Racial assimilation and popular culture: Hmong youth (sub)cultures and the persistance of the color line
Author(s):
Lee, Pao
Format:
Thesis
Degree granted:
Ph.D.
Publisher:
Ann Arbor : University of Minnesota, 2009.
Pages:
190
Language:
English
Abstract:
This dissertation attempts to show second generation Hmong immigrants' adaptation to American life. Most immigration literature has focused on the social and economic mobility, rather than the culture and identity, of recent immigrants. By focusing on popular cultural practices, I provide an experiential account, shedding light on both the processes of adaptation and cultural agents’ subjective observations of the processes. The case studies of Hmong hip-hop and import racing are selected to inform us about the role of race in immigrant adaptation and incorporation as outlined in theories of segmented assimilation. Both hip-hop and import racing are vibrant practices among youth and young adults in Hmong communities across the U.S., and they are deeply racialized forms of popular cultural practices. Specifically, hip-hop is understood as a Black cultural form and import racing is seen as a broader Asiatic cultural form. Focusing on how the second generation is engaging in these distinctive practices thus allows me to explore where, why, and how they are assimilating into the American racial landscape. My data includes 25 interviews and 500 hours of participant observation. From these, I argue that the assimilation of newer immigrants is reflective of the color line. Through their encounters with exclusion, racism, and even agents of social control, Hmong youth and young adults learn their place within society and develop an understanding of race and behaviors (i.e., their "tastes") as apparently natural life constructs. The research also reveals gender and masculinity as key to my informants' understanding of and response to race, although this is further complicated by their own agency, hybridity, and quest for authenticity. In a seemingly unconscious resistance response to their racial experiences, Hmong males create identity by using their cultural "toolkits," including the popular practices of hip-hop and import racing.