February 2009 Archives

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.