The Socialization of the Hmong Child

CONTENTS

Discussing: Contemporary Issues

Challenging: Women Issues

Reading: Research Article

Learning: History

Guessing: Proverbs & Riddles

Studying: Literature

Visiting: Photo Gallery

Admiring: Art Gallery

Listening to: Hmong Radios

Enjoying: Tales for Children

Taking: Courses of Cult & Language

Trilingual Website Français English Hmoob Index/Themes Index/Year

CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
Socialization of the Hmong Child.
Educative Stakes Within the Reproduction of the Ethnic Identity in the West.

By Kao-Ly Yang, Ph.D.

This text is based on the author's findings in her Ph.D thesis: Kao-Ly Yang, March 1999, "Naître et Grandir: Les processus de socialization de l'enfant en milieu hmong" (Birth and Growth Development: the Processes of Sociolization of the Child in Hmong Milieu), University of Provence, Aix-Marseille I, France, 448 pages.

A part of this article has been presented under the title "The Child in the Heart of All Promises. States in the Socialization of the Child in the Hmong Milieu", in 1999 during the Hmong National Development Conference "From the Mekong to the millennium: Hmong in the 21st Century", 31st October-2nd November 1999, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.

Summary: The article presents a compehensive analysis of the most important aspects in the socialization of the child in both traditional and modern settings. The findings emphasizes on the principle of socialization, its modalities, educative methods and learning contents according to the gender division in this patriarchal society. The author enlightens the discrepancies that parents face in the West while trying to preserve the traditional social roles and identity, and at the same time to answer to the challenges in a modern society. At the end of the article, concrete recommandations have been proposed.

I. BACKGROUND
In Mai 1975, the outcome of the end of the "Secret War" half-opened the door to thousands of the Hmong people of Laos to departing to the West. Many of them were soldiers fighting for the CIA of the United States of America. The Hmong Diaspora becomes worldwide; the encountering with other cultures and languages brought irreversible changes in the society. What will be the impact on the reproduction of the ethnic group, its values and identity?

During the last century in Laos, the majority of the refugees never experienced urban lifestyle with its specific issues. Until then, they have been living in small villages, very often isolated in the mountains. Their traditional lifestyle focuses on their effort to produce lasting crops for the following year, to have more children to survive until old ages in order to preserve the extinction of the ethnic group and to keep alive its language, culture, customs, beliefs transmitted from generation to generation.

In a household, a child is born to be a farmer, a parent, a wife or husband, a "retiring insurance" for his/her parents in their old age, a supportive sibling, a permanent member to sustain his/her clan, lineage and household. The roles are prescribed. The social achievement is sanctioned by the ritual of wedding and of acquisition of a "name of maturity" for the couple - rites of passage in the society.

For the fraction in the West, immerged in different cultures with its variety of needs and expectations in post-modern societies, what are the changes that haved influenced the socialization of a child, its philosophy, methods of socialization, and educational means? Otherwise, after resettling in the West for more than 30 years, how do parents socialize their children? Do they still educate their children to fit traditional roles? What do they do to raise their children in concialing the needs of a modern life and its traditional roles? In addition, is the traditional way of socializing appropriate and efficient to prepare children to face the challenges at school or the competition at work in Western countries? As a minority living with national groups, the native people have their own norms, values, collective experiences, and historical consciousness. Do their communautarism, clan interdependence, semi-nomadic lifestyle, alive oral tradition, status of minority among nations, traumatic experiences of migrants constitute advantages and benefits or, on the contrary, disavantages and obsticles to live in the West?

The data is based on participating observations and surveys done over a decade (from 1992 to 2003) in the diasporic communities in France, in Laos, and in the United States.

II. NOTIONS OF FAMILY AND ETHNIC GROUP SURVIVAL NEEDS

The Hmong society is divided in 3 distinct social units:

The clan, socio-politic unit, assures the cohesion and the identity to the ethnic group. The boundary tracing the material life of a clan becomes visible with its name. In fact, there are more than 30 clans with specific surnames. In addition to the social exhange, the relationship between clans is governed by the exogamic rule: Two members of the same clan cannot marry each other. The clan ascertains the domination of men over women in allowing the first ones to perform the core of the fundamental rituals, to rule as a pratricharcal society when requesting the payment of the bride price during marriage negotiations, and leading the education of the children. The clan leader is a local figure whose recognition bases on personal might and talents more than a democratic choice. Otherwise, there is no unique leader for the same clan all over the world.

The lineage is a sub-clan. Its distinction from the clan and its function concerns the ritual field. A lineage is defined by the features of its fundamental rituals. As for the lineage leader, it may be the local clan leader who possesses strong knowledge of the rituals: he is seen as the religious chief of the group. His impact on the making decision process is real and genuine.

The household is the smaller social unit. It composes of parents, grandparents and children living in the dwelling. Its function is economic and educative. The father is the chief responsible of the members. The household serves certainly as the unit of the reproduction of the ethnic group in term of transmission of the culture, of the identity, and of the values. It plays an important role in the socialization of the Hmong childen. In the Hmong society, there are 2 types of families.

The nuclear or conjugal family, which is composed of only the parents and the children.
The extended family comprises parents, children, and grandparents in addition to paternal aunt or widow who are incapable to work, or the newly wedded sons or young couples with small children.

The extended family is the standard family. In the rural and highlander environment in Southeast Asia, the nuclear family is only a transitional cell, which will evolve to an extended grouping. The division of an extended family takes place when there are conflicts or desire on behalf of the young couple to found their own household. In general,it occurs when the couple has more than four or five children who are able to take part in the farming activities. The function of the family notably have the following features.

The material and economic function of the reproduction of the group.
Its role is to increase the clan in extanding the social exchange and to satisfy the needs of the household.

The educative function and the role of the transmission of the values, norms and rules.
The family is the unique place to raise children. The important decisions about educative choices are made here. The clan or the lineage don't interfere clearly and directly (on) in family decisions. If there were problems at the household level, rumors will be primarily used to socially sanction in putting pressure on the parents. As stateless people without any learning institutions such as school, university or cultural center, to ensure the same educate to all children, the family remains the unique cell for parents to socializing and educating children, and for the community, to passing on culture, and values, and where the process of identification to the Hmong culture takes place. Such a situation of resettlement in the West may put the reproduction of the ethnic group at stake. The worldwide Diaspora has impact in interfering the understanding of these norms and rules, which will regionalize and indivualize the Hmong community. The socialization of the child in the Hmong milieu which depends on individual's interpretation of the norms and the rules will become more challenging in the West because of the existing of several sources of education: school provides a more explicite rules and norms that have more genuine influence over the education of the children than the family whose members are struggling with survival concerns. This issue explains why the maintenance of the nuclear or the extended family on the West is an important stake in the reproduction of the Hmong culture. Any dislocations and weakening of the household will have repercussion on the reproduction of the ethnic group because the household ties down and keeps hold of the whole society: it is the heart of the perpetuation of the ethnic group and the continuity of the ethnic identity.

III. CIRCLE OF AUTHORITY AND EDUCATORS

1. Father and Mother
The father holds the authority of the household, thus of the education of his children. According to my observations in Laos and in France, he is omnipresent in any aspects in their socialization, concretely involved in all activities that --from the Westerner's perspective-- are of feminine sociality. In the daily life, the father provides the first cares to the new-borns. He feeds, washes them, and puts them to bed. When the children become older, he still dresses them, brushing their hair, and cooking for the family. The expression of the father's authority doesn't appear to be severe or authoritarian. However, verbal and physical sanctions may be applied to punish the children, including teenagers when thereare problems. In the West, the father took their infants to see doctors or nurses, accompanied them to schools. As for the mother, she plays a secondaire role, e.g. she is executive of the father's educational choices. She remains a crucial mediator between the father and the children in case of conflict leading to some negociations. During her fieldworkd, the author never saw --and rarely heard-- women said that they hold the authority of the education of their children. On the ccontrary, they must follow their husband's decisions. Their answer seemed accurate at practicing. When observing situations of conflict, mother didn't know how to cope with children's difficult behaviors, especially when it is question of imposing a punishment. In families where the father is absent or deceased, the author observed a lack of authority skills on behalf of the mother who declared herself impotent, incompetent to assume the man's role (txiv neej hauj lwm).

2. The Eldest Children
The first-borns, both girl and boy, have a major role in educating the younger siblings. The first roles is the substitution of the parents in case of temporary absence or decease. An eldest daughter, until she gets married, replaces her mother upon her younger siblings at her very young age, e.g. at 7 or 8 years old. In the native kinship terminology, the prefixed term of 'mother' (niam) before the name is used as the addressed term when sisters calling each other: 'niam laus' (old sister: literally translated "mother old"); 'niam hluas' (young sister: literally translated "mother young". The group of eldest children also particpates to sharing fragments of the culture, to enhancing language development, to transmitting norms, rules, and values, to increasing self-esteem and confidence, to developing curiosities and initiatives.
In addition, in term of socialization, they serve as role models to them. The notion of "role model" is important in this culture: the eldest children play here the models to the younger brothers and sisters. In the West, when an eldest son or daughter succeeds at school, the younger siblings of the family also succeed in their professional endeavors. For example, if the first-borns did good choice of professional careers and possessed strong leadership skills, the younger siblings would also show good skills and abilities. Otherwise, the group of eldest children constitutes an essential stake in the education of the household children and in the development of the diasporic community.

3. Grandparents or Other Elderly
They chiefly assure the transmission of the customs, culture, language, and oral literature, mythologies to the children. The artists, shamans, and healing experts, have a great role in the preservation and the transmission of some elements of the culture, art, and music: zaj tshoob, txiv xaiv, dab neeg, kwv txhiaj, raj, ncas, and qeej. But in this new situation of resettlement, in USA for example, do the elderly play the same role? In the everyday life, grand parents take care of the infants until they go to school. They appear to fulfill their roles in transmitting language and values.

4. The Maternal Uncle (dab laug) and the Paternal Aunt (phauj)
When parents cannot anymore handle a teenager --This issue concerns more teenagers than young children-- because of evil company, gang and drugs issues or serious problems, they will send this child to the maternal uncle (dab laug) and/or to the paternal aunt (phauj). These latest become foster parents for a while until the teenager feels better. The role of foster parents has identical parental duties. If the parents come to pass away, the paternal uncles will substitue the paretns, however the maternal uncle and the paternal aunt will remain at heart toward the orphans. Moreover, parents may discuss serious issues related to children with the maternal uncle and the paternal aunt. Educative decisions par example in sending a young adult to study faraway may happen in places where there may be already a uncle or an aunt. These key-persons offer specific alternatives in socializing Hmong children. Regarding foster care issue, social workers and competent oraganizations may need to consider these two figures before sending a child into a Western family. The cultural gap that exists between Hmong culture, especially in America may create long-term problems for the child.

IV. EDUCATIVE PRINCIPLE AND MODALITIES

1. Principle of Socialization of the Child
Through all stages of socialization, from conception of the embryo stage to marriage then to the ritual of 'Giving a Name of Maturity' (tis npe laus), Hmong people clearly represent the process of socialization of the child as a process depending on the child's capablity to move forward. The principle of socialization in the Hmong culture is based on the desire, the will or the wish of the child whether or not to do and to be. Otherwise said, the socialization of a child is conceptualized as passive according to parents' perspective. The child would be responsible for her/his own socialization. Parents would only follow her/his desire, will or wish to be. Indeed, Hmong parents perceive a child, at any stages either embryo, fetus, infant, child, teenager or young adult, as being able to think, to decide, and to take action by herself /himself, and to express emotions such as joy or fear.

2. Modality and Methods of the Socialization of the Child
The conception of the socialization basing on the desire of the child as the motor of learning engage specific modalities. In fact, it is the milieu of the family that propels the socialization of the child in addition to the specific rites of passage that marks each transition:
    1. the shamanistic ritual to enhance the life of the child during the ulterine phase of development;
     2. the souls calling to transform the new born in social person;
     3. the shamanistic ritual to strengthen the emotional passage from childhood to adolescence;
     4. the marriage that gives the status of the adult;
     5. the ritual of receiving a pluralsyllabic name that consacrates the maturity.
The parents are not the unique educators. The cercle of socialization expands to the extended family, and the lineage. The more a household is equiped with skills, knowledge, and openness, the more a child has the chance to acquire the appopriate abilities and the adaptation skills. Otherwise, the milieu and the lifestyle frame and canalize the socialization. In the traditional environment, the household and its lineage constitute the socialized space where the child exercises his/her curiosity, and acquires the traditional roles. In the transplanted societies, the socialization becomes more complex: in addition to the acquisition of the traditional roles at home, the child is exposed to different norms, values and knowledge at school that modify and vary the content of the socialization.

As the process of socialization is seen as directed by the child, parents represent a child as responsible of her/his bad behaviors. Punishment and process of inhibition will be a crucial part of the socialization in order to teach self-control: the author has observed earlier expressions of interiorization of shame and guilt. Low self-esteem as well as feeling of interdependence of the ethnic group is highly encouraged as good behaviors.

There is no formal educative training with clear established purposes of learning related to ages of development. The learning method is non-verbal and non-formal: the child learns in observing her/his role models' behaviors in daily situations. The formal explanation of the rules become obvious if only the child committed an error or crosses the norms. In fact, in this context, the explicite talk about the social rules is more an readjustment or enhancement than a first teaching. The acquisition of the social roles started with a desire to imitate the role models, and thus to identify to them. Until 6 and 7 years old, the child learns by doing and by exploring things by herself or himself. After about 7, when parents consider children being able to understand realities "paub tab", they start to socialize them according to the gender division. Girls are initiated to the domestic activities; boys go with their fathers to the fields where they are still left to explore whatever they want to do, e.g. to hunt, to visit firends, to play or to attend events.

The socialization leans on the one hand on the traditional structures such as the rites of passage, the cultural heritage, the family historical consciousness of preserving the ethnicidentity, and the psychological frame of shame-guilt for a strong self-control, and on the other hand on the migration experiences that develop the adaptation skills of the lineage, its flexibility to accept changes, the individual's exposure to acculturation, and the quality of the learning environment.

Parents do not focus on the means to socialize the children, but more on the final purpose: bringing a child to adulthood and maturity to reproduce its lineage group. In term of nature of maturity expected by the society, only the physiological and social maturities are promoted in despite of intellectual or emotional maturity. Once a child becomes adult, s/he has to reproduce the group.

V. GAPS AND DISCREPANCIES IN THE WEST
In France or in the United States (census 2000) , the number of children per family remains hight, it is about 7.The rate of infant mortality is one of the lowest in the United States. The important number implies some specific issues, good or challenging. In addition, does the traditional socialization fit to the modern needs?

Weak points
The principle of socialization and its educative methods do not train appropriately the children to answer the needs and the expectations of Western educative systems, and later on, the professional skills. The parents do not involve strongly at school, in educative choices and professional orientations. Following the traditional model, they will wait for their children to express a desire, or to make a decision and to start to succeed before engaging time and money to support them -- the support will be stronger for the sons than the daughters. Henceforth, the socialization based at the same time on individuals' initiative and rigid submission to traditional norms give birth to individuals with different levels of understanding of the norms, standards, and values. In other words, the children need to test the rules in order to learn their limits. In consequence, the parents only verbally explain the rules to their children when these latest made errors. Thus, they support more the children that challenge the system, and less the "quiet" children who are considered the good children. Otherwise, misunderstanding, lack of communication, conflicts, violence within the family constitue the normal process of readjustment of the norms during the learning of a child in this community. This principle based on the desire of the child as modality of socialization, promotes various types of sanctions or punishments, but only after the act. Conflicts and violence are thus the normal mode of educative regulation. Parents lack prevention skills as a methods of education. In the Western settings, such a conflictual educative approach becomes more challenging, making the socialization of the child confused. Because of the existing diversity in term of educative institutions (home, school, work), and of the cultural gaps (Hmong versus French/American), the socialization become more complex, which dimunishes the capability of the parents to educate their children, to understand their needs.

Parents are good caretakers for the first years of development. However, strong problems come out when the child reaches the adolescence. On one hand, parents lack knowledge, experiences and parenting skills related to the lifestyle in urban and modern environments. The traditional anwser for troubled teenagers is either to send them away to an uncle or an aunt or to marry them, which may explain the hight rate of early marriage in the Hmong community. When a girl of about 14 years old dates a boy of the same age, the possible outcome that comes out of both parent's mind is the marriage; according to native point of view, a girl should get marry because she might make her parents lose face if she got pregnant, and the boy should get married because he would make parents lose more money. The early marriage is an obsticle to more education,and higher education, thus to better jobs and strong quality of life.

Strong points
Through this type of socialization, the children develop strong individualistic interest, and therefore have a great potential to become focused on matters that retain their attention. This educative method is able to give birth to vocations, to strong and determined personalities, to people inhabited by passionate and individualistic dreams. Passion, imagination, freedom of thought, coupled with spirit of independence and initiatives, these are the features of the Hmong. From this perspective, the socialization has potential to enhance skills needed to survive in professional competition, and leadership, as well to take part of the ideology of capitalism.

Insufficiency in the purposes of socialization and in contents of learning
Children are supposed to get married to reach social accomplishment. "A tree, wherever it may grow, even on the edge of a dusty road, will know its spring too", said one of my informants regarding search of love and finality in human being's life. The finality of the socialization of a child is clearly to find a wife or a husband. The modalities of learning depend on this unique project of life. Henceforth, whatever a child learns, it should help her/him to "catch" or to "haunt" a lifetime companion.

Table of the traditional and modern activities
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PURPOSES                                                     MEANS
__________________________________________________________
IN   THE MILIEU OF SOUTH EAST ASIA
Satisfying essential needs                         Farming, hunting,
Finding a wife or a husband                       Embroidering, sewing, cooking,
                                                                         cutting wood,
Reproducing the group and its values    Marriage and breeding
__________________________________________________________
IN   THE MILIEU OF TRANSPLANTATION
Satisfying needs                                         Farming, hunting, trading
Finding a husband or a wife                    Embroidering, sewing, cooking,
                                                                       cutting wood, obtaining a diploma,
                                                                       an expertise, a salary
Reproducing the group and its values   Marriage and breeding
__________________________________________________________

In the West, the educative finality didn't vary a lot. Parents' expectations for their children are the same even if their means to achieve the goals have changed. They keep promoting the roles of wife and mother, of husband and father as important social status and the achievement. The changes only concern the variations of resources and of means in sight of obtaining a beautiful bride or a educated husband. Diploma, professional expertise and salary have been becoming visible material successes and thus social accomplishments. In the United States, the American dream is addeded to the prestige: additional assets such as a beautiful house and a splendid and fashioned car constitue signs of social successes and individuals' achievementscontributing to promote and to increase the social power of the clan. In Hmong term, if this clan acquired more beautiful and fertile wives, gave birth to strong children, it would enhance solidarity between members of the clans, keep in respect other clans, and at last, give birth to a leader who would bring forever fame and prosperity for the clan. The education of the child constitues the stake of foundation of the ethnnic group.

The learning depends on the purposes assigned and defined by the familial and ethnic projects. The fundamental learning remains traditional and concrete: cooking, working in the field, sewing, rearing animals. The more fancy and intellectual learning is perceived as secondary. Between school and home, American/French and Hmong, there are indefinite gaps, existing parallels that hardly converge to understanding. All the learning will base on its usefulness to obtain a wife or a husband. Job, fame and money serve this social purpose. Therefore, the choices made by children in artistic or abstract fields, like mathematics, physics, are not encouraged or understood by traditional or traditionalist parents. The most encouraged professional fields consist of activities that rapidly give access to a job, to a salary and of course to a social prestige. The Hmong people currently focus their enthusiastic admiration to individuals who obtained a Ph.D. -- called henceforth "doctor": This academic degree with the associated title is considered as the most prestigious social achievement in the United States although in France people pay less on the social aspect, and more, on the intellectual achievement. The American society accords the title of "doctor" to any kind doctoral PhD including medical doctor. There is a financial reason: a "high level of study" means a "higher salary". In France, the title of "doctor" is only reserved for medical doctor. In France, on the contrary, diplomas less and less grant a good professional position.

Stakes Between Girl and Boy
In this society dominated by a patriarchal ideology, the parents do not always encourage the girls to have initiatives. Boys only keep most of the parents' attention. But, through the processes of socialization, the author has observed a paradox in the development of social roles, and of acquirement of sociability:

Genders               Expected Qualities       Developed Qualities
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Girl                         Discretion                        independence
                               Submission                    Competition skills
                               Sense of hospitality     Ability of self-adaptation
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Boy                        Sense of initiative           sense of interdependence
                               imagination                     imagination
                               sense of hospitality       submission to parents, lineage
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_________________________________________________________
Expected Qualities in the Western Countries       GIRL          BOY
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                             Autonomy            +                 -
                                              Competition skills            +                 -
                                                 Adaptation skills            +                -
                                                     Creative skills             -                +
__________________________________________________________

In the Western countries, women tend to develop better skills in term of competing. Due to their better skills, they have a bigger chance to success in the Mainstream society, which is contrary to men. Migration in the Occident appears as a postive opportunity to women to socially and professionally succeed. However, Hmong women face real challenges. They need to overcome socio-cultural barriers regarding what they can do and cannot do. In fact, the unique way of recognition for a woman is to mary and have children. Her maturity depends on marriage, e.g. on a process of annihilation of one's name, beliefs, desire of pursuing career, vocation, or dreams. There is no events , no socio-ritual space for her to be recogned in her own culture for ther individual achievement in modern context.

Forms of Social Promotion and Exclusion

There are 2 types of promotion.
1.The promotion by marriage because it constitutes the finality of the socialization for both woman and man. They acquire a status of adult; that explains why early marriage is encouraged as a way of reaching adulthood, and so maturity. Most of the marriages take place when the young women are only 14 or 15, and men, 16 or 17 years old. The marriage has a meaning of both social and physiological maturity, and entrance into their independence. In France or in the United States, the early marriage is still practiced. This fact hightlights there is really no change in the educative projects.

2. The promotion by professional success. Social promotion is easier for man than woman who only achieves social promotion and accomplishment through marriage and confinement. At this point, one of the challenges for the Hmong community is to invent some new forms of recognition and of social promotion for women. When married, women are totally assimilated by/to her husband: she has to carry/ ot be named by his first and last name. Even if she has degrees, gets a PhD, she still appears as incomplete, a minor if she doesn't get married.

The social exclusion is funded on the ability of men, and essentially of women to procreate. The categories of excluded women are the single, divorced, sterile , widowed, childless (without alive child) women. This ideology based on the ability to confine as social criterion of promotion or exclusion gives birth to polygamy. Each new wife permits the husband to father some more children, and especially sons; this process increases the degree of sociability and social recognition for a man --from a traditional perspective. But it's a difficult logic for women, hard to root out, to eradicate from the Hmong mentality. Unfortunately, it causes quite numerous conjugal dramas in the West.

VI. RECOMMENDATIONS
How should children be socialized in the West in order to fit the modern societies at the same time to preserve hmong culture?

1.) The parents have to learn to consider themselves as individuals apart, with their own project of life. They have to overcome the idea that marriage and childbirth are the unique accomplishments, the final aims of their life. They have to change their way of thinking in preparing themselves to live different stages of life with the undesrtadning and the acceptance of Ederly age as a happy time. They should seize all opportunities existing in the United States or in France, to study further and to extend their relationships to other cultural groups so that they can learn from other cultures. The importance of the number of children is the core of the Hmong issues. Parents hold the key of their children's future. They must realize that having less children means greater success for all children as well as for the community.

2.) For the Elderly, the community has to readjust their roles of transmission of knowledge so that they are valued as useful people in maintaining social links between Elderly and new generations born in the United States. They are the respected keyhoders of their culture, knowingoral tradition, music, or art of embroidery. Giving them the means to trasmit their klnowledge and associated skills to this activities: learning embroidering has a hidden purpose: it is also to learn patience, discipline, and to care about others and oneself. In the Western countries, the life span gets longer. The Elderly need to have activities, to travel, to build private clubs or association to spend time together. The Hmong community needs to support actions towards creation of clubs and centers for Elderly.

3.) The Hmong community must encourage women's professional development. A professional achievement help or permit women to bring a better education to children. The procreating is not the only way toachievement for a woman. Women meet more professional successes in the situation of resettlement. However, they lack social support and recognition on behalf of their own community. New types of recognition other than marriage and childbirth have to be invented to acknowledge women's capacities to face the challenges. Female roles have to be rethough. Possible relationship between men and women, and between wife and husband should be extended to a more Westernized friendship so that both genders will learn to co-exist in a less traumatic way: wives' life does not belong to husbands and clans who could have them at their disposal regardless women's needs, wishes of career and professional achievement. Giving a good education to girls is as well as important than giving a good education to boys. As mothers, girls will be the first and best teacher of their children. Women with a better and adapted education will contribute to the well-being of the family as well as to the Hmong community and the mainstream society.

4.) As for the children, since childhood, parents must give the same opportunity to boys and girls. Parents should teach both boys and girls, to live together, to share the same activities, the same teaching at school and at home. They should give them the same material and financial means to develop their individual's skills, abilities and capacities. More than the traditional learning, parents should promote foreign languages, travels, Art, e.g. activities that develop mental strength and individual's talents. They should not only focus on studies leading to a title of "doctor" or "lawyer". The process of socialization, which seeks the child's desire, arouses strong and determined personalities able to innovate and to create original projects. However, parents must be careful when coping with cultural gaps. They should extend their knolwedge of how a child develops. During the formation of the basic personality of a child, symbolical, psychological and social references are built to culturally produce a child as a Hmong. They incorporate a culturally constitutive boundary delimiting the body, the mind and the imaginary of a child into a given culture. This boundary serves as protection to her/his psychological stability. There are a high rate of teenagers' suicides in the Hmong American community. In Fresno, more than 8 teenagers committed suicides inless than one year. The Hmong community should take in consideration the destructuring of Hmong family, of values, of identity confusion as well as genders. In this situation of resettlement where people live in a more complex society and where they encounter new challenges, if people came to be marginalized, there would be the consequences: the traditional institutions like the family are engaged into a process of fragility, of fragmentation. Would this fragility imply mental dangers to people who do not accept the traditional norms and standards of marrying, of gender division? This question will need answers to understand issues.

Fresno, California November 10, 2003
Reedited in December 1, 2007
Copyright @ 2003 Kao-Ly Yang

All right reserved. For any use, total or partial, you need to require a special authorization from the author. E-mail: hmongcontemporaryissues@yahoo.com

                                                                   TOP

TOPICS OF 2003
Janvier
Kuv phooj ywg tus zoo tshaj
Mon meilleur ami
My Best Friend

February
Neeg no yeej paub tsis tag txog nws tus kheej
Essai: commentaire et analyse du texte d'Alain "L'homme est obscur à lui-meme"
Essay: Comment and analysis of the text of the French Philosopher Alain "Human Being is obscure to itself"

February (Guest Writer: Zhang Xiao)
Hmoob suav thiab Hmoob poob teb chaw puas yog tib pab t ib pawg neeg?
Le fondement et les caractéristiques de l'identité miao et hmong
Common basis and characteristics of the Miao and the overseas Hmong Identity

April
Maiv thawj tug hlub
Le premier amour de May
May's First Love

August
Poj niam kev mus ntseeg ntuj
La raison de conversion des femmes hmong au christianisme
A Hmong Women's Reason to Convert to Christianity

Poj niam kev yeej pheej xaiv coj kev ntseeg
La problématique de la liberté de croyance chez les femmes
Women's Issues on Freedom of Beliefs

September
Kev ntsuas thiab luj khoom
Quelques systèmes de mesure et de pesée
Traditional Systems of Measuring and of Weighing

October
Paj huam hais txog cov neeg laus kev sib hlub
Une histoire d'amour du troisième âge
A Piece of Hmong Elderly Love

November
Niam Nkauj Ntsuab Paj Nra Yaj
Miss Hmong Pada Yang

November
Kev cob qhia poj niam hmoob rov los pab haiv neeg hmoob
Encouragement pour les femmes hmong aux actions collectives
Encouragement for the Hmong Women to Collective Actions

November
Keeb Kwm Tsim txoj cai AB78
Histoire de la proposition de loi AB78
History of the Assembly Bill AB78

November
Kev sib cog lus ua niam txiv sib hlub mus tas ib txhis
Contract de mariage entre Nushilong et Gaojoua
Marriage contract between Nusheelong and Gaojua

Vim licas Saub tsis nrog hmoob nyob?
Pourquoi Shao a t-il abondonné les Hmong?
Why did Shao leave the Hmong people?

November 24
Hmoob cov teeb meem cov loj tshaj rau xyoo 2000
Analyse des problématiques des Hmong Américains-recensement de 2000
Analysis of Hmong American most sensitive issues - Census 2000

December
Kuv kev ntshaw rau peb Hmoob rau lub xyoo tshiab 2004
Mes souhaits de bonne année pour 2004: devenir conscient(e) des besoins d'éduquer une nouvelle génération de Hmong intellectuels
My Wish for 2004: Becoming Aware of the Need to raise a New Generation of Hmong Intellectuals