Blog One: The importance of preserving the Hmong Culture

Tina Vue

April 27, 2012

ENGL 1200-78

Blog One:  The importance of preserving the Hmong culture

“As a culture, we need to make conscious choices about how to relate to our history and heritage.  If we don’t do this, then those choices will be made for us,” stated A-yia Thoj (Ehling, Matt).  When it pertains to one’s culture, everyone wants to contribute to the right choices that will benefit to their people and keep their culture alive.  That includes the importance of preserving culture, because it keeps family values, traditions, and language together.  Without having a sense of culture, there will be a loss of purpose or a conflict in finding cultural identity (Ehling, Matt).  Hmong culture is currently going through the change, where the younger Hmong Americans don’t even speak the traditional language anymore.  If the Hmong-Americans do not care to write down their history or speak their language than no one will.  It is important to speak the Hmong language and write down the history because both are huge factors in keeping the Hmong culture alive.

In the past thousands years, the Hmong people did not have a written language until recently; in this case, making it harder to track down the Hmong history (Ehling, Matt).  Even when researching for Hmong history, the hugest chunk of history found was on the Vietnam War where the United States documented the details of the Secret War.   As a child, the elders told us pass down stories because this was their way of passing down the Hmong history.  An example would be the aftermath of the Vietnam War.  “While there is no evidence that the promise was ever written down almost every Hmong who fought in the war can repeat some version of it,” (Thao, Bo, et al.).   In other words, most Hmongs would agree that the Americans made a promise to help them with the Vietnam War; however it is not documented down in the American’s history.  I feel it is our responsibility to document these stories and their experiences; since we are fortunate to have public education that teaches us how to read and write in English.  The young Hmong generation has very little knowledge about how the war and how they got here in America, because western sources do not have much information about the Hmong people (Ehling, Matt).  If the young Hmong generation does not keep passing down stories then once the elders are gone, so will the Hmong history.    

My mother always encouraged me to speak Hmong whenever I was home and speak English at school, because she was afraid that I would forget to speak our own traditional language.  The Hmong community does not have their own country to put up signs written in Hmong or schools that teaches the Hmong language.  The Hmong Americans will have to learn from their parents or their elders and pass on the language.  Language lost is an important issue, because language is what individually defines a culture.  Also, the elders highly depend on their children to translate English to Hmong for them.  My generation is the voice of the elders.

The Hmong culture is definitely in the hands of the young Hmong generation.  We have the choice to preserve our culture.  If we do not take the effort to learn our language and document our history, then the Hmong culture will cease to exist to us or to anyone.  The Hmong community will be looked as irrelevant and their choices will not matter in America.    

Works Cited:

 Thao, Bo, et al. Donald A. Ranard. “The Hmong: An Introduction to their History and Culture”. The Cultural Orientation Project. 28 July 2004. Web. 16 March 2012. <http://www.cal.org/co/hmong/hlaos.html>

Kramer, Joel, [Matt Ehling].  Celebrating and reflecting on Hmong history, culture.  Minnpost.  Minnpost.  28 November 2008. Web. February 29, 2012 <http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2008/11/celebrating-and-reflecting-hmong-history-culture>