Sally Tran, A01, Week 6

In “Hmong Does Not Mean Free,” the author explains how Hmong Americans have been miseducated by the U.S. education system and also misinformed by their own people. Her findings demonstrated that in textbooks, the Hmong community is not represented or rarely mentioned and that students learn history with a Eurocentric view. I can also relate to many of those students because as a Vietnamese American student, I also didn’t learn about Vietnamese culture and throughout K-12, only recalled the Vietnam War. Through Asian American studies I am able to “obtain a glimpse of (their) history” (Valverde & Dariotis 202).

One of the concepts that is focused in ASA 2 is reverse engineering. To my understanding, it means doing research and unpacking ideas and topics that were put in place. Through reverse engineering, the author discovers that the stereotypes between Hmong males and females were created by society and implemented in the education system. These ideas are then carried out throughout the community and creates a divide among the males and females. This results in different expectations of gender roles. I can relate to this because like the author, I am the youngest and only daughter in my family. As a child and now, I always feel the pressure to work hard and succeed. My parents did not have a formal education and they have always believed always that education equals success. Growing up, I feel like going to school and doing well is expected of me which goes back to not only model minority myth, but also familial pressures.

Image from https://phase3counseling.com/asian-americans-2/

References:

Valverde, K.-L. C., & Dariotis, W. M. (2019). Fight the tower: Asian American women scholars 

resistance and renewal in the academy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.