In “Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation Of Hmong Americans” by Kaozong N. Mouavangsou, Mouavangsou points out how Hmong along with other demographically small countries’ histories are ignored by the United States, especially reflected in the education system.
As an Chinese international student, I realized how poor my knowledge of other countries in Asia is: I did not know where Cambodia is, I did not know what language a Filipino speaks and I did not know not everyone in Asia would use chopsticks.
The education of histories and cultures of other Asian countries in China is even poorer than US education that is talked about in this article. But just like what the US education system did, we socially engineered people’s opinions on other Asian countries too general. We overly defined the word “Asian” and it’s hurting people since the influence of a strong government is huge.
But is also true that there is a Chinese old speaking: “the ones who win gets to write history.” Sadly I think it is really hard to fix this miseducation of histories for small Asian countries because the force that they have fight against is too strong. From my personal opinion, disastrous a historical event is needed for one ethnicity to come together. For example, the concentration camps for Japanese people in the US during WWII made the Japanese community united together and value and appreciate their own culture and remember their history even more.
Question: What methods does Hmong people in the US already have to teach themselves their own history?
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