Georgina Liu ASA 002 A03 Week 6

According to this week’s reading, I not only learn about the miseducation and negative stereotypes about the Hmong community but also learn about the gender and racial discrimination faced by international women scholars. According to “Hmong Does Not Mean Free,” the writer named Kaozong N. Mouavangsou explained the negative stereotypes that Hmong males do not excel in education as Hmong females and misunderstanding about Hmong community due to the lack of history. According to “Opening the Box” written by Akiko Takeyama, she described her unfortunate experience that her tenure application was down due to racial discrimination. It was tough to defend her right because it was challenging to collect useful information to sue the universities to treat people in color differently. Besides, Takeyama discovered that female scholars were always more hard-working and anxious than male scholars when they were in the same positions.

From my perspective, I can understand Mouavangsou’s concern because, like Hmong people, Chinese are also always treated with unreal stereotypes. According to Mouavangs, “college students may learn about how the Chinese helped build the railroad, how anti-miscegenation laws prohibited marriages, hoe Japanese were interned stripped from their own property regardless of their status as U.S. citizen or not. Are we, the United States ready to know our history?” It is a known fact that misunderstanding comes from a lack of history and communication. As a Chinese student, even though Chinese immigrants contributed some history in the United States, people still know little about Chinese. People in other races always think that Chinese students are good at math, and all Chinese will be successful. Overall, Asian American culture is being lacked in the United States. I highly recommend adding a course named Asian American Culture in high school GE classes to avoid these misunderstandings towards Asian Americans.

Moreover, gender discrimination exists all over the world, not limiting in the United States. Nowadays, the majority of our communities is still a patriarchy. Male constrict female’s accomplishments in academia. As an international scholar in the United States, Takeyama even had more pressure from learning the second language. The equality of male and female is what we learned in school. But this theory is never wholly achieved in societies.

Question: Why the equality of male and female is hard to achieve even though we had learned this for so many years in school?

Reference:

Mouavangsou, K. N. (2019). Hmong Does Not Mean Free: The Miseducation and by Hmong Americans. Fight the Tower. United States: Rutgers University Press
Vue, T. (2012). The Fading Hmong Culture. [Online Image]. Retrieved from https://tinavue-topicforblog.blogspot.com/