Week 2: Vy Nguyen - A02

In Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation of Hmong Americans, Kaozong Mouavangsou utilizes the concept of ‘miseducation’ to explain the impact it has on Hmong students and their community. Particularly, Mouavangsou argues how the miseducation about the Hmong leads to the miseducation of the Hmong. Thus, affects how we, non-Hmong audiences, view their history, and how Hmong youths get separated from their own community.

Mouavangsou deconstructs the concept by reflecting on her personal experiences, interviewing extensive relatives, and comparing that to the mainstream narrative. Similar to the author, in my culture, we also view education as “a path to financial stability” (Mouavangsou, n.d., p.11), especially when our parents have sacrificed so much, getting an education and finding a job means having a better life. As parents passed down their values of education to their children, it pressurizes us to strive academically - to extent please ourselves, but most importantly, to please and thank our parents for all that they have given us. But it is hard to return this gratitude when the educational system is not designed to support students of color. Students of color often have to work twice as hard to academically succeed. Since structural factors focus more on classroom placement and tracking, Hmong male students who do not challenge themselves or ‘slower' learners, tend to fall behind. Thus, for Hmong students that do strive academically, they are placed in predominantly white classes that forces them “to be more American [and] to stay away from other Hmong boys, therefore dividing the Hmong community".

Structural factors also simplify Hong history, which leads to the “distortion of the true Hmong history to both Hmong and non-Hmong students and scholars alike" (p. 27). For instance, the one-sided narrative of their ‘friendship' with the united States during the Vietnam war or how they have no written language until missionaries came and created one for them. I have a Hmong friend who, for the longest time, believed her community did not have a written language, until she took Dr. Valverde's Southeast Asian Experience class and realized that the Hmong written language is that of beauty and of resistance to oppressive forces. She too, was “blindfolded by the shield of miseducation" (p. 33). Therefore, it is important to constantly challenge our thought process, and rather to seek for answers, ask questions. Think critically, reasons soundly and correct arguments in the face of contrary evidence.

My question is: If the American population is a ‘melting pot’ that welcomes all diverse communities and religion and treats everyone equally, then why doesn't the educational system embrace culture and history, especially of minority groups? Is it because they are afraid we will no longer see the great Empire that is the United States, and instead, sees their wrongdoings in displacing communities and neglecting/ distorting histories?

References:

1. Mouavangsou, K. N. (n.d.). Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation of Hmong Americans. 1-45.
2. Get it! AYPAL’s Know History, Know Self Sweatshirts – AYPAL | Oakland. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://aypal.org/2012/11/get-it-aypals-know-history-know-self-sweatshirts/