Ideas for the importance of preserving the Hmong Culture

·         Who? The Hmong Culture

·         What? The Hmong people are becoming more Americanized and is losing their culture, language, purpose, and voice.

·         How? (HSA) The Hmong Society Association, New Year, parents requiring their children to speak Hmong at home.

·         Audience (stakeholders): The young Hmong generation.

·         Why? It is important for the young Hmong generation to preserve the Hmong culture. 

-          In the past thousands of years the Hmong people did not have a written language.  That is why it is so hard to track down the Hmong history.  I myself have trouble finding the Hmong history because they were not able to write down their history.  As children, the elders tells us past down story to keep our culture alive.  I feel it is the young Hmong generations’ responsibility to document these stories and experiences, because we are taught how to write.  It will make it easier for the young generation of Hmong people to understand our history. We are their voice.

-          Language lost is an important issue, because it is slowly dying out.  Again relating to the elders, who have trouble speaking English, they really depend on the younger Hmong community to help with translation.  We cannot just ignore our culture, it is part of us.  It is what defines us in our values, decisions, traditions, languages, and cultures.

-          It is important to preserve for the young Hmong generation to preserve the Hmong culture because if we don’t we will be forgotten.  We don’t have a country to put up signs in Hmong, or schools that teaches us Hmong.  We need to listen to our parents experiences, maybe we will understand them and value culture more.  The Hmong culture will not mean anything if it does not mean anything to the Hmong people themselves.