Vue Thaow was born and raised in the mountains of the Plain of Jars in Laos. He is a member of the Hmong ethnic group, which originated through migration from South West China. The Hmong people have a Ianguage and culture of their own, and survive by farming their land. The co-ordinator of the Community Refugee Settlement Scheme (CRSS) in Tasmania , LOUISE DANIELS, speaks with Vue Thaow, now public relation officer for Hmong-Australia Society in Tasmania, about how they are settling in their new home.
Q: How did the Hmong community begin in Tasmania?
A: I first came to Tasmania in December 1973 as a student under the Colombo Plan. When the Vientiane Government fell in 1975, I was permitted to remain in Australia. My wife and children joined me here later that year.
From then I sponsored relatives who had fled to Thai refugee camps. By the end of 1980 there were five families here. The first family to be settle under the CRSS arrived in 1985, sponsored by the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Nine more families were settled under the Scheme in 1987. The Hmong community has grown to 91 persons, aged from two months to 60 years.
Q: What level of continued community growth are you expecting in the coming years?
A: In 1988 another 17 families could arrive under the CRSS, giving and end of year population of 150 plus. Arrival rates could be maintained at 50 persons per annum but we have the capacity to settle up to 100 or more a year. This, however, will be judged on how well we settle the 17 families mentioned. Our aim is to achieve a community size of at least 500 members for the community to be viable. The sooner this number can be reached the quicker we can pursue our economic and cultural aims. With this in mind we will, therefore, settle any number at all that can be made available to us.
Q What settlement problems do you foresee for this group?
A: Communication is one of the biggest problems, not only for the Hmong but any migrant setting in a new country with new language and culture. However, one added disadvantage for my people is that many of them are illiterate in their own language. This means that information must be provided orally for them through Hmong speakers.
Given the time, I hope this problem can be resolved. For example, at present the Adult Migrant Education Program is running an interpreting course for my people. Many of these trainees have never been to school before but they are coping well with the course. To me this is a big step forward.
Another settlement problem is employment. These people are experienced only in agriculture and lack the educational background for skilled jobs. We are trying to develop self-employment through market gardening.
Currently the State Government is being approached for assistance with this project. A prominent United Nations official has also raised the matter with at least one State minister, the Hobart and Launceston Lord Mayors, and the Governor-General of Australia for assistance to make this project viable. Presently only five members of our community are employed on a full-time basis.
Q: What will the new arrivals find different in Australia?
A: The day to day matters take a lot of adjustment. These people are not used to modern homes and will need to be shown how to use the household appliances - particularly in the kitchen.
Shopping is another problem. New arrivals have trouble distinguishing between different types of stores. For example, they may look for a hammer and nails in a grocery store. Prices and labels on products are unfamiliar. In their past experience, they had to bargain for a price agreeable to both the buyer and the dealers.
Q: What problems or values might make these people different to other groups settled under CRSS?
A: The Hmong are made up of clans. Clans names are family names. People with the same clan name are related and their children are cousins or nieces and nephews and are totally prohibited to marry with one another, or even discuss anything involving sex.
The Hmong are intra-clan inter-dependent and marry inter-clan. For the peace of mind of the new arrivals when they first arrive they should stay with their relatives for a short time. Those who take refuge with other people of a different clan name must clearly explain why.
Sponsoring groups should be aware of the time taken to build up trust between the new arrivals and the sponsors. Even with common language there is still a time when the new arrival and the sponsors cannot come to terms with certain issues. These new arrivals are those who have been through conditions which none of us could imagine have happened. With the added language barrier and the past experience, it is terribly hard to communicate with these people.
Time is needed to build friendship and trust between the two. All the time the sponsor should point out to the new arrivals that they are in Australia and not in the land where no one could be trusted.
Some of these people may later exhibit unusual behaviour. I suggest that support groups seek help from other members of the community who know more of what has happened or is happening in the region, or even other refugees or migrants who came from nearby countries, rather than trying to discover the problems themselves. I am not trying to discourage sponsors from helping the new arrivals, but I feel that if one knows the background more he/she can possibly locate the problems more quickly.
Overall, these people are heavily dependent on the sponsors in the early stages of their settlement. However, this will Iessen as they gain confidence.
Q: How do you see the Hmong Community developing over the next five years, and what role will CRSS play in achieving this?
A: The Hmong CRSS is different in that the majority of the migrants/refugees that we sponsor are Hmongs. Success or failure does not depend on how many new members the Hmong CRSS manage to sponsor, but how well these people integrate with the rest of the community culturally and economically.
The primary aim of the Hmong CRSS members is unanimous in that everyone who is capable of working should get work. I hope that most of my people will be self-employed farmers by then. However this depends heavily on the assistance and encouragement we receive from the government.
We would also like to develop a scheme to monitor the educational progress of our adults and children.
Our final aim is to set up a self-help project. This will involve teaching our adults how to be confident in job search, writing job applications, and job interviews. We will record the employment history and capacity of each Hmong person looking for work. Employers will then be approached with this information and hopefully we will secure some jobs for our people.
There are still some 60,000 Hmong refugees in Thai refugee camps. We should be doing more to help them than what we are doing at present. We therefor feel that the various CRSS groups could be expanded or re-structured in such a way that we are operating under an umbrella organisation rather than individual groups, without putting a limit on a particular group to sponsor the people they wish to. At the same time, when a new group arrives, no matter which group sponsored them, all assist in settling them.
Q: What barrier, if any, will the Hmong community need to overcome to achieve its goals?
A: One of our most important goals is to keep our culture. For this to be possible, we need ceremonial leaders. We have none in Tasmania. There are very few in the whole of Australia who are currently serving the Hmong Community Australia-wide. Unless more of these leaders are brought in, the Hmong culture will die soon.
We need employment for all. For this we need a sympathetic ear and assistance from the federal state and local governments.
In the long run, we will need to plan for our aging community members and establish a culturally appropriate way of caring.
