In the reading "Miseducation of Hmong Americans," Mouavangsou explains the faults in the educational system, delving into the model minority myth and how such discrimination plays into the role of creating barriers and differences between ethnic minority groups. As a second-generation Vietnamese Asian-American that highly values education as a platform to succeed, I relate to this article on a personal level. From an early age, my mother had always explained how the Asian culture value sons over daughters as daughters are harder to take care of and eventually are wed of to another family. Daughters are married into other families and do not stay to take care of the parents like sons do. Along with being expected to be a housewife, Asian women also statistically earn less than their Asian male counterparts. This anti-female bias was evident in the One Child Policy set in China in 1979; this lead to an increase in males as having more than one child could result in wage reduction and denial to social services. Thus, families began aborting daughters as having a son was seen as necessary.
Along with the pressure of the "model minority myth" and cultural beliefs that sons are preferred, this makes it all the more difficult for Asian American females to succeed economically and socially. In the article, she speaks about how despite her overachieving attitude towards education, she is seen as equal to an average Hmong male student. While cultural assimilation may have good points, for Hmong students, cultural assimilation means the lack of historical reference of Hmong culture in American textbooks. This plays a huge role in the miseducation of Hmong Americans. Mouavangsou talks about how the Vietnam Veteran's memorial had no mention of Hmong in it; this propelled me to search up Hmong history regarding the time frame of the Vietnam War. As expected, I learned that the Hmong were recruited by the United States to fight against communism as the Hmong people valued their freedom and saw communism as a threat. Such history was never mentioned in my American history textbooks. Since the educational system allows differences and distinctions to be made between which minorities are better, as Asian-Americans, we must unite in order to fight for equal representation and social justice.
Question: What other ways can we help our Asian American counterparts (other minorities, genders, etc.) to not be misguided/miseducated?
* This meme is supposed to be humorous; however, this shows the social engineered distinctions between Asian-Americans as the A-students are seen as better than other Asian students with lower grades. This also proves that Asians also excel academically compared to other minorities. Such thinking paves the way for the model minority myth and causes people to believe that Asians are not discriminated against because they "work hard." However, like other minorities living in the U.S., Asian-Americans are also not given equal representation in the workforce and society.
References
Hannahhyunwhite. “I Am Not Your Model Minority.” Thinking Race..., 20 Apr. 2018, thinkingraceblog.wordpress.com/2018/04/20/i-am-not-your-model-minority/.
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