The Hmong Culture

The picture above is a close friend of mines named Shoua Yang and her sisters. Shoua graduated from Parkside last spring and now lives in California. Shoua and I met our freshmen year and we grew close from there. Years passed and I got to meet her family and sister. As we got closer she began to tell me more and more about her culture. Shoua family lives in Appleton, WI where most of the Hmong culture lives besides Green Bay, WI. Nevertheless after hearing about the Hmong it instantly made me think of her. Shoua has done numerous of programs on campus to promote her culture. As Shoua and I got closer she began to tell me more about her religion and how she believed in Shamanism. She also explains some of the ceremonies that take place within her religion as well. Luckily, I was able to experience more about the ceremonies because Shoua had one herself at her house.

Aside from Hmong’s being the largest Asian group in America In the film the father believes in Shamanism and he demonstrates the rituals that they performed as well. I must admit shamanism is a lot different from what I’ve experienced within my own religion but a lot of it makes so much since from a learning perspective. The ceremonies performed in the film were touching. It was interesting to see how up and beyond they go in relation to the religion.

One thing that came to mind when watching the film is how hard it must be as a Hmong to keep your traditions and rituals going? I mean being in America you have so many distractions and at times it’s so easy to explore new things. I again relate this to being deculturalized. I’m starting to think is this why so many Hmong’s live up north? I would think that by them living up north this allows them to keep their cultural identity under control more seeing that by them migrating up north their aren’t really any other races besides whites around.