Hmong

Teaching a January Dean's Book is a new experience for me in a few ways. First of all it is crammed into 3 weeks. Second, it is all three levels of the course in one class. Yikes! Third, I was allowed to choose my own book.

We are doing The Spirit Comes and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. I found out after choosing it that she lives locally, and teaches creative non fiction (?) writing at Smith and maybe My Holyoke on occasion. Hmmm.

Anyway, the book gives the reader a lot to think about. It follows 2 related tracks. One is about a Hmong refugee family living in CA. Their baby has epilepsy. There is a long and complicated thread of difficulty and misunderstanding and conflict over her treatment. Very disquieting and sad as she ends in a vegatative state, cared for by her dedicated, loving parents in their traditional way (as the medical community has finally given up..no more they can do). According to the publisher's web site, now 20 some years laler, she continues to survive, living with her mother in their home. Her father died 2 years ago.

The second track of the book (every other chapter) deals with the history of the Hmong people. In the 60's they were living in Laos, separate unto themsoleves, mostly in the Plain of Jars. This was a key area in the Vietnam War as the supply route for the North Vietnamese, the Ho Che Min Trail, went thru there. Hence, in secret, the CIA recruited thousands of Hmong to fight for us. They died in huge numbers (many more than US soldiers!) and when we lost the war, the Hmong were driven out by the communists. They walked 30-40 days to Thailand and lived in refugee camps. Many came to the US....believing they had been promised by the CIA that they would be taken care of if we lost the war. Of ocurse...we were never going to loose so one wonders how sicere suchg apromise ecver was. We airlifted very few of them out. The rest half killed themselves escaping to Thailand (many did die trying to escape and many were saughtered).....

Many themes are raised in this book. Too many to enumerate here.... but for one thing the Hmong are a people group extremely resistant to assimilation. Their community, their families, their traditions, their religion play a huge role in their life and they are not interested in giving that up, at least. This has produced many difficulties over the years. We, as Amercians, tend to assume (expect) that our ways are preferable (perhaps evne superior) and that immigrants and refugees will want to adopt our culture and will subscribe to our definitons of success, etc. The Hmong resistance to this, as well as their "otherness" has apparently been exasperating to many Americans with whom they have come into contact.

It is not clear to me, at this time, how this may be changing with second or third generation Hmong but, at least for the first generation, some of their ways & their values combined with the fact most of them suffered from multiple and severe trauma experiences provide a compelling and intensely soul searching text.