Week 2

Riyan Lacara
ASA 002 A02
Week 2

One of the pieces for this week's readings is Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation of Hmong Americans by Kaozong Mouavangsou. In this paper, Mouavangsou explores the gaps and divisions within the Hmong community, due to education. Using different perspectives, including her own, she displays what the education system of the United States can do to the Hmong community, which could be further extrapolated to other minority communities. Miseducation and misrepresentation of a culture's history can and will hurt the development of the future generation's sense of belonging within said community. For if we continue to glaze over different people's history, even if that, we will be continuing to create gaps of knowledge within a school's curriculum. And thus, create gaps within the student's knowledge bank.

When reading the paper, I couldn't help but draw parallels between Mouavangsou's experience and my own. For I too, grew up in the K-12 system in California. For most of my years as a student within the system, the only times where the textbook would mention the Philippines would be when Ferdinand Magellan was killed by the local people and a basic summary of the Philippines involvement in the Pacific Theater of World War II. It was only until when I was a senior where I would get an in-depth look into the prior, and that was in my IB History course that chose to focus on the Pacific Theater. My grandfather fought alongside those American soldiers in the battles that took place in the Philippines. If I didn't have that family history, I'm pretty sure I would have a different sense of understanding in the Philippines role in that period of history. And, even then that is one of the many chapters in the history of such a proud nation.

Question: How could the United States, one of the biggest nations in such a globalized society, allow their school's curriculum put the histories of different people over others?

References:

1. Mouavangsou, K. (2017). Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation Of Hmong Americans.
2. Schaefer, K. (2014, May 19). Do I need an immigration lawyer for my misrepresentation waiver? Retrieved April 09, 2017, from https://immigrationidaho.com/misrepresentation-waivers-lawyer-2/