Effects Of The Hmong Language In The Latehomecomer

The power of stories manifests itself in literature, film, and more generally life. Stories inspire, provide hope, and bring understanding. Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony permeates the strength of stories. Ceremony follows the story of Tayo, a half white Native American plagued by the invasion of European culture, as well as his own past of war and loss. However, through the folk stories of his Laguna culture, as well as the advice he has been given to embrace his past, Tayo is able to see the world more clearly.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a biographical work on a Hmong family living in California during the early 80’s. While the book is a true accounting of the Lee’s family attempt to secure quality healthcare for their epileptic daughter while traversing the American medical system and the Department of Children Services. The author, Anne Fadiman, takes the reader on a painstaking but necessary journey of Hmong history and culture and how they came to reside in Merced, California. As you learn more about the history of the Hmong people, you come to admire them as a strong and resilient people that have, as a people, overcome many challenges with respect to being conquered, nomadic and always having to start over.

Another example of upward economic mobility is that of the Hmong community, in Chia Youyee Vang’s work, Hmong America, Hmong engaged in a process of reinvention and forms of cultural adaptation and ethnic-political agency. By staying engaged with the governments around them they’re able to seek political recognition or resources from state and federal government departments to get jobs and goods and create distinct changes for their communities. On the one hand, they created peace amongst the clans that were rivals in Laos so there was mutual support amongst the different groups, which created an abundance of dialects, sub clans, voluntary, political organizations, ethnic churches. In time it created a schism in religion as some Hmong became

The tragedy that is the conflict of two cultures, American medicine and Hmong culture, two goods that lead to inevitable outcomes coupled with a distinct language barrier. This book crucially recounts a poignant and touching tragedy of an immigrant child whose origin is the war torn traditional life of Laos’ mountains and now her home is the Merced town in California. Two disparate cultures essentially collide resulting from language barriers, social customs, and religious beliefs. The recount by Anne Fadiman, an editor at the American scholar, sequentially recounts the clash between the American physicians and the Hmong family and thereby revealing how such differences can have an effect on the attitude towards healing and medicine. Review

However, I personally think it is wrong to convert to Christianity just to run away from what you are and I believe most Hmong family do so just for that reason. The culture is so rich and beautiful that it hurts to see a Hmong child not being able to speak Hmong. You identify yourself as Hmong; you are Hmong-American, but you can’t speak the language. I am ashamed that the parents of the child didn’t teach their children the language.

When people hear about elderly individuals most will assume that they are wise, filled with endless amounts of wisdom, and have stories to pass down. Well, if an individual is an elderly Hmong male, then this is accurate. It has been said “Within the family, the eldest man would traditionally hold the utmost power and control and would possess final say regarding all family decisions” (Tatman 2004). Also, the elder adults are typically seen as clan leaders. Clan leaders make many decisions and approve of any major decisions (Cobb 2010).

Many immigrants have an extremely difficult time migrating to different parts of the world due to cultural differences, language barriers, and homesickness. Nowadays, there are translators and help available for those that are migrating from different countries. However, what if someone had migrated to the United States and barely had any of that support? The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is an incredibly touching book speaking of the struggle of the Hmong immigrants and the walls that were built between them and Americans, particularly the American doctors and medical system. The book focuses on a particular child, Lia Lee, and her family - specifically her parents, Foua Yang and Nao Kao Lee.

This research paper examines the factors first generation Hmong American college students encounter while pursuing completion of higher education. Existing studies shows that many Hmong American college students encounter struggles with families’ language barriers (Lee 4), differences in cultural expectations (Vang 2), and finical issue. The struggles they face shows on the Hmong American college students academics (Vang 2). Introduction Vocabulary Hmong: Hmong are a group from the mountains of China, Laos, and Vietnam.

Its influence derives from characters who depend on materialistic values to display prosperity, maintain power and stay healthy. Huong uses the characters’ meals to emphasize the conditions in which different echelons of society are forced to live and to portray the contrast in the character 's’ life styles. The authors first use of this representation is directed towards families who are at the bottom of the hierarchy and the characters financial struggles are illustrated through the quality of their food. For instance, when Chinh becomes ill with diabetes, Que makes great sacrifices in order to provide him with food and medicine throughout his illness. Huong’s oddly detailed description about their rapidly declining food supply provides insight into the harsh living conditions.

Story is an integral element in human life. Stories are the way humans have shared and learned for thousands of years. Storytelling is different from story writing. When a story is told, the original content lingers as long as the storytellers maintain that content. Once the story is retold it takes on different details and meaning.

Like the narrator’s father, he notices the family’s cultural identity is slowly dying. His wife, a native Malaysian, is adopting a new identity as a “sales clerk at [Woodworks]” (340) in Canada. In marriage, a couple is supposed to share the responsibility to raise their children and support each other. However, she may have given up on the teaching responsibility from the moment the language “never came easily to [the daughter]” (340). Ultimately, the father is solely responsible handing down his family’s cultural and social roots to his children.

“The Way to Rainy Mountain” is organized very well, it includes three narrative voices. Throughout this novel the first narrative voice is about the Kiowa legends. Then Momaday has a paragraph of contexts that relates to the legend. The author gives the reader a bit of his life by relating a family experience he had. Because some of the Kiowa legends and history go with Momadays own family history, then this three voice narration allows the author to have great detail about the Kiowa’s way of life in every way.

Hmong Culture The Hmong primarily originated from the “mountainous areas of China, Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos” (Purnell, 2014, pg. 236) and immigrated to the United States in 1975 after the Vietnam War. Primarily refugees from Laos, the Hmong people began immigrating to the United States in large numbers “after communist forces came to power in their native country.” (Bankston, 2014, pg. 332) Mainly settling in California, the Hmong began to be dispersed by American refugee settlement agencies across the country in the 1980s, also settling in Wisconsin and Michigan.

The difference in language leads to miscommunication but the overlying consequence of it is lack of understanding and empathy for one another which leads to conflict. “Language takes on a metonymic relation to culture in Tan's portrayal of the gap between the mothers and daughters in The Joy Luck Club.” (Hamilton). The language barriers between the daughters and the mothers create the cultural barriers. Language barriers emphasize and directly influences cultural barriers.

Our identity is a place upon many attributes of a human being. Whether the person is someone who goes on promoting themselves to the world or not, and it shows how people communicate to others around them. Language is one of the main components that unveils the person’s identity in their everyday life, and they are many different ways to approach a person’s language. Relating to the article of Yiyun Li, “To Speak is to Blunder,” she knows two languages that has its positive and negative outcomes in her life. I to relate to her understanding of language, but a different view of what language means to me.