Don Atienza, Jowi Deguzman, Alan Sani
Section 3
Miseducation and Marginalization: An Analysis
“He who does not know how to look back at where he came from will never get to his destination.” This quote by famous Filipino nationalist Jose Rizal encompasses the sentiment of which most, if not all, Asian Americans have. In this week’s readings, Transformative Disjunctions in the Academy, by Linda Vo and Miseducation of the Hmong, by Kaozong Mouavangsou, both authors mention how Asian American history is not represented enough in schools. This leads to what Kaozong describes as a miseducation about Asian Americans. Linda explains her personal struggle to gain recognition for the importance of Asian American history in our country and to attain an Asian American Studies department at the collegiate level. The miseducation of the Asian American community and the marginalization of it is due to the United States’ education system not giving these cultures the recognition they deserve. This can be supported through the events happening in schools across the nation as well as the experiences of Asian Americans, such as ourselves, who have also gone through the American education system.
In the first part of Kaozong’s article, she describes how the education of a society reflects that society’s values and belief. The society of America upholds the values freedom, equality, and patriotism. These values are constantly taught through the history of America in schools around the nation. Because of this, Asian Americans obtain a narrow view of their own history and this results in a loss of identity (2017). This directly relates to how we view miseducation of Asian Americans. We believe that this is a recurring theme in the lives of second generation children and onwards. What our group has in common is that during high school we took social studies courses revolving around U.S. History. As a result we do not have adequate interaction with them is nearly superficial and we feel that meaningful conversations of our individual culture is at a minimum.
Though they have great intention, Kaozong writes about how scholars of non-Hmong backgrounds are “miseducating the Hmong community and others” about Hmong people in the second part of her article. According to Kaozong, Sucheng Chan, the author of the book Hmong Means Free: Life in Laos and America, incorrectly translates the word “hmong” to mean “free,” while attempting to educate people on “Hmong history, culture and their experience in the United States.” In fact, Kaozong wrote that another author, Yang, stated that after conducting investigations around the world, there is no evidence that gives the word “hmong” any meaning besides being the name of the group of people (2017). This is an example of how errors made by non-Hmong educators could form misunderstandings about them, leading to the miseducation of Hmong-American youth and everyone else.
A member of our group has personally experienced a similar situation. Two adults that came back to his town from visiting Egypt had incorrectly taught his class information about his religion. Jowi Deguzman, a Muslim, had to listen to the presenters inform him and his class that the reason Muslims do not eat pork is because they believe that it is unclean. Jowi knew that this was incorrect, but when he tried to inform his teacher of this, she brushed it off and did not bother to distribute the information to the rest of the class. Just like how Yang incorrectly translated the word “hmong” to “free” without any evidence, these presenters, or outsiders, incorrectly distributed that information, regarding all Muslims, without any support from the Qur’an or any form of evidence at all.
This kind of miseducation is further supported in the affairs of schools where the implementation of ethnic studies programs are in question. In the Arizona public school system, there was an issue where ethnic studies were banned in classrooms because “it promoted the overthrow of the U.S. government; promoted resentment toward a race or class of people; or designed primarily for pupils of one ethnic group, or advocated ethnic solidarity.” A teacher, who was part of the program, later stated that “these accusations were not founded in research,” and “wondered how many of those people who made these accusations have actually taken an ethnic studies course.” (Ware 2017). The politicians who made the decision, mostly based it on assumption and indirectly targeted students who took these classes. This is yet another case in which miseducation leads to marginalization.
Linda Trinh Vo’s experiences as an educator of Asian American studies at various universities has enabled her to experience a ranging level of miseducation about Asian Americans throughout different regions in the U.S.. Although she taught at the University of California for much of her experience as an educator, she was also an educator at two other institutions, one in the midwest and the other in the pacific northwest. In the midwest, the growth of more ethnics studies programs was very slow despite the school being fairly politically progressive. However her experience teaching in the Pacific Northwest was an example of extreme miseducation in predominantly white areas. Racism was virtually invisible to them, because of their lack of exposure to to religious and ethnic groups different than their own. They were taught to forget mistakes of the past and maintain a “colorblind mentality” (2012). This attitude invalidates the struggles and experiences of Asian Americans and other ethnic groups also inhibiting people’s ability to learn from these mistakes. In both of these examples it is clear that the sufficient education of Asian American and Ethnic studies is not prioritized. These communities are marginalized because it is not important enough in many places in our country for people to have an understanding of minority ethnic groups.
The recurring themes of miseducation and marginalization are what hinder the Asian American community today. Both authors' experiences exemplify instances of such to their southeast asian cultures. Though completely different experiences, they can be felt by all of the ethnic minority. This is an issue that was ironically created behind the guise of an inclusive education system. To many, the solution is simple and that is to let students of colors go back to their roots. Allow the miseducated to be educated and let the implicitly isolated be included. Both articles serve as a call to arms, increasing awareness of this unseemingly silent issue. It is up to our generation to take up this call and let the Asian Americans reclaim their identity.
References
- Mouavangsou, K. (2017). Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation Of Hmong Americans.
- Vo, L. T. (2012). Transformative Disjunctures in the Academy
- Ware, J. G. (2017, April 08). Ethnic Studies Courses Break Down Barriers and Benefit Everyone -- So Why the Resistance? . Retrieved April 07, 2017, from http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/40042-ethnic-studies-courses-break-down-barriers-and-benefit-everyone-so-why-the-resistance
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