Week 2

Kimi Villaroman

A01

Week 2

This week's readings, "Hmong Does Not Mean Free" and "Transformative Disjunctures in the Academy", both highlight the miseducation and marginalization that surround Ethnic Studies and the academia. Kaozong writes about the injustices that her people, the Hmong, face because of misleading information taught to them about their own culture by Hmong and non-Hmong alike. Because of the Hmong culture not having its own written language or country, they are underrepresented in academia, if mentioned at all. For example, the Hmong are not acknowledged when the Vietnam War is taught in academia, yet they play a major role in the war. In addition to this miseducation, we see administrative resistance to the Ethnic Studies program, a newly formed discipline due to community demands. Vo writes about administrators hiring untrained faculty in the ethnic studies department just to stunt the growth of the field, reinforcing the belief that ethnic studies should not be a discipline.

For my personal reflection, I focus on Kaozong’s paper due to how well I resonate with the content of the paper. I find major similarities between my own Filipino culture and the Hmong. Just like Kaozong’s personal experiences, I know what it is like to have the mindset that “having a good life...is linked to being financially stable” (Kaozong, 12) due to familial expectations. Education has always been an important aspect of my growing up; to the point where I wasn’t even allowed to work so that I could focus on my studies. While I do believe that education is extremely important, I find it more important to value other things in life as well, such as social relationships or being street smart over book smart. Also, just like the Hmong, Filipinos fight for acknowledgment in academia. Because of my narrative being created by others, I find most of my history being erased/forgotten/misconstrued. Important Filipino-Americans who were important to our integration such as Larry Itliong and structures like Little Manila in Stockton were only “discovered” recently with the wave of millennials being passionate about knowing history, knowing self.

Question: What are ways that we, as students, can mobilize to fight for specific Asian American cultures being taught in academia?

Reference:

1. CSUs Need Ethnic Studies Programs (2013). Retrieved April 9, 2017, from http://sundial.csun.edu/2013/11/csus-need-ethnic-studies-program/.

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

3. Võ, L. T. (2012). Transformative Disjunctures in the Academy. Transforming the Ivory Tower, 120-144.