I had the privilege to talk to Lia Lee. Lee is a 67 years olds Hmong woman. She is a mother to 5 children, 31 grandchildren, and 15 great-grandchildren. Lee and husband Va Toua Xiong with her 4 children were sponsored by a church in St. Paul. They arrived in St. Paul, Minnesota in November 1980. Lia Lee and her husband did not have any close relatives in St. Paul during their arrival. Their sponsor found them an apartment in St. Paul. Lee and husband Xiong attended adult school to learn English and learn how to adjust to living in America. After one year of learning English, Lia Lee found a job in a company. She worked there for 5 years and quit the job to take care of her children. Lee and her husband Xiong got help from the church to sponsor …show more content…
Lee stated to be an elder in her Hmong community; she is able to use her past experience about life to teach to the younger generation. Also, she said to be a very well elder, the individual has to be an understandable, motivated, and respectful person.
3. What do you know now that you wished you knew when you were younger?
a. Lee stated she wished knew how important education is to life when she was younger. Also, she said if she knew education was the key to success then she would have fought for her education.
4. What advice would you give to the younger generation?
a. Lee stated her advice for the younger generation is to work hard and fight for their education because education is the key to success. Also, she said she want the younger generation to remember to give back to the people who support and love them. Lastly, she wants the younger generation to remember their Hmong culture and to keep it alive.
5. What do you think are the important issues the community is facing?
a. Lee stated the younger generation losing their Hmong culture and language is one of the important issues the community is facing. She said the younger generation has adopted to Western culture and has forgotten the Hmong culture.
6. How does it feel to be getting
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How do you feel about Western medicine?
a. Lee believes that the Western medicine does help her in many aspects. She thinks that if Western medicine does not exist, she would not be able to strengthen her health due to the fact that accessing traditional medications are very limited. Western medicine has impacted her health positively.
12. What do you do to seek medical help?
a. Lee stated due to her age, Lee depends on her family to assist her in seeking medical help. Language barrier and medical concerns is still a factor for seeking medical help. By Lee’s family assistant, she is able to seek medical help.
13. Did you experience what western culture called menopause and midlife crisis?
a. Lee stated that she did experience menopause, but due to lack of knowledge on menopause Lee did not understand what she was experiencing. She understood it was related to health, but did not understand it had to do with her age. In regards to the midlife crisis, Lee stated that she did not experience any midlife crisis. Lee believes that in cultural practice, the midlife crisis does not impact in daily life and for Lee did not experience a midlife crisis.
14. What was your role in daily life activities in
This story that Suyuan Woo tells her daughter shows how deeply the Japanese invasion of China affected the identity of many Chinese people. They were forced to flee their homes and their lives with only a few of their valuables, but eventually they had to give up those up too. Those few items were all that they had left to define themselves and remind them who they were so when they lost them they lost a significant part of who they were. Suyuan Woo lost more than just her past identity, she actually had to leave her twin babies on the side of the road in the hopes that someone could save them. This shaped her identity because throughout the remainder of her life she had to wonder if leaving them behind was the right choice and if they were
The elderly within the Hmong culture are highly respected and known for their vast amounts of wisdom. Typically, when problems arise within the clan, the elder male is the one who resolves the conflict. The
In the book he stated,” If ever you learn to make a pot, it will not be from me.” “The potter’s trade goes from father to son. I had a son once. My son, Hyung-gu. He is gone now.
Harper Lee uses the perspectives different characters to show her own views about who is responsible for Tom’s death, as well as to portray the complexity of the blame in such a prejudice society. Tom represents many other African-Americans who, like Tom died for things they didn’t do, for reasons beyond their control. Through Scout, Jem and Atticus’ opinions about Tom’s death, Lee demonstrates how her opinion on who is to blame for the deaths, shifts and evolves over time. Lee is very much like Scout in that she too grew up in a small town, with a lawyer for a father. Since both Lee and Scout grew up in around the same time period as well, Lee too would have had to struggle to understand and come to terms with the racial injustice happening
Hyeonseo Lee North Korean Defector Change, hope, and justice, are all things North Korean defectors, including Human Rights activist Hyeonseo Lee, wish for in the harshly governed country of North Korea. Many people know about the story of Hyeonseo’s escape from the unethical dictatorship of the Kims. But she was so much more. As a Human Rights activist fighting for a change of the corrupt and cruel system of government in North Korea, she is trying her best to inform people of how terrible and a dire situation it is in North Korea. Through this, she is showing her defiance publicly towards North Korea, when just a little over a decade before, she was expressing absolute loyalty and respect towards the Kims.
Ethnomedicine has been historically defined as any healthcare system not present in the West; now, ethnomedicine is defined as the any cultural beliefs which surround healing in a community. The Hmong—an ethnic group located within present day Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand—have a particular system of ethnomedicine which is described as personalistic. Within a personalistic system, an active agent is the underlying cause of a disease—or etiology. Humans can be the cause of the disease as well as a number of non-human and supernatural agents. When Lia Lee began seizing at three months of age, her parents understood that the active agent which caused her epilepsy was a door slamming which caused her soul to fly from her body, an illness called quag
One reason I feel Chang-Rae Lee starts his essay out in the middle of the events is to create a hook and a reason to continue reading. It makes me curious to find out what chain of events leads to his mother being on an electronic pump. It also gives me a way to connect visually when he says, “From anywhere in the house, you could hear the sound of the wheels clicking out a steady time over the grout lines…”. That makes me think of a mini shopping car that my nephew loves to push along the tile floor in my mother’s house. I can hear the wheels along the grout lines just as he describes in his story.
The act of racism has been present in every society throughout history. Discrimination of other groups based on their different descent and ethnicity. These forms of hatred and negativity are based off old fashion values and traditions. People of different cultures believe there’s is superior, this belief in superiority may take the form of ethnocentrism or prejudice. In early Vancouver, the Chinese and First Nations experienced this disparagement first hand.
Elders give advice and would always like to tell their own stories of how their youth was. We are able to appreciate what they have gone through while listening to their stories of racism they have dealt with in their time and the civil rights movement. We extract our current values from them. • Who are considered the recognized leaders in your family?
As I listened to the Riverbend scenario I thought of my own cultural competence and how at one time I knew very little of the Hmong culture. Working in a city where Asians make up only 3% of the population, this is a population I knew little about. I have learned that most Hmong are from the mountainous region of Laos, and are granted preferred refugee status by the U.S. (Cobb, 2010). From 2000 to 2010 the number of Hmong grew 40%, there are currently 260,073 Hmong people living primarily in California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Even though the Hmong people seem to be prospering after thirty years in the U.S., there are still challenges with communication, understanding of cultural beliefs, and use of traditional medical practices (United States Census Bureau, 2013)
Eastern medicine slowly started to be less looked at. As time has gone on Western medicine has become so good that there is no need for another system. Western medicine has saved many lives and made daily life better. Without western medicine, we would still be using the old techniques that ease the mind but not a broken leg. Advances in technologies have shown us what we need to eat and what things to eat to live longer.
although Lourdes reached a rough period in her life while prostituting she still remained focused about providing for a better life for children as well as herself. She used her strengths to overcome these challenges and did not let her environment change the mindset of why she came to America. Under these circumstances life can be hard and Lourdes seems like she needs help from a social worker or local agency she can trust that would not continue to take her money. Lourdes should research these agencies first before deciding to use them because of her past experiences with fraudulent agencies.
Lindo Jong’s faith was already determined, at the age of two. A matchmaker visited the Jong
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.