong. What this means is that she immigrated to the United States when she was a child, around 7-years old (Feliciano Lec. 1/4/2016 -. As a child of a family that consists of five siblings and two parents that did not speak any English prior to immigrating, the focus of this paper will be on the legal processes that the family went through to become legal immigrants and the various factors that aided in her path towards assimilation. Liz’s family is from a city called Kow Loon in Hong Kong.
The United States and its people take great pride in knowing that the U.S. is the greatest nation in the world. That is why it’s our duty to father the rest of the world when conflicts arise. American culture and ideals are also thought to take precedents over all other cultures and ideals. In the book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall down, written by Anne Fadiman, there are many great examples of how American culture is imposed on the people residing with in its enclosed boundaries. The U.S. going to war in Vietnam is also a great example of how the U.S. tried to impose American values on the “less fortunate.” Through understanding America’s so called “duty” in Vietnam one can interpret the intervention of American idealism in the life of a Hmong family.
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. `
She heard about the Hmong through a friend, and so she spent 4 years living in Merced, California and another 5 writing this book. She attempts to stay fairly neutral in her writing, though through her time with the Lees, she confesses that her writing may appear biased toward the Hmong culture rather than toward the Americans. However, in the end she could not blame one side or the other for the unfortunate tragedy of Lia, who got hit in the cross-fire between these two cultures. Her theoretical view is a type of cultural relativism. Neither the Hmong nor the Americans could emerge as the better culture. She does not address any questions about direct unethical practices. The Hmong did not practice human sacrifices, and the animals they did sacrifice were theirs. She does seem to believe that every culture has its weak and strong
Furthermore, these cultural competences defined their lives, how they lived in the community and how they organized their roles and their functions towards the society. These were various cultural domains that overall defined their personality and how they should live their lives and be unique individuals. However, it was these same cultural and religious considerations that separated them from the "normal sense" of development, function and expression of existence (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2009, p. 1). These are the cultural and religious influences that disabled them to understand the narrative display and critical applications of modern knowledge and science. Because of their own set of cultural displays and traditions, the Hmong people could not care less of the applications and understanding of modern practices and expressions.
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...
Anthropological studies on language and communication would be directly related to Lia’s case for a few reasons: Lia and her family were Hmong, her parents could not read or write, they didn’t give her enough medication. Also, Lia was taken away from her parents because of language and communication barriers that led to her parents not administering her medication at all, as well as interpreters not being clear about what to give her.