Assignment #4

(<---The picture to the right is a statue of "King Pan". I'll get into more detail about the significance of this person in later blogs.)


Hey everyone and welcome to another week in blogging!! In my previous blog, I actually found some interesting facts about the Iu-Mien people which I never thought I'd find coming into this research which was pretty cool to say the least. Although I wasn't too pleased to hear about my people's incompetence behavior in the 1920's, I still found it to be useful information because it's always good to hear other people's view on you and/or your own race. I'm interested as to know if these explorers who studied my people are still alive so I could possibly contact them and do a interview. Not to sound like a complete douche, but with the time that they first started studying the Iu-Mien people I highly doubt they're still alive today but who knows right?
OK now that I got that off my back, let me explain what I did this week. This was suppose to be the time where I go out and really dig deep into finding out things that nobody ever knew of , or even new history. I failed miserably in this as I was suppose to go to the Hayward Area Historical Society today, but my car's tires did not cooperate with me! I'll definitely try to check it out this weekend for my next post. Fortunately I had a backup plan earlier in the week for this very reason. I had checked out four books in Cal State East Bay's library on Asian Immigration which I thought to be very helpful. My primary focus for this week was to talk about Southeast Asian Immigration to the U.S with an deep emphasis on post-Vietnam War immigration. As Professor Ivey pointed out, the Iu-Mien people are a small minority of all those who immigrated to the U.S and the period in which they came to the U.S fits directly into the post-Vietnam War era which ended in 1975.
In the book "Asians in America: The History and Immigration of Asian Americans", it states in the introduction that since the Vietnam War, new Southeast Asian populations have become a part of the American cultural mosaic. They include the Vietnamese, Cambodians, Lao, Hmong, and Iu-Mien (I'm starting to find out that Mien people are recognized in history books, hopefully more to come). The book also states that approximately 700,000 Indochinese have immigrated and settled in various parts of the country. I'm assuming they're talking about the year 1998, since that's when this book was published. It's also important to know that there were certain laws passed before the 1965 Immigration Act that were imposed on Asians that wanted to immigrate to the U.S. Such laws consisting of The Immigration Act of 1924 (specifically targeting the Koreans) and The National Origins Quota Act of 1921 were imposed with the motive of keeping as much immigrants from coming to the U.S as possible. The passage of the 1965 Immigration Act on Asian American immigration to the U.S allowed for a massive increase in immigrants coming to the U.S as pointed out in the book. In it states that in the pre-1965 period, Asian immigration accounted for only about 8 percent of the total immigrant population, about 22,000 per year. From 1965-1981..there was a substantial increase from each Asian country except Japan. In the most recent period, about 235,000 Asian immigrants, about 43 percent of the total immigrant population, entered the United States each year. While I was reading this book and the statistics it provided, I just couldn't help but wonder if the 1965 act was never passed and the fall of Saigon never happened, where I would've been today? It's funny how things work themselves out, and how previous laws were put in place to prevent certain people from coming here to better their lives.
So I was thinking that since assignments 4,5 and 6 are all the same, I'll leave blog #4 at this to save up the rest of the information for the next two blogs. I plan on finding out more and more about Southeast Asian immigration and how Mien people along with other races were treated in California. I hope to be more specific and make it the Bay Area if possible. And YES, I will be checking out the Hayward Area Historical Society soon enough so you can scold me now.

Assignment #3

Hey y'all and welcome to my third week of blogging!! I found this week to be the toughest assignment by far just because my topic doesn't really have a lot of books on Mien people, or at least I had difficulty finding much. I started with the first place that comes to mind, the public library in Oakland. I tried rigorously searching for any books with relations to Mien people and immigration to the U.S, only to come up nothing. I knew it was going to be a long and frustrating process due to the lack of secondary sources on the Mien people in general so I was prepared to take my time and be patient. I wanted to find out specifically when my family came to the U.S and how they adjusted to a whole new country without speaking a word of English. To look at the big picture, I wanted to find out the Mien people's social impact on the Bay Area. How was we treated during the process of immigrating here? Have people come to recognize our religious ways? How was life here in the U.S compared to their home country?
Since I couldn't find any books specifically talking about Mien people, I decided to go another route. I found out that my family came here in 1979, and decided that this was a good starting point to officially begin my journey. As soon as I found this out, I stumbled on a book called "Southeast Asian Refugee Parents: An Inquiry into Home-School Communication and Understanding" by Mary M. Blakely. Even though this study talks about Asian Americans struggles in American schools and how to help them adopt to this new environment, I did find out facts involving my topic. The study shows that of the 600,000 refugees in the United States who came from the countries Vietnam, Laos and Cambodian, over half arrived between 1979 and 1982. So putting two and two together, I find out that my family and other Mien people arrived with the first wave of Southeast Asian immigrants to the United States.
As I'm reading this, I find out that they do indeed have a little something on Mien people. It says that the Mien people employed a slash-and-burn techniques in their subsistence dry-rice lifestyle. It also states that Fathers learned how to read and write religious Chinese writings and basic Laos which is very much true. In a survey conducted, it tells us that out of 75 adults of employable age, Mien fathers were of the highest employed at an 100% rate. When I look at that, I'm not surprised that they're the highest because growing up I've come to realize that the fathers usually works and support his family while the mother stays home and takes care of the kids. Of course that has drastically changed these days with women becoming more and more independent due to gender equity.
Another study I've found regarding Mien people called "Mien Alter-Natives in Thai Modernity" by Hjorleifur Jonsson, talks about how Mien ethnic minority highland people are depicted as unmodern in relation to projects of modernity and modernization in Thailand. Although the author is unbiased in this research, I took offense to some of the stuff that were being said about my race. For instance, the first explorers' account with the Mien people was published in the Journal of the Siam Society in 1925. They state that Mien people were stupid and rough, and they do not know the customs of other races. Virginia Thompson (1941), an academic who had no firsthand knowledge of the Highlands, states that (Mien) are perhaps even dirtier and more self-sufficing than the Mians (Hmong), and more at a loss to use the little money they receive from the sale of their opium. It was really hard taking all this in as I can have no other emotion other then anger. I also understand that I've never been to my home land and these explorers have, even if their studies are biased or not. I really don't get this Virginia Thompson's opinion on the Mien people because she wasn't even there to study the people.
I found out some very interesting facts about the Mien people during this week's blog assignment. I found out what other peoples' perception on us were way back in 1925, and also found out that we immigrated along with a whole bunch of other races, during 1979. I hope to further my knowledge on my topic through in person interviews and possibly books based primarily on the Mien people. Feel free to comment back and give me feedback!! Catch my next postings next week.

Bibliography

-http://www.limcacenter.org/index.html



-http://www.refugees.org/data/refugee_reports/archives/1984/11Nov30.pdf



-http://mienpridegeneration.tripod.com/index.html

-Jacques Lemoine, Yao Ceremonial Paintings. Bangkok: White Lotus Co., 1982, p. 12.

-http://www.wildflowers.org/community/IuMien/portrait2.shtml
Jacques Lemoine, “Yao Religion and Society,” in Highlanders of Thailand, John McKinnon and Wanat Bhruksasri, eds. Kuala Lumpur, New York: Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 3.

-Leo Saephan, my uncle

-(The Daily Review Hayward, CA
Wednesday Sept 21, 1977)..see assignment 5

-(The Daily News Review Hayward, CA
Thursday June 12, 1975)...see assignment 5

-Balgopal, Pallassana. "Social Work Practice with Immigrants and Refugees". Columbia University Press, 2000.

-Ng, Franklin. "Asians in America: The History and Immigration of Asian Americans".New York : Garland Pub., 1998.

-Hoyt, Edwin. "Asians in the West." Nashville : T. Nelson, [1974].

-Kitano, Harry. Daniels, Roger. "Asian Americans Emerging Minorities". Upper Saddle River, N.J. : Prentice Hall, c2001.

-Blakely, Mary. "Southeast Asian Refugee Parents: An Inquiry into Home-School Communication and Understanding". Council on Anthropology and Education,1983.

-Jonsson, Hjorleifur. "Mien Alter-Natives in Thai Modernity". Anthropological Quarterly - Volume 77, Number 4, Fall 2004, pp. 673-704

-Cecilia Tsu, "Independent of the Unskilled Chinaman": Race, Labor, and Family Farming in California's Santa Clara Valley,” The Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Winter, 2006), pp. 474-495.

Blog #2..A little history on Iu Mien people

(To the left is a picture of the Mien women in their traditional cultural clothing)


Hey y'all!! Welcome to my second week of blogging. So the topic I was going to do was Asian American immigration, but I've decided to narrow it down and try to tackle the topic about the Mien race. This would give me a chance to tell you guys a little history about my people and also allow me to learn more about my culture as well.



I'm fortunate enough to have been raised by a hard working family who literally worked from the bottom up at their home country. That was especially the case when they immigrated here to California. I can honestly say that growing up, this generation of kids don't put forward the efforts to learn about the Mien Culture with me included. Some of the factors contributing to this problem has to do with cultural assimilation and some has to do with simply not wanting to know about their families past history. Everybody knows the saying "It's better late then never", well that's what I'm trying to do right now.



My uncle is a board member for a non-profit community organization called Lao Iu Mien Association, Inc. (LIMCA) which was formed in March 1982. As described in their website their mission is "to preserve the culture heritage of the Iu Mien who came from the highland Lao tribal community, and to develop social and cultural programs to facilitate the Iu Mien integration into the economic and cultural life of the United States." I think this is a perfect starting point to starting my research because this organization wants us to remember who we are and where we came from which is exactly what I'm striving for.



Here are some basic background information about the Iu Mien people. The Iu Mien people consist of the 12 clans. I'll go into detail about the origins of the 12 clans later on in my research, but for now I'll briefly explain it through this website I found that looks like it was created by one person. The 12 clans meant that Mien people can be named one of these 12 last names; 1.Saeteurn (Saetern), 2.Saechao, 3.Saephan, 4.Saelee, 5.Saefong, 6.Saedoh, 7.Saechin, 8.Saeyang, 9.Saesao, 10.Saelaw, 11.Saedorngh,12.Saeyongh. Mien people are highly religious and believe in Taoism. In our culture, the most well respected people are the elders and in most cases they go on to live with their eldest son. We celebrate New Years at the same time as the Chinese and even write our language in Chinese letters. We do not have our own country as we've been known to originate from Laos, Thailand and China. This is one of the reasons why most people do not know of our ethnicity.





In the LIMCA website, it has a link to a Refugee report. That report was dated November 30, 1984. I think either 1982 or 1984 can be a good starting point for my timeline because that's around the time LIMCA was formed, and where the reports of Mien people's immigration to the United States was documented. This is the information I've come up with thus far, and I hope to find out much more as the course progresses on. Please feel free to give me feedback!!

Biography

Hi everyone!! I'm new to the blogging world as this is my first time posting a blog as you can see. Well, let me go ahead and introduce myself. My name is Kevin Saephan and this is my third year attending California State University, East Bay which makes me a Junior. I am a undergraduate Business Administration major which I declared last summer. This field of work is pretty competitive at this school, but the competition is what drives me to be a better student and person which ultimately leads to good work ethic. Although I was born here in the states Oakland, California to be exact, my parents and grandparents were all born in their home country of Laos. They were basically forced out of their country by the Communist government which led them to San Francisco. Now you may think that because they were born and raised in Laos that they are of Laotian ethnicity. We are actually not Laos, but of Mien ethnicity. There's not too many of us in the world but there's a lot of us here in California because most of them immigrated to San Francisco. Due in part to my family's background and my fascination with History all together, I decided to take this course in order to expand my knowledge of history.

In this class, we are required to pick out a topic and write weekly blogs on it as the course goes on. I decided to go with Asian Americans immigration to the Bay Area. If I could be more specific and go with my own race of Mien people then I would, but I believe it would be very difficult to find past history about the Mien Race. I chose this topic because I'm very interested in Asian Americans immigrating to this country because of my family's past history. Although the perception is that people come to the United States for a better life, it's not always the case. I know of many people who miss their home country and the way they lived their lives there. In doing this research, I hope to find out many things that I never knew happened and share it to this class and readers in general. Now, if I am able to find out a good amount of research on the Mien people, then I'll incorporate that into my blog entries as well. Thank you all for reading my blog and feel free to give me comments or feedback!!