Immigration of the Lao Iu Mein
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."
During the 1960s and 70s, Laos became engulfed in the Vietnam War. The U.S. government also got involved by supporting the anti-Communist forces and getting the tribes in Laos to help them. The Iu Mein, as well as other minority tribes, provided the U.S. with armed manpower, intelligence, and surveillance. In 1975, the community forces rose in victory as the Iu Mein people began to escape to their homeland. My father said that the reason my family, as well as most of the Iu Mein in Laos, ran away was because they didn't want to be under the new Pathet Lao government. Escaping was not easy to accomplish. Many of my parents' friends who were caught trying to escape were taken to prisons, tortured, and most of them were killed. My parents were terrified of the Vietnamese soldiers and prayed that nothing would happen to them, their brothers, sisters, parents, and their son (my brother) who was 8 years old at the time. They had to flee during the night, pass through the jungles and onto boats traveling across the Mekong River.
When they reached Thailand, my parents and those who escaped with them were taken to refugee camps. The camps were fenced with barbed wire and guarded by armed Thai soldiers. The refugees were given a curfew that only allowed them to stay out before 10 pm. If they were caught disobeying curfew, they would be beaten and taken to jail. The camps received food and supplies that were provided by the United Nations Organization. My parents said that in the camps, their lives were still hard although they felt safer. My mother said that the one thing they worried most about was the fact that they wouldn't continue their farming to grow food, something that had been part of the daily lives before the camp.
Their journey has forced them to face many sorrowful circumstances, and forced them to change in many ways. Over the course of their plight, Hmong have taken many identities. They have been refugees, immigrants, survivors, patriots, and Americans. Even after finding a home in the US, the Hmong identity cannot be determined. The Hmong identity cannot be contained in the jungles of southeast Asia, Thai refugee camps, languages, or a memoir. The Hmong identity is in continuous metamorphosis, and the only people who can voice about their identity are the
‘The Harmful Myth of Asian Superiority’ by Ronald Takaki and ‘Growing up Asian in America’ by Kesaya E. Noda are both essays that depict the state of Asian immigrants in America. The authors are both Asian Americans themselves and their words bear fruit from a lifetime of personal experiences of being a viewed upon as an alien in their own land.
Even though Little Saigon provided Vietnamese American with economic benefit, political power, this landmark also witnessed many difficulties that Vietnamese experienced. Vietnamese American experienced many traumatic events prior to migration such as war, journey on boats, therefore many of them suffered posttraumatic stress disorder, stress, and depression. Significantly, Vietnamese refugees who went to the re-education camps sustained torture, humiliation, deprivation, brainwashing and several other punishments from Vietnamese Communist. Those refugees have higher rates of having mental disorder. Language barrier is another obstacle that...
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Crane, Stephen. Maggie a Girl of the Streets (A Story of New York). Ed. Kevin J. Hayes. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999. Print.
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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.
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...a feeling of that’s what the soldiers signed up for and they made the decision to sacrifice their selves for their country. We can and can’t justify militarism, it’s primarily based upon opinion.
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Maggie’s traits that she gained from her father helped make her the woman she is today. Her
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