Week3_Tianyi_Cui_A01

The theme of this week’s readings is marginalization and miseducation. In Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation of Hmong Americans, Kaozong N. Mouavangsou talked about the miseducation in US educational institution that non-Hmong individuals are trying to “correct” the Hmong community’s understanding of their own history, culture and language; Hmong American students’ thoughts and judgments towards their own culture are distorted under the US educational system. It is almost preposterous that, according to Kaozong’s research, both Hmong parents and children implicitly believe that US education provides them a better life (“financial stability”) while the education is actually dividing the Hmong community apart.

Manee Moua discussed both positive and negative effects of model minority stereotype in her book Navigating Graduate Education as a First-generation, Hmong American Woman: An Autoethnography. She spoke up her own experience of being suppressed as a Hmong American under the white-dominated academia. As a Hmong daughter, it seems that she is supposed to accept everything readily without complaints whenever she is assigned to do something. As a Hmong student, she kept taking simple tasks from her advisor, but this seems to be an impediment for her to deliver her eagerness of working hard and pursuing further study of Ph.D. The cultural difference leads to the advisor’s misunderstanding, and precludes Moua from the “good” graduate student list. Though I do not have similar experiences as Moua, her case definitely alarmed me that how this could also happen on myself since I am also an Asian student pursuing high education in the US.

How can Asian Americans, especially smaller groups like Hmong Americans, break the impregnable wall of being treated differently?

References:

Moua, M. Navigating Graduate Education as a First-generation, Hmong American Woman: An Autoethnography. Hmong Studies Journal, Volume 19 (1): 1-25

Mouavangsou, K. (2016). Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation of Hmong Americans.