Week 3_Jiaming Mai_ A02

After reading the article “Hmong  Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation Of Hmong Americans,” it reminded me of the discrimination that I faced when I was in high school. It was so remarkable that I can never forget. Because of a foul during a basketball game, an Asian American classmate cursed my friends and me by calling us stupid ching chongs. At first, I didn’t take it seriously since he was also Chinese but American born. Now, I think it is a signal of our problematic education. As Mouavangsou mentioned in the article, miseducation and loss of home language can have significant impacts on self-identity. These problems almost exist every immigrant's family. If first-generation parents didn’t actively promote the education about their native cultures, students will be either lost their advantage of being bilingual or strongly against their family cultures because being a minority at America isn’t cool. Even though politicians and government usually emphasize equality between each race, the American mainstream always portraits minority cultures as weird or outdated. These social pressure has forced many second-generation students to be afraid of accepting their native cultures. That is why I really appreciated what Mouavangsou had done to contribute to the Hmong community because it really set a role model to encourage other minorities to find out their roots and history. 

Question:  How can we change the situation of being underrepresented?

 Mouavangsou, K. N. 2016. Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation of Hmong Americans. Retrieved October 6, 2017.