Week 2

Iris Wu
Section A01
Week 2

In the article “Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation of Hmong Americans,” Mouavangsou pointed out the false history and cultural courses in American educational system has misled Hmong Americans to wrong perspective of their self-identity and wrong understanding of their own culture. “The US educational system has done a disservice by miseducating Hmong students such as myself to believe that our own culture it needs to be ‘fixed’ and that we- or our culture- were the cause of the problem” (Mouavangsou, 2017) indicates the major problem of the miseducation. And this not only applies to the Hmongs but generally all Asian Americans. Because of the fact that US educational system is not fully prepared for foreign history and culture, everything is taught based on what the US thinks or the general view instead of the truth or the nation’s own perspective. New Asian American generations are often deceived from the truth. A lot of my Asian friends who were born and raised in the US have approved on such identity struggle. They said that in American education, Asians have been set with certain stereotypes and all cultural events are taught from Americans’ point of view. Without understanding the true perspective of their own culture, they can easily face identity confusion. They doubt on their own culture. And as Asian American youths are educated to think the same way as the Whites or other ethnic groups do instead of identifying themselves the right way, they lost the right to know the truth.

Question: What are some ways to improve on such educational system (to remove false perspectives and apply actual cultural and historical truths)? 

The picture talks about the misunderstanding (general stereotype and the common knowledge of the culture) for Indians and the same applies to Asians.

Reference:

1. Mouavangsou, K. (2017). Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation Of Hmong Americans.

2. Blue Corn Comics- The Harm of Native Stereotyping: Facts and Evidence. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.bluecorncomics.com/stharm.htm