WWW Hmong Homepage Teen Feedback

Things change, people change. When Hmong are forced to live in a different world, they begin to change. As I look around, I see little change in the elders; for they want to sick with their culture roots. But for the Hmong youth, I see a dramatic leap of change. Hmong youth in American today are facing one of the most difficult challenges, culture clash. They are constantly fighting in a battle in which they are not on either side. In one corner there is the Hmong culture and the other corner there is the American culture. Through these endless battles, many Hmong youth are forced to choose a way to fight. Many are silent, while many grasp onto other options. That is why we see so many Hmong youth get involve in gangs. That is why the Hmong youth are loosing their native tongue and the Hmong culture is slowly disappearing. But it is not too late, if Hmong youth stick together and fight the battle together we will prevail. And someday when we have children of our own, we will teach them how to be Hmong and American.

QUOTES FROM OTHERS:

"The Hmong culture and language has allowed itself to be manipulated into a different form. Instead of using mature words that our parents use, we tend to use slang terms. We get so used to it that we may believe it's actually a word from the Hmong vocabulary...when actually it's not, kind of like the English language. Our culture has guided us to where we are right now, but I, like many of my peers, don't practice my religion. It's not that I don't want to, it's just that when you're an American, life is often difficult to look at. Though I may not live out my part in my culture, I still keep in my mind that I my roots are important...and that I shouldn't forget them." --Fong Xiong

"As a Hmong-American myself, I've lost a lot of my culture being a free American. I am one of the Hmong girls who have to concentrate on speaking my language sometimes as if it were a second language. But I have made a promise to myself to research more about my ancestors. My first step is to get the book "Tragic Mountains" and read up on what I've missed out on so many years. I am still Hmong in my heart and that is what is keeping me a strong person." --Linda Vang

"The Hmong culture has changed dramatically. The Hmong people are changing their given names to american names. Which I think is wrong. I mean if you are proud of your culture, maybe then you should stick with your given name." --Anonymous

"It's disappearing. Why? First off, most Hmong teens today can't read and write in Hmong. (This includes me.) Probably some Hmong teens are getting rusty in speaking in Hmong, too. Where ever a Hmong person go, they have to speak English. Since my mom is always at work, I'm getting rusty with my Hmong speaking abilities. Also most of my friends I have aren't even Hmong, because Hmong teens now are being gangsters and wild now. So I know hanging around them will be a bad influence to me. Plus the adaptation of westernization causes this fade away of who we are. I also belives that the disappearance in our culture, also deals with the fact no one teaches us. No one tells us how to write in Hmong or what's our orignial religion before they were converted into Chirstains. Plus we don't know much of are history. We just do what we grow into, which are the westernization society around us." --Anonymous

"honestly.. i don't know how.. and it's because we are soo americanized that we tend to focus more on the present being and the future that we forget all about our past and history!!!" -Peter

"Well, I think we are losing a lot of our culture and language. For the most part, I felt, we are losing more and more everyday, because we are not being expose to as often as we used to. We, meaning our youth community, are spending more and more time with our peers and friends, and them too are not using our Hmong language and basically don't talk about our culture. We sometimes, felt that expressing our cultural views, and talking in our own language is embarassing, so we tried as much as we could to avoid it. As a to be future teacher, I think is so very untrue. I, personally, think that it is extremely important that we keep our culture as much as we can, and try to speak our language as often as we. I understand that English is the main language in this country, but, it is still crucial that we continue our language or it will be lost forever." -Xia

" Due to the great influences of the media, many teens now want to "fit" into a society they call their own. I feel that if you were raisedin a land where English is predominatly the language, and the only way make it thru in life is to learn it. But I feel that we have taken the learning for granted and forgotten about our native language. We sacrifice our culture to accept another is wrong and to clash the two is even worse. We want to be able to speak two languages but with the use of one language over the other, we grow acustom to using that one particular language than the other, in this case, English." --Nou yang