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.