Week 3 - Leigh Bagood

Leigh Bagood
Section A02
Week 3

In “Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation of Hmong Americans,” Mouavangsou examines how the US education system as an institution can lead to the miseducation of Hmong students about their culture and identity which can lead to inferiority complexes or community divisions. A statement that resonated with me was that the “US educational system is not prepared to teach students of color” (Mouavangsou 4). Like the author, I was not exposed to any sort of ethnic studies until I attended college. One thing that followed me throughout my childhood and adolescence is that I never had the opportunity to learn about my people’s narratives from their own perspective. US textbooks provide only a narrow, eurocentric view of history that normalizes the erasure of the true history and voices of people of color. This can lead to the internalization of white supremacist sentiments, as students of color in the US are lead to believe that their culture and heritage are of less importance. As a Filipino-American, I didn’t notice how damaging it was to my perception and understanding of my people to have our rich and diverse history reduced to mere subheadings about the Spanish-American War and US occupation. Especially since I was not surrounded by many Filipinos in school, the obscurity of my culture felt normal. I can only imagine the impact on Hmong American students whose personal narratives are erased to a greater degree. While I was aware that the US education system was one not made for student of color, especially in regards to opportunities within schools, I now realize how it important it is to continue scrutinizing the overall infrastructure for its “miseducation” and eurocentric tendencies. By looking beyond the classroom, we can see the deep-rooted mechanisms in the US education system that can negatively impact Hmong American students and students of color, their feelings towards their own culture and identities as it is fed to them from faulty perspectives.

Question: Ethnic studies at universities were results of state-wide protests and struggles, has there ever been challenges for more ethnic studies within the K-12 public school systems and what were the results?

1. Mouavangsou, K. N. 2016. Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation of Hmong Americans. Retrieved October 6, 2017.
2. Digital image]. (n.d.). Retrieved October 7, 2017, from http://www.40thandbrooklyn.com/single-post/2017/03/15/Becoming-Activists-in-the-Classroom-Understanding-%E2%80%98Peripheral%E2%80%99-Stories-in-the-Context-of-an-Androcentric-Education