Abstract
This study examines the consequences for urban Hmong American high school students of participating in two years sequences of high school level Hmong as World Language courses. The Hmong population in the United States is a product of war, exile and resettlement at the end of the Vietnam War. Since their arrival, both the Hmong people and American social and political institutions have been trying to learn how to deal with each other more effectively and respectfully. One of the key American institutions engaging with the Hmong diaspora has been the public schools. This study explores one program in one public high school in north central California, initiated by Hmong educators themselves. The Hmong as World language program seeks to provide relevant academic education for Hmong American students by teaching Hmong as a “foreign language” for purposes of high school graduation and college admission requirements. Some of the most important issues facing young Hmong Americans include not having access to quality and equitable educational opportunity and losing their ethnic and cultural identity and language as they go through school. The results are often low academic performance in school or dropping out altogether. These pressures also push many young Hmong Americans away from their families and their traditions and into negative live choices which further disrupt the Hmong community (Cha, 2010; O’Reilly, 1998). The Hmong migrations to the United States are recent. Therefore, studies of Hmong educational attainment and cultural endurance in the United States are fairly new. However educational researchers and especially new Hmong scholars are beginning to identify factors that contribute to the problems faced by this group of students and to their success. Vang’s (1998) study showed a correlation between cultural retention and students’ academic achievement. Hutchinson (1997) and Rumbaut (1989) reported that connectedness to Hmong culture positively affected educational performance of Hmong American youth. Moreover, Ngo and Lee (2007) report many findings that Hmong and other Southeast Asian students who adopt a strategy of accommodation without assimilation are the most successful (See also, McNall, et al., 1994 and Lee, 2005). This study is ground in Yosso’s (2005) theory of community cultural wealth. Yosso identifies six forms of community capital which together constitute a pool of community cultural wealth that minority students, such as the Hmong American students in this study can draw upon. The study employed both qualitative and quantitative analyses. These included statistical analysis of the relationship between participation in Hmong as World Language (HWL) instruction and other measures of high school success and in depth analysis of interviews and focus group dialogues with teachers of HWL and recent graduates who had taken HWL. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses found that taking HWL for two years had many positive outcomes for students and no identifiable negative consequences. Positive academic outcomes included improvements in high school GPA and increased skill and confidence performing academic work in all subjects. An additional educational outcome was students’ confidence and optimism about future educational and career plans. Positive outcomes for the students outside of school included strengthening their relationship with family, community and culture. Students born in the United States who took two years of HWL talked of coming back home to their Hmong identity and families. Students born in Thailand, recent arrivals from the closure of the last Vietnam era refugee camps, insisted that the HWL classes helped them learn how to navigate the system of American high school requirements. This study demonstrates the importance of incorporating the strengths of the Hmong American community into the education of their children and confirms the power of heritage language to bind a community together and to develop high level thinking in bilingual, bicultural students. The study concludes with recommendations for expanding the availability of Hmong language studies to other schools and grade levels with identifiable Hmong student populations and for further research on the educational journey of Hmong students in the United States and globally.