Mong Education at the Crossroads

By Paoze Thao

This book is intended to help educators to understand the historical and cultural background of the Mong who have migrated from Southeast Asia to the United States since 1976. The Mong as a people have experienced a series of formative episodes up to 2021. This second edition of Mong Education at the Crossroads have been updated with new information since 1999 when it was first published. As new immigrants in the United States, the Mong Americans have encountered tremendous social, cultural, and educational problems during their transition from Mong to Mong Americans. However, during their last four decades and a half in the United States, the Mong have adjusted amazingly and have made significant contributions to the United States. This book has examined their experience through education. This book is designed to be used as a textbook for courses in ethnic studies, Southeast Asian history and culture, Mong history and culture, culture and cultural diversity, and to be used as a case study in comparative and international education, social and cultural foundations of education, and in Mong ethnic studies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: RowmanLittlefield
• Release date: May 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9780761872863

Book preview

Introduction

We didn’t do very well with the Mong because we didn’t have a teacher that can speak the language and also, we didn’t have a teacher who can speak Lao, Cambodian, and Vietnamese. The only thing that most of them have in common was that they were Buddhists so we use that as a commonality. They were given English as a Second Language and dumped into the same class. Eventually, we got a Vietnamese teacher and so the Vietnamese didn’t go into that class. Eventually, we had a teacher who could speak Lao from Thailand and we kept the Mong in there any way because of the same nationality even though culture and language were different. It was also a question of space. We didn’t have a special space to put them. (Thao, 1994, pp. 183–184)

When queried about how schools met the needs of the Mong students, this was a response from a coordinator of an English as a Second Language (ESL) program in a public school in Chicago.

This is a typical response we normally get from school officials. Schools, all of a sudden, have had an unexpected influx of many immigrant children. After the U.S. withdrawal of its troops from Southeast Asia and after the fall of the Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese governments to the Communists since 1975, it is estimated that 1,072,471 Southeast Asian refugees have arrived in the United States. Of these refugees, 225,675 are from Laos and of these the Mong accounted for over 80,000 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1993).

The Mong, a closely-knit ethnic hill tribe from Laos, originally migrated from China in the eighteenth century and settled in Southeast Asia. Those in Laos assisted France during its colonial rule and the United States in its Secret War against the Communists during the Vietnam conflict. After the United States withdrew its troops from Southeast Asia, the Mong in Laos were persecuted for political reasons by the Communist governments. In 1976, Congress recognized that the Mong had been employed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and authorized the State Department to admit some as refugees to the United States.

Because of their constant massive migration within and across borders, the Mong have experienced a series of formative episodes: with the Chinese, with French Colonialism, with the Vietnam conflict, and with the refugee camps in Thailand during their transition to resettlement in the U.S. and other western countries. These formative episodes will be discussed as a background for this study.

It is estimated that over 80,000 Mong refugees have been resettled throughout the U.S. since 1976. Their lives had been completely disrupted by the long wars in Laos. Since the Mong did not have a written language, they face even greater barrier than other immigrants in acquiring the basic English language skills, such as speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Consequently, these factors left them with very limited marketable skills to earn a living in highly technologically developed nations, such as the U.S. Of all the recent immigrants to the U.S., the Mong were most likely the least technologically sophisticated and the least formally educated. As a result, they have faced notoriously difficult adjustment problems in almost every aspect of their lives in the U.S.

In this book, the author attempts to present and discuss several aspects of adjustment problems experienced by many refugees in the United States. However, the specific focus is limited to Mong education at the Crossroads. The study reported in this book employs historical and qualitative methodologies. The author hopes that this book will provide the reader with a microcosm of the Mong in the U.S. A word of caution: this experience may not necessarily represent the entire Mong population in the nation. However, the author intends to draw and substantiate a generalization of the Mong based upon the data collected, which reflect some of the most difficult adjustment problems of the entire Mong population during their transition from Mong to Mong Americans.

Terminology

Throughout this book, several terms have been used to designate the group of people that make up the ethnic group referred to as Mong. Miao was historically used by the Chinese and can be loosely translated as barbarian. The use of that term might be explained as being related to the Annamese word meau for cat (Marahail in Bernatzik, 1947, p. 7). Mong-tse was used in old Chinese historical works which likened the Mong language to the howling or cry of the hyena (Marahail in Bernatzik, 1947, p. 7). M. Terrien explained the meaning of the Chinese character for meau, transliterating it to as a cat’s head. Terrian also related the form meau to agricultural activities, consisting of two parts: one for plant and the other for field; whereas tse may be translated as child. As a result, Meau-tse means son of the soil, the farmers, who do not belong to the ‘Great Nation’ (Marahail in Bernatzik, 1947, p. 8). Schotter, in the Chinese Kweichow sense, designated meau as all non-Chinese (Marahail in Bernatzik, 1947, pp. 7–8).

Other researchers, such as Barney and Smalley (1953), Binney (1968), Haudricourt (1972), Savina (1920), and Smalley (1976), spelled the word Meo as spoken by the Lao and the Thai. However, all the terms mentioned above carry negative connotations. The Mong prefer to be called Mong by the Mong Leng or Hmong for the White Hmong although the origin of the word Mong or Hmong is itself unknown. The term Mong or Hmong refers to a classless egalitarian ethnic group whose constituents call themselves Mong or Hmong, as do other groups, e.g., Americans, French, Dutch, Chinese, Koreans, etc.

The Mong in the United States can be classified culturally and linguistically by two major groups: (1) Mong Leng (Moob Leeg) and (2) Hmong Der (Hmoob Dawb). The spelling of Mong (Moob) and Hmong (Hmoob) once taught were interchangeable, but they are not. Hmong Der refers to the color of a ceremonial dress, and no negative connotation is attached to the term. Two terms have been used to call Mong Leng. There is another term Green Mong that was used, has a negative connotation. Those identified by that term find it objectionable and offensive, and are intimidated by its use. Historically, Green Mong was one of the subgroups of the Mong who anachronistically practiced a cult of cannibalism. It is in the opinion of the author that that particular subgroup of Mong is no longer in existence. The author will use the term Mong Leng in lieu of Green Mong to refer to this group. The Mong Leng are proud of their true name which translates veins of the Mong, implying that the Mong Leng carry the life blood of all Mong.

It is difficult to estimate an accurate count of the two Mong. However, they may be roughly equal in numbers and population. The two dialects can be mutually and intelligibly understood by the members of the other group. The two groups can be compared to people who speak American English and British English with approximately 30% difference in ethno-culture and language. The two groups have interwoven their bonds through intermarriage for centuries but, surprisingly, have preserved their linguistic and cultural homogeneity, and have respected each other’s differences. Both groups have lived with each other harmoniously for centuries. In fact, their patterns of interaction constitute a system of checks and balances within the Mong society. The social, religious, educational, and political system has its own dynamics that are absolutely symmetrical within the Mong society. However, Mong Leng call themselves Mong and Hmong Der Hmong.

The author will use the spelling Mong exclusively as opposed to any other terms for a variety of reasons. First, the term, Miao, Meau, Mong-tse, and Meo, have negative connotations. The spelling Mong does not deviate significantly from the original terms and maintains consistency in the spelling from the perspectives of historical and comparative linguistics. Therefore, these terms Miao, Meau, Mong-tse, Meau-tse, and Meo should be derived to the spelling Mong rather than Hmong.

Second, in February 1982, General Vang Pao established the Hmong Language Council in response to the resolutions made during the two consecutive Hmong national conferences held in June, 1980 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and in December, 1980 in Santa Ana, California (Thao & Robson, 1982). He appointed twelve members to the council: six members representing the Mong Leng community and six members from the Hmong Der community. The author was one of the appointed members. The role of the council was to undertake research and to conduct studies to standardize the Mong language. The committee members met at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota on August 12–14, 1982 through the sponsorship of the Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, D.C. Based on the committee’s literary search in various libraries, and pursuant to lengthy discussions of the terms, Hmong and Mong, the committee agreed that it was necessary to change the spelling of the initial Hm to Mh and from Hmong to Mhong to simplify library listings (Thao & Robson, 1982, pp. 1–4). Therefore, the term Mhong is not a misspelling but a term intended to be neutral, a term acceptable to the language committee of both Mong Leng and Hmong Der at the 1982 Minnesota conference.

Third, the spelling of the term Hmong only appeared in Laos since 1975 (Yang, 1975), and was based solely on the socio-political and economic factors rather than from coining it from academic disciplines, such as linguistics, phonetics and phonology, historical and comparative linguistics and etymology. In terms of phonology, the sound /h/ in Mong is considered a voiceless glottal glide and can be used as a semi-vowel in certain contexts. In English, there is an aspiration of a small puff of air occurring immediately following the articulation of the oral stop sounds: /p/, /t/, and /k/ if they are syllable initial. In the articulation of /h/ sound, there is no obstruction of the airstream in the oral cavity. Due to this reason, linguists consider this aspiration a minor aspect in English phonology. This means that the aspiration that takes place with those three sounds does not change the overall phonemic representation of the phonemes /p/, /t/, and /k/ within the phonological context (Fromkin & Rodman, 1998, pp. 226–227; Fromkin et al., 2017, pp. 231, 235, 243, & 425). By the same context, compared to the Mong language, the phonetic sounds [m] vs. [hm]; [n] vs. [hn]; [ml] vs. [hml]; and [ny] vs. [hny] between Mong Leng and Hmong Der do not change the phonemic representation of the phonemes /m/, /n/, /ml/, and /ny/ within the phonological context and the meanings of the words, e.g., Mong/Hmong; nub/hnub (meaning sun); mluav/hmluav (meaning smashed or bent); and nyuaj/hnyuaj (meaning difficult). Therefore, the pairs of sounds [m]/[hm], [n]/[hn], [ml]/[hml], and [ny]/[hny] in Mong are the allophones of the same phonemes /m/, /n/, /ml/, and /ny/ respectively. An allophone is defined as a predictable phonetic variant of a phoneme (Fromkin & Rodman, 1998, pp. 260–261, 266, & 288). Thus, the aspiration feature for these four pairs of sounds does not change the overall phonemic representation of these phonemes in Mong. For this reason, the term Hmong is therefore spelled Mong.

Fourth, the decision to use the spelling Mong is not new. Researchers, such as Lyman (1979), Xiong et al. (1983), Thao (Thao, 1994, 1997, 1999a, 1999b, 2000a, 2000b, 2005, 2008, & 2018), and Thao (1991) have used the spelling Mong. The spelling Mong was derived from the terms Miao, Meau, Mong-tse, Meau-tse, and Meo. They were coined historically, and Mong has always been consistent from the field of historical and comparative linguistics and etymology. In addition, in terms of pragmatics, the Mong and non-Mong would spell Mong with an initial /m/ sound rather than an /hm/ when hearing the term Mong or Hmong for the first time.

Fifth, the decision to change the spelling from Mhong to Mong will further simplify library listings. Researchers tend to examine their literary search with the initial m for Mong rather than hm for Hmong.

Sixth, the U.S. government is sensitive to the naming issue. A neutral term, Highlander, was coined to include the Mong/Hmong, Iu Mien, Lao Lue, Lahu, and Lao Theung (North et al., 1985). The term Highlander connotes a broader definition to include all the minority ethnic groups who came from the highlands of Laos and classifies them all under the same roof, whereas the Lao or Laotians are labeled as Lowlanders (North et al., 1985, p. 5).

Seventh, M was designated by the U.S. officials as the official acronym for Mong. On July 22, 1995, in Denver, Colorado, Chee Yang, Colonel Bill F. Biladeaux, Christine Cook, and the American Tribute Committee with the cooperation of Colonel Frank Bales, Generals Harry C. Aderholt, Jim Hall, Steve Ritchie, Art Cornelius, and the Mong veterans nationwide put together a special tribute to commemorate the 40,000 Mong soldiers who died in the U.S. Secret Army in Laos and 15,000 who were wounded at the line of duty between 1961–1975. This tribute commemorated the Mong for the first time in the history of the United States. An upper case M was posted on the hill behind the background of the stage on that day. The U.S. officials declared that that upper case M represents the Mong people (Thao, 1996).

Eighth, a book entitled Mong: China History and Heritage Preservation was published by a Mong American scholar Taichiming Cha. Cha (2013) spelled our name as Mong rather than any other spelling, referring to all the original Mong people based on history and old literature. In addition, his book was also accompanied by the videotape Mong History Documentary (2013).

The terms—Miao, Meau, Miao-tse, Meau-tse, Meo, Mong, Hmong—which are Mong or Highlander—have all been used to refer to the same group of people in the U.S.—which are the Mong. They may be used interchangeably. Nevertheless, the author prefers the term Mong, and other terms will be used as references. Occasionally, the use of a Mong word or other foreign language words may be necessary. In those events, transliteration will be utilized for clarity purposes.

Organization and Methodology

Through use of historical and qualitative methods, this book examines two principal areas: resettlement and education. It is intended to help educators understand the major trends that shaped the Mong society and their problems of cultural and educational adjustment during their resettlement in the United States. As a people, the Mong experienced a series of formative episodes: with the Chinese, with French Colonialism, with the Vietnam Conflict, and with the refugee camps during their transition to resettlement in the United States.

This book consists of an introduction, seven chapters, a list of available resources with grade level appropriate reference materials, and an index section for easy reference. The second edition adds another new chapter to the book, chapter 6, which probes the contemporary issues facing the Mong Americans and Mong Lao in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). Then, the former chapter 6 was moved to chapter 7.

Chapter 1 consists of a brief historical commentary on the Mong and their cultural background. This chapter includes their demography and geography, religion, family life, social structure, political organization, economic structure, arts and crafts, language, and education, including the structure of education in Laos, and the Lao education and its impact on the Mong with some updated information on the demography of the Mong in the world.

Chapter 2 addresses early Mong history. Four theoretical frame-works of the origin of the Mong are examined. These theories include the Mesopotamian origin, the ultimate southern origin, the China origin, and the Russian origin. Within this context, this chapter discusses the Mong migration and their interaction with the Chinese from antiquity through the seventeenth century.

Chapter 3 provides a historical perspective on the French Colonialism, the development of Lao-Franco schools, a discussion on the relationship between the French and the Mong. This chapter addresses the major influences that shaped the Mong and their education in the following subsequent years. In addition, this chapter covers the impact of World War II on the Mong, the Vietnam Conflict (including the U.S. Secret Army in Laos and the Commemoration of the Mong Veterans in the U.S.), and the emergence of Christianity resulting in massive conversion of the Mong and the Khmu in conjunction with the Mong literacy development, the establishment of the Lao Evangelical Church, and the ongoing internal political tripartite conflict within the former Lao government.

Chapter 4 investigates the Mong in transition from the refugee camps in Thailand during their resettlement process in the U.S. and other western countries. This chapter examines the refugee registration process, the Refugee Act of 1980 (PL 96–212), the Mong resettlement by the national Voluntary Agencies (VOLAGs) and their roles, and the Mong resettlement across the U.S. and their general adjustment difficulties.

For chapter 5, the title of this chapter was changed from Mong Education at the Crossroads to Mong Education in the United States. The change is necessary to reflect the issues of education that Mong American student currently face in the U.S. More research was done on the effects of language policies on the English language learners, their language learning, cultural maintenance, and issues of identity construction framed within the context of the model minority myth. This provides a critical analysis of the formal education system in Laos during the French Colonialism and the Post-Colonialism and compares it with the system of education in the United States. The discussion entails the numerous social and educational problems that Mong American students encountered. Those problems include some of the most challenging, salient issues that Mong American parents and American public schools nationwide faced from 1976 to 2023. Chapter 5 closes with some recommendations to remedy these situations.

Chapter 6 is new and focuses on the seven contemporary issues facing the Mong Americans in the last three decades from 1990 to 2023. The four issues include: (1) a debate over the Mong/Hmong identity involving Assembly Bill (AB) 78 (Reyes) in California; (2) an emerging radical feminist movement to change the structures of the Mong/Hmong traditional patriarchal culture, not by a Mong, but from a Chinese American (Foo, 2002), followed by a response to her commentaries from the author; (3) the misinformation, miseducation, and misrepresentation of the two spelling terms Hmong and Mong in our community as well as the consequences facing the Mong; (4) a recent broader community debate on issues of race involving Minneapolis Police officer Tou Thao’s role in the death of George Floyd (Yum, 2020); (5) Mong Americans facing deportation; (6) Impact of the model minority myth on Mong American high school students; and finally (7) the role of social media and its impact on the Mong Americans and on the Mong Lao in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic.

For the second edition, chapter 6 is now published as chapter 7, which examines the linguistic aspects of the Mong language structure in comparison to English. This chapter offers practical educational information to pre-service and in-service teachers from K–12, specially illustrating the linguistic difficulties that Mong limited English proficient (LEP) students may experience. The focus is centered around issues of language acquisition. This includes a discussion on the characteristics of Mong speaking students, a comparative discussion of the two Mong regional dialects and/or even two different languages, and English in the areas of phonology, morphology, syntax, and the sociolinguistic aspects. The author provides some suggestions for classroom teachers and educators on how to deal with Mong limited English proficient (LEP) students to accommodate a smooth transition from Mong to English-only classrooms.

Finally, chapter 8 is a revision of chapter 7, which is an open letter addressed to the Mong, to Mong students, to the Voluntary Organizations (VOLAGs), to local school officials, to service providers, to federal and state agencies. Specific recommendations will assist these audiences to cope with the Mong and similar populations in the event that large groups of unfamiliar immigrants arrive in the U.S. unexpectedly. The reader will also benefit from a list of available resources that equip classroom teachers with grade level appropriate reference materials.

References

Barney, G.L. & Smalley, W.A. (1953). Third report on Meo (Miao): Orthography and grammar. Memeo.

Bernatzik, H.A. (1947). Akha and Miao. Innesbruck, Austria: Kommissionsverlag Wagners’sche University. English Translation: Human Relations Area Files.

Binney, G.A. (1968). The social and economic organization of two white Meo communities in Thailand. Washington, D.C.: Advanced Research Program Agency.

Cha, T. (2013). Mong: China history and heritage preservation. Shenzhen, Guangdong: China Gold Printing Group.

Cha, T. (2013). Mong history documentary. Video. Shenzhen, Guangdong: China Gold Printing Group.

Fromkin, V. & Rodman, R. (1998).