Week 3 - Katherine Tran A01

Katherine Tran
Section A01
Week 3



Reading “Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation of Hmong Americans” by Kaozong N. Mouavangsou was enlightening in some ways when I compared my own experiences living and growing up in a community made primarily of refugees from the same war that Mouavangsou and her people were also deeply affected by. I learned in my previous Asian American studies classes that though the “model minority” stereotype is a blanket statement that is, inaccurately, applied in most situations to all Asian Americans, there is an opposing stereotype that is applied mostly just to Southeast Asian Americans in refugee communities - particularly to the male members of these communities. It was very shocking to me, learning that, because the way that we thought about ourselves when I was growing up was much more congruent with the “model minority” stereotype - we excelled in academics because we were Asian Americans. Reflecting on my own experiences makes me see just how privileged I was as a child - being selected to test for and later enrolled in a program for gifted and talented children meant that I went to school in a better part of the district - and as a teenager, given that that trend continued in high school, when I decided to enroll in one of the best schools in the county.

It was because of that decision to go to a top-class high school that I was probably able to take a world history (technically, Non-western cultures) class that actually included not only the plights of several different ethnic groups in the curriculum about the Vietnam (American) War, but actually acknowledged, and taught to some degree, the extent to which America was involved in foreign affairs in conflicts all throughout the 20th century. It wasn’t perfect - my teacher was someone who refused to acknowledge that the various movements by white settlers and the United States government against Native Americans constituted genocide, after all - but even so I still had a much better foundation compared to the teenagers who were included in Mouavangsou’s study. It’s weird realizing after the fact how much privilege you might have had after the fact, especially when those privileges are mostly coincidental, thanks to certain decisions made mostly on a whim. The reason why American involvement in foreign affairs not only in Southeast Asia but around the world is mostly kept from the high school curriculum in the United States is pretty obvious, but I wonder about the effects such thourough, and perhaps truthful, education would have on the people. If we were to be a nation that actually acknowledged the stains of the past starting from lower education, rather than keeping it almost entirely restricted to levels that most people can’t actually reach, would it make a difference?

References:

Mouavangsou, K. N. 2016. Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation of Hmong Americans. Retrieved January 19, 2019.

Image Credit: 

Beisner, R. L. (1986). From the old diplomacy to the new: 1850-1900. Illinois: Harlan Davidson.

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