Heather Huckstadt

Tuesday night, we all had to attend the Poehler Lecture to listen to speaker Carl Schoenbeck speak on education. Although I am probably not going to pursue a career in education, I thought a lot of his points were insightful, and some were even pretty familiar.

The first familiar part, of course, was the basic repetition of the first semester of Honors this year.  A lot of his models looked kind of like our OMA, IMA, and NOMA models, although I guess his never really overlapped.  I guess that was what was kind of cool, though, because he put faith in the middle as a core that kept everything together.  While most of us put our faith in the theology part of our illustrations, he had a separate part for it.  I also liked that he included a section for the parts of education that I understand more--less science-y ones, but more English-y ones. He said that by braiding all of our education and learning on all of these specific areas together, then we could truly be educated. He really liked the idea of interdisiplinary studies, and he even mentioned the Honors Program.

Another thing that he mentioned a lot was familiar to me, but possibly not to a whole lot of people.  That part is Service Learning. I am a HUGE fan of Service Learning.  Not only do I work in the Service Learning office, I have Service Learning implemented in my Spanish class, where I go to a school and work with an after-school program with Latino kids in Minneapolis.  Besides the fact that I love the kids and the program, it teaches me SO MUCH. I was really glad that he put this little plug in for service learning, because Concordia is nothing like the real world, and it can be really helpful to get out there and broaden your horizons.

I thought the lecture would really not apply to me because it was about "Teaching the Children Well," but I guess in some ways, it really did. I guess that even though I'm not an education major, there will always be opportunities in my life to teach people things, from my faith to my kids that I work with in the after-school program.

Last night, Seexeng Lee visited our honors class. He taught us about Hmong art--how it started, how it has evolved, etc.

I think the biggest thing that I got from his conversation with us was that Hmong art has never been just something to look at.  One thing that he said I thought was really interesting--that certain decorations that people wear are throught to keep the soul intrigued with their beauty, so then the soul wants to stay with the body.  I thought this was a neat concept, even though I obviously don't believe it.  It gives an explanation for some of the Hmong fashion, and it's possible that there are similar beliefs in other cultures that I am not aware of.

After the original art that Hmong people made, which served a very useful purpose as clothing, tools, and other daily items, the next wave of art still served a useful purpose, although not in as obvious a way.  Many paintings, quilts, etc. show the Hmong journey across the river and the entire story that the people went through.  These quilts and paintings, along with the oral tradition and some songs serve as a way of preserving the culture, which is really neat.

One thing that Lee said that I thought was really profound was that "on the surface it's really Hmong, but underneath, it's all of us."  He really finds beauty in his heritage, and he encouraged us to dig deeper to find the beauty in our own heritages.  As someone who kind of never really thought of myself as someone with a heritage, this was really something to think about, and hopefully something I will be able to find beauty in someday, just like he did.

Monday night, we had three visitors to our class--Pa Houa Yang, Xia Yang, and Xang Lee.  All three of them are CSP students from the Thailand/Laos area.  Xang was born in Thailand, but he came to the US in 1993.  Pa Houa spent a good portion of her life in Asia, moving to California just 8 days before Sept. 11.  Xia was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, but she came to the US around the age of 3 or 4.  All three of these people had remarkable stories to tell.

I think what really impacted me was Pa Houa and her language skills.  As someone who is working on a foreign language, I think that it is EXTREMELY difficult to speak it, even if I can write it or read it well.  Pa Houa said she has been in the US since she was in 7th grade, so she has been here a few years, but she clearly is not completely fluent in English yet.  I thought it was incredibly courageous of her not only to speak the language when she needed to, but to get up in front of a class and pretty much make a speech. I am pretty sure I would never be that brave. 

The other thing that really impacted me was something that Dr. Schuler commented on.  The girls were the ones who were raised more strictly, given less freedom, etc., but in the end, they were the ones who want to raise their own children in this way.  I think that says a lot about tradition--they are used to their situations, and so they want to keep their lives that way and promote their culture.  It kind of makes me think about egocentrism, which is something we talk about a lot in sociology.  Who are we to say that our culture is "normal?"

I really enjoyed Monday's discussion, because I feel that it was a lot more light-hearted than some that we have had.  I felt that we kind of got to know each of the individuals, and they all seem like really neat people--Xang seems really funny, Xia seems like someone who is ready to change the world, and Pa Houa seems like one of the most determined people I have met.  I think that's what a lot of people forget about in the immigration/refugee debate--the people themselves. The people are what really matter, not the economy, politics, etc. Maybe that's just my opinion though. And who says that my opinion is the correct one?

I just got back from the art gallery featuring art related to immigration, and WOW! I probably could have just sat there for hours and soaked everything in, but I might have gotten some weird looks. Everything there was just so neat.  Some of the stuff I wasn't so moved by at first, like the tree sculpture, but after the artist explained it, I loved it. His metaphor of his family being like a tree, with roots and everything in Chile, and then being uprooted and placed somewhere else was just so powerful! I also liked how he made the branches gradually change to more of a "synthetic" wood, like how his family became Americanized.

I also really liked the Hmong art.  The gold-leafed pieces were beautiful, although I did not get a whole lot out of them, but I really liked the photo montage and the painting.  The painting was just a simple depiction of what crossing the river was like, but the colors and everything made such a dangerous act seem so hauntingly beautiful. What I loved about the photography piece were the people.  They were staring right at me, almost as if they were begging to tell me their stories. 

I think that is why I liked the website art piece.  I didn't get a chance to look at it there, but I did take down the website It's here in case you didn't write it down. I am really excited to look at it, especially since I have recently fallen in love with the Lake St. area, and it sounds like she has done a lot of work there.

My favorite items, however, were the photographs.  I really was moved by the photos of the henna and the photos of suburban immigrants.  The woman with the henna I originally thought had pretty photos, but when she explained that women aren't allowed to drive in her country, it really moved me.  Her images of her henna-covered hand in the car were kind of the embodiment of what it is to be in America.  I especially liked the one with the steering wheel, because to me, it showed that in America, you can be free. Women can drive, etc.  At the same time, however, there was not as much henna on her hand.  This kind of represented the assimilation to me.  In the US, there is so much pressure to conform, that a lot of culture is lost, but some people are still able to retain their culture.  To me, that small amount of delicate henna was really beautiful, because it showed the American culture juxtaposed with the Middle Eastern one.

The photos of the suburban immigrants also had a huge impact on me.  The first one I saw showed the land before they had arrived--just bare farmland, pretty much.  I remember when the land past my house was just a cornfield like that. I look back at pictures, just like that one, and have memories like that photographer must have.  Now, however, my house is not on the edge of town--there's several neighborhoods between me and the cornfields. There is a huge population of Indian immigrants in my neighborhood now, and some Hispanics and other random ones as well.  The photos were from a town in suburban MN, but they might as well have been in my backyard.  I think their universality really got to me. 

I don't know if my mindset has really changed too much, but I do know that I respect the immigrants and refugees even more now, if that is even possible.  Their ability to create beauty out of their sometimes scary situations is just amazing.  I am pretty sure I could never have that much resiliance.

This evening in Honors, we had two guest speakers, Mr. Long Yang and Ms. Choua Thao.  Both came to the United States as Hmong refugees as young adults.  It was really interesting to hear their stories, because they seem to remember it more realistically.  When we met the people who had come to the US as children, the atmosphere seemed totally different because they just did what their parents told them to do.  These refugees had to actually fend for themselves, and for some reason that left a huge impression on me.

Mr. Long Yang really seemed quite inspiring because he worked for the CIA.  I really liked how he explained his options--either have a low-paying job in the US, or be torched in Laos. It really made me think of how fortunate even the lowliest of Americans are--at least most of us don't fear getting killed every day.  I also really thought his metaphor of refugees being dead people was quite powerful.  He said that they are dead people.  They have no future, no life, etc.  I think this was when it really hit me what these people had been through. 

Ms. Choua Thao was the most inspiring to me. I actually want to be her.  At first, I was a little scared, because she was this tiny, stern-looking little woman, but she had a HUGE spirit.  I liked how she introduced herself by explaining what her name means, because it really did have a lot to do with her story.   She had a lot of qualities I admire--I want to be a social worker just like she is.  Her stories about the hospitals in Laos were insane--how when she was 21 she was told to take care of the hospital and how 267 people died in one month there.  I don't know how anyone could stand to be around that much death.

What really amazed me, though, about both these people, was their resilience.  Choua worked while she was pregnant and waited 3 months without her husband just to train more nurses for her hospital.  She pretty much yelled at the government for taking her nurses away.  Even when she came to the US, she was so persistent, especially about getting a job.  After getting her associates degree, she told those future employers exactly what she had to offer, and that really worked for her.  She could be wallowing in her sorrow from seeing her uncles and brother die, etc., but instead, she is trying to inspire others.  I think that is truly amazing. 

I guess up until tonight I hadn't truly realized the difference between a refugee and an immigrant.  I knew the book definition, but this talk really helped me to visualize it and think about it more.  I have to admit, I was not that interested in learning about the Hmong, but because of tonight's talk, I have changed my mind completely because the story is so fascinating.

                Last night for class, we met in the Hmong Center next to the chapel.  I'd always kind of wondered about it. I knew it was the Hmong Center, but what did that mean?  Did that mean that the Hmong kids hung out there?  The Hmong studying took place there? That we housed Hmong refugees there?   Was it only for the Hmong kids? Was it for students at all?  Needless to say, I had no idea, and I had a lot of questions answered last night during our visit. 

                During our visit, we not only learned about the Hmong Center itself, but one of its employees as well.  We heard all the accomplishments the Hmong Center has made over the last few years, including all the famous people who have come to visit it.  I thought it was really neat that Concordia was the first school to have a Hmong studies minor, not necessarily because I want to pursue it (although I actually am thinking about it), but because I have looked at lots of schools with Hispanic/Latino studies majors and minors because of what I want to do for my career.  I think it's kind of neat that they kind of took that idea and ran with it. 

                We also learned about everything Professor Lee Pao Xiong has been through and done.  Since I missed Kalia's story, I was really glad to hear someone's escape story from Laos.  I also thought it was neat to hear it from the perspective of a young boy--he thought that the dead bodies were cool instead of gross, which is what I would have thought.  I know the kid I used to babysit would probably be jealous of all these kids who learned to shoot guns at such a young age and were raised in the war, but he really has no idea.  I also thought it was a really good point that he made that most Hmong people didn't want to come to the United States--and that many are still in Thailand because of that opinion.  If you think of all the patriotism in the United States, and then think of a huge war breaking out and people telling us we could go live in, say, Russia, I don't think many people would be  too excited to go.  Americans act as if refugees are coming in to take our welfare, etc., but what they don't think about is how very few of those refugees actually want to be here.  We discussed the difference between a refugee and an immigrant--refugees are kind of forced to come here and immigrants come to seek economic gain generally, but I think that many immigrants would rather be in their home country as well.  I know a lot of people who have immigrated to the US solely because they thought it was their only choice--they had no means of supporting themselves in their home country. 

                What really amazed me about Professor Xiong were all the things he has done in his career, however.  He went from a refugee boy on welfare to assisting people in high positions of government and working with the CIA even.  Of all the things he could be doing, he chose to be here, taking a $40,000 (I think that's what he said?) pay cut in order to preserve and promote the Hmong culture.  I think that is SO admirable.  I wish there were more people like this in the world. 

                Listening to Professor Xiong didn't change me too much, but I did realize how important it is to preserve culture.  I personally feel that I don't know my own culture.  When we had to find our family's "coming to America" story, I had a really hard time finding something.  I think that my family has kind of assimilated too much or been ashamed of our culture, and our culture has been lost.  Although I don't have a huge interest in the Hmong culture, I do have an interest in the Hispanic culture, and currently I am volunteering with an organization that has afterschool programs for Latinos to teach them about their own culture.  I think that since I feel that my culture has kind of been lost, I can at least help others preserve their culture while learning at the same time.

To be honest, when I heard that we were going to go see Gran Torino as a class, I wasn't too excited.  I am kind of oblivious to the world of cinema, so I don't see a whole lot of previews, and for some reason I thought that this was an action movie about a car, and that we were just seeing it because somehow Hmongs were involved.  This type of movie is not generally my favorite kind, but I figured this was just something we all have to do, so I went along with it.  It's a good thing we didn't really have a choice, because I probably wouldn't have gone, and I would have missed a really great movie.  I  thought the whole idea of Hmong gangs was really intriguing, and the quote about the Hmong girls going to college and the Hmong guys going to jail really hit me hard.  I also thought that putting the story kind of around the cranky old man really made it powerful. 

For some reason, this movie really reminded me of one of my absolute favorites, Freedom Writers.  I saw the trailer for it, and that same day I went out and read the book.  The day it came out, I went to see the movie in theaters, and it was one of the most powerful movies I have ever seen.  I think it is similar to Gran Torino because it does focus a lot on gangs, especially fighting between gangs of different races/cultures.  In Freedom Writers, however, the teacher taught the kids to use the power of writing instead of violence to solve their conflicts.  It was really neat to think of Tao and Sue as like the Freedom Writers, because they are so easy to identify with. 

I think the one thing about Gran Torino, however, was that it was more real than Freedom Writers. Freedom Writers takes place in California, which seems almost foreign to a mid-westerner like me.  Not only did Gran Torino take place in Michigan, a place that seems a lot more real to me, but it was centered around the Hmong people, which there are clearly a large concentration of here in the Twin Cities.  I met some really nice Hmong girls last Friday when I went to the Leadership from the Heart seminar.  I got to know them a little bit, and now that I know them, I can see how hard it must be for them.  I know one of them was a little more traditional, wanting to please her parents, etc., but at the same time, she was a typical American teen.  I've seen a lot of Latino teens like this at home as well.  I think the ability to preserve one's own culture and assimilate to a new culture at the same time is really incredible and admirable.

Last night during the evening section, our class discussed our Winter Break reading assignment, The Middle of Everywhere by Mary Pipher.  I love the topic of immigration because it is something that is close to my heart, so I was really excited to read the book and discuss it.  From what I had heard, not everyone had the same enthusiasm that I did, but that definitely did not change our discussion last night.  Everyone was so excited to share their stories and opinions!  In fact, some times I found it hard to respond to the questions because there were so many good ideas bouncing around the room.

Last January, I wanted to improve my Spanish ability so that I could do well on the AP test.  I contacted a community center in my town, which just happens to have a Hispanic Outreach program (the largest in Central IL, but I guess that's not saying too much).  I was going to just tutor a kid who had a few problems with language comprehension, but that soon changed.  The kid stopped coming to the center, so the woman I had contacted told me I could stay and help her around the office.  Soon, not only was I making copies and teaching her how to use the computer (just like our discussion of how we all have to teach adults about technology!), I was translating documents, taking phone calls, helping clients, and even interpreted for a child's speech therapy appointment.  I also started babysitting for a group that met on Friday nights, the Latina Women Support Group.

I helped coordinate a summer camp this past summer for Latino junior high kids as well.  Throughout all these experiences, I met many remarkable people, especially the coordinators, all of which were first- or second-generation immigrants.  I don't know a lot of their stories, but I do know that the woman I worked for moved to the U.S. from Mexico at the age of 17, and sometimes she still gets prepositions mixed up and I have to help her.  The other woman I work with a lot is from Colombia, and she had to move here and completely restart her education because it was not valid in the United States.  I know kids like the ones in the book, who were pulled out of activities to go translate for family members.  I know kids who moved from Mexico in the last three years, and they had never been to Chicago until this past summer (for people in my area, Chicago is only 2 hours away, so it's a frequent day or weekend trip. I think I have been there a few thousand times, except it's probably a little less than that.)

Coming from a small, conservative, generally Caucasian town in the middle of a cornfield (my high school really was in the middle of a cornfield!), I was around a lot of people who had the same opinions.  We had signs around town that said "racism--not in OUR town" but I still felt that the reason we weren't racist was because there weren't many minorities to be racist toward.  I did hear some stories, however, of racism--not necessarily toward African-Americans, but toward the Latinos with whom I worked.

Although I myself have not had any experiences like those in the book, it was interesting to see that it wasn't just people at the center who had ones like them.  It was so mind-boggling to hear that some of my classmates had similar experiences or knew people who had gone through them.  Generally, when I talk to my best friend from high school about my volunteer experience at the community center, she acts interested, but I know that she doesn't truly understand or really care too much.  Unfortunately, her opinion is much like that of the rest of my high school classmates'.  It was really refreshing to hear my Honors classmates discuss the book and compare it to their experiences or experiences of people they knew.  I guess my mindset has changed a little in that I now have hope.

                In Galileo, Darwin, and Hawking: The Interplay of Science, Reason, and Religion, Phil Dowe attempts to answer many controversial questions about religion and how it relates to science and reasoning.  In the book, he shows how he believes that religion and science can co-exist in an interactive harmony.  One topic he covers is the idea of miracles versus the laws of nature. 

                First, Dowe approaches the ideas of Hume about miracles.  Hume tried to prove that miracles did not prove a rational basis for belief in God.  He believed that degree of belief should correspond to the evidence.  Due to the probability of a miracle occurring, there was very little evidence on which to base one's belief.  Another factor that contributed to the lack of evidence was the testimony.  When considering a miracle, according to Hume, one must not only consider how probable the event itself is, but also how reliable the testimony of the witnesses is.  Even if there is enough evidence, one must then be able to prove it is a miracle.  But what exactly is a miracle?  Is it just something that goes against nature?  That has happened before and not been considered a miracle.  Is it something happening with perfect timing?  That could be considered a coincidence.  Is a miracle very unlikely?  Is it impossible?  Is it logical?  Finally, Hume decided that the definition of a miracle was a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of a Deity.   Once one has defined what a miracle is and what evidence is logical, one must apply the rules that Hume had.  Rule one said that people can never rationally believe on the basis of testimony that a miracle has occurred.  This means that if there was full proof for the miracle and full proof for the law of nature, nothing was proven, and it does not require belief or faith of any kind.  In another case, there is less than full proof for the miracle and full proof for the law of nature, meaning there was no rational proof of the miracle.  This is a problem, but even if it was not, a miracle would not be able to pass rule two--proving that it supported a religious claim.  There is difficulty in proving both that the miracle occurred, and that it supported a religious claim. 

                Dowe's argument is quite solid.  He shows that with Hume's rules, it is impossible to prove a miracle.  Hume says that in order to be believable, something must be logical, but that miracles are not logical but believable.  Just by showing that sentence, Dowe disproved Hume's ideas.  He also shows that Hume could not prove religious claims.  Not only does he disprove that one cannot prove a miracle or a religious claim, he shows that the miracles are not the important part of Christianity.  Christians should not need miracles; they should be able to believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose from the dead to save his children from eternal damnation,  solely based on the gospel.   Although the gospel is based on a miracle, modern-day Christians do not need to see for themselves proof that Jesus rose from the dead--the simple faith that he did is enough for God. 

                While Dowe's argument was quite solid, it was not without its weaknesses.  The argument was very complex, so complex that many college students had a hard time understanding it.  It was not very concise, so that the only readers who would read it would have had to be very serious and dedicated to reading it (or having to do it for a class).   The manner in which his argument and Hume's argument were demonstrated made very little sense to people without strengths in reasoning and math.   If there had been multiple ways of presenting the arguments, ones which appealed to those who learn better through examples and anecdotes, this writer would have gotten through the text a lot more easily.  The more people that can get through the text, the more people would believe his argument, and his argument would be supported by many, giving it more creditability. 

                Overall, the argument was won by Dowe, who pointed out that the argument was pointless.  Christianity does not revolve solely around miracles and proving them.  If there were no miracles, a person's faith would have to be that much stronger in the Lord because there would be no signs.  Many people concentrate too much on the miracles themselves, not on the God who performed such miracles. 

               There are many signs of how the Enlightenment affected not only the people of its era, but the people of today.  It and its concepts are present in many pieces of literature, philosophy, and other areas of study, but it is especially evident in history.  Proof of how the Enlightenment affected history is in the Declaration of Independence, which was written by Thomas Jefferson.

To understand this proof, one must understand the Enlightenment.  The Enlightenment, sometimes called the Age of Reason, was a period of history that started in the late 1600s.  It was started as an attempt to make the ideas of the Scientific Revolution popular in society.  Those who followed the Enlightenment were thinkers who wanted change from the old traditional civilization.  The thinkers of the Enlightenment followed three basic concepts: the concept of reason, the concept of nature, and the concept of change and progress.  The concept of reason stated that everything was subject to reasoning.  Through this concept, people believed that things should not be accepted because of a test of time, but that they should be looked at carefully using reason.  The second concept of Enlightenment was the concept of nature.  This concept said that nature generally has an order and keep that order, regardless of prayers or other phenomena.  It also says that humans have corrupted nature with all of their restrictions.  The last concept of the Enlightenment is that of Change and Progress.   This concept viewed change as a good thing, as opposed to the previous distrust of change and the idea that it was a step down from what had previously existed.  All three concepts form Enlightenment, whose concepts are evident in the Declaration of Independence.

Deism is evident in the Declaration of Independence as well.  It was a religious movement that occurred with the Enlightenment.  It says that all people have the ability to know God through reason, and that God was a rational architect.  Followers of Deism believed that knowledge from God didn't come from revelation or from Jesus, but from reasoning.

The effects of the Enlightenment are clearly evident in the Declaration of Independence, starting in the very first paragraph.  Jefferson writes that it is "necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another," obviously calling for change and reform, which was one of the main concepts of enlightenment (Jefferson 1).   He extends this idea of change and reform throughout the entire piece, stating "it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it [the form of government], and to institute a new Government" (1).   He clearly does not believe that the old form was beneficial because of the tradition, as the people opposed to the Enlightenment did, because he says, "it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security" (1).   He continues to comment on how oppressive the old form of government had been as he talks about the king.  He complains about how the king has "refused his Assent to Laws," "forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance," "refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People," "called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records," "dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly," "refused...to cause others to be elected," and "endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States" (1-2).  Furthermore, he "obstructed the Administration of Justice," "made Judges dependent on his Will alone," "erected a Multitude of new Offices," "kept among us...without the consent of [the] Legislature," and other despicable acts (2).  This way of thinking is clearly influenced by the Enlightenment because the people involved in the Enlightenment believed that "change, when dictated by reason and when in line with nature, liberates individuals and should be pursued" (Harrison 469).  He clearly believes that the king's unreasonableness dictates through reason the necessity for change. 

Just as the Declaration of Independence was heavily influenced by the Age of Reason, it was also influenced by Deism.   According to an entry in the Dictionary of Christianity in America, Thomas Jefferson was "the most forceful deist of the period," so the ideas of Deism played a part in his writings, including the Declaration of Independence (470).   In the first paragraph, it speaks of "the Laws of Nature" and "Nature's God," which both show the belief in a rational creator of the universe (1).  In the same way, the document talks about the "Creator" who created people "with certain unalienable Rights," which also shows the idea of God as a rational architect (1).

                Clearly, Thomas Jefferson used ideas from the Enlightenment and Deism in the Declaration of Independence.  Although both movements were introduced many years ago, they are still alive in today's society because of documents like it.

 

Works cited:

Harrison, J., R Sullivan, and D. Sherman. A Short History of Western Civilization, 6^th ed. New York: Alfred

 Knopf, 1985.

Reid, Daniel G., ed. Dictionary of Christianity in America. Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990.