Week3 - Yuchen Qu

Yuchen Qu
Section A03
Week 3

This week’s reading was about the American defective educational system, and the influence on Hmong’s families. Hmong families think about the bright side of American education, and treat it as a path to success and affluence. I have to admit that this kind of phenomenon not only happens in Hmong’s families, but also in Chinese families. Some expressions in the first part “Miseducation of the Hmong as a Framework” are exactly the reflection of the experience of my high school classmate, Ella. Winter 2014, was our second semester of 11th grade, and was also the universities application season. 

At that time, Ella was always one of the top 5 students in our class. She really desired to attend the university in England, where she could focus on her favorite fashion designing. However, her parents enforced her to apply American universities, and they said, “Everyone knows the American universities own the most famous educational system in the whole world, and you’ll be the most successful and most educated generation in the whole family after you graduate.” More excessively, she must double major in Economics and Computer Science, which she hates the most. Her parents continued, “These are the most trending majors now, and you’ll definitely and effortlessly find well-pad jobs in the future after your graduation. Then, we’ll be able to buy a Benz coupe and a luxury villa.” Most surprisingly, her mother even threatened that she would suicide if Ella doesn’t follow her opinion. This part of the reading is also somewhat similar to the one last week.  From her parents' words, I can see that they just simply considered the positive side of the American universities, and didn’t pay attention to Ella's thoughts and mental damage the decision would bring to their daughter. They blindly treated the American universities as places where success would come naturally if she could graduate in the end. In addition, they even depend their incomplete dreams on their daughter, and compel her to achieve an even higher objective.

Question:

Is there a better way that parents can better understand the negative side of the American education system instead of staring at the positive side and making decisions blindly for their children?

References:
Mouavangsou, K. N. (2016). Hmong does not Mean Free: the Miseducation of Hmong Americans. Retrieved October 8, 2017.

U.S.News&World Report [Digital Image]. (n.d.). Retrieved October 8, 2017, from https://www.usnews.com/education