Assignment #5

Hey everyone and welcome to another week of blogging!! In the beginning, I found out that there were more historical information about the Iu-Mien people then I previously thought it would have. It was a nice to find out some history about my own race but then reality hit. As the weeks went by, my research has come to an almost complete halt trying to dig in for more information. A perfect example of this frustrating process was illustrated in the book "Social Work Practice with Immigrants and Refugees" by Pallassana R. Balgopal. In the book it shows a graph depicting the total number of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States in 1990. It recognizes the Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Asian Indians, Koreans, Laotian, Cambodians, Thai, Hmong and Other for the Asians side. I'm pretty sure you caught that, but if you didn't then you should see that the Mien race isn't included in this graph. I guess I'm to be considered as "other" huh? This is an indication that the Iu-Mien people aren't exactly paid attention to nor or they well studied like the other Asian races.
OK now on to my journey as you may call it. So this week I emailed Diane Curry of the Hayward Area Historical Society to set up an appointment which was to take place on Thursday May 6, 2010 at 2pm. After getting lost for a little bit I finally found my way to the Museum with the help of some friends although I arrived a couple minutes late (sorry Diane!!). As soon as I came in, I realized that Diane had already pulled out some articles for me which awesome of her I might add. Well here's some of the articles I looked at and analyzed.


(The Daily Review Hayward, CA
Wednesday Sept 21, 1977)
In this picture just above me, it shows a Vietnamese mother caring to her baby who both just recently arrived to San Francisco. 113 Vietnamese refugees arrived at San Francisco airports helped by Anemy Delaney of Hayward who sponsored 40 Vietnamese refugees during the original airlift in 1975. Ms. Delaney described the refugees treatment at the SF airport as handled poorly and all the documents would've been handled in a better manner.
(The Daily News Review Hayward, CA
Thursday June 12, 1975)
This article above me describes how some churches in the Hayward area chose to sponsor Vietnamese refugees in trying to give them a better way of living.

This article above me is pretty much self explanatory. Vietnam refugee students were described as having very limited English as expected but more then willing to learn.
This article by Jane Abbott describes how the refugees coming over to the United States were received with mixed reactions by the natives. Some people were quoted as saying "our own people need help" which essentially meant that U.S officials should worry about bettering their nation before going out and helping out others. Ken Labonte of 45365 Churchill St. San Leandr0 said "Yeah it's a good idea (talking about refugees getting aid), they'd be killed where they are now (referring to the refugees home country). Then there are those who are quoted as saying "those people have been fighting for 2000 years and they'll be fighting for 2000 more years in the future" referring to the refugees.

So as you can see these articles didn't necessarily have anything on the Mien people, but it did give me some things that might indicate how they were treated. For instance, refugees were handled horribly at the airport when they first arrived, which may mean the Mien people were treated in the same manner. Most of these articles were on the Vietnamese refugees which was reasonable considering it was the fall of Saigon which was their country. All immigrants undoubtedly were faced with racism and discrimination which I'm sure the Mien people faced as well.
As I wrapped up my time there, Diane even acknowledged to me that these aren't necessarily helpful to my topic, but I appreciated her pulling out some stuff on Asian immigration anyways. She did mention that I should check out UC Irvine due to their Asian American Immigration Archive work which I'm looking into now. She also mentioned to look at Microfilm the Daily Review at the school library. I'm not really sure what that is but she mentioned that this may include the 1979 wave of immigrants which included the Iu-Mien people. All in all this week was helpful in sorts but again, it's getting harder to find out information about my topic. I'm looking to do interviews and possibly record some religious ceremonies in the next blog or two.