Civic values and political engagement in two hmong American communities

Author(s):

Wong, C.

Format:

Book section

Citation:

Diversity In Diaspora: Hmong Americans In The Twenty-first Century, (2013). pp. 106-130.

Publisher:

University of Hawaii Press, 2013.

Language:

English

Abstract:

Less than two decades after the first wave of Hmong refugees arrived in the United States during the 1980s, several Hmong Americans have displayed a strong interest and aptitude for mainstream electoral politics. The person of Hmong descent who has attained the highest elected office to date is Mee Moua, winning election as the first Hmong American state senator in Minnesota in 2002. After serving two terms, Moua announced in 2010 that she would not run for a third term. Meanwhile, in California in 2006, Blong Xiong won election as the first Hmong American member of the Fresno City Council. These public servants followed a path in politics set by Choua Lee, who was elected to the school board in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1991, and Joe Bee Xiong, city councilman in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, from 1996 to 2000. In view of the relative recency of the Hmong refugees' settlement in America and their modest financial resources, what explains these electoral successes? Analyzing Mee Moua's first election campaign, Yoshikawa (2006) demonstrated that Hmong voters can be mobilized through clanbased social organization in the Hmong community. But successful Hmong candidates have used dual mechanisms of mobilization-gaining support of traditional leaders and access to voters through existing Hmong social organizations-while also reaching outward across racial-ethnic lines to attract support from voters outside Hmong ethnic enclaves. To extend understanding of opportunities and challenges for Hmong political engagement, I examine in this study how Hmong Americans themselves describe the nature of their interest in American politics. Interviews of Hmong firstgeneration immigrants reveal a high regard for political engagement as an avenue to improve the lives of Hmong in the United States. In addition, first-generation immigrants tend to hold aspirations for their children to pursue careers as government officials. There are precedents in American ethnic history for a new ethnic group choosing politics rather than business enterprise as its route for group advancement. Irish Americans found their way into mainstream social life through politics, constructing urban party machines that provided services and employment to constituents in exchange for their votes. As Daniel Boorstin describes, Irish American politicians adapted village-style patronage politics learned in the homeland to American city life, turning themselves into a "personal service agency" for immigrant constituents (1973, 259). Not a small factor in their success was the lack of legal restrictions on voting by noncitizens until 1926. Somewhat similarly, Hmong Americans found a fast path to citizenship at the turn of the twenty-first century. Lobbying Congress with success for the Hmong Veterans' Naturalization Act of 2000, Hmong American men who had served on the side of the U.S. military during the Vietnam War (and soon afterward their wives) gained the opportunity to use English translators when taking citizenship tests. It is clearly possible for new immigrant groups to take the political route to economic opportunity and social inclusion, but the Irish and Hmong American cases suggest that lowering barriers to immigrant voting are probably prerequisites. At the same time, new immigrant groups benefit from adapting traditional political values and practices customary in the homeland to the host society's environment. © 2013 University of Hawai'i Press. All rights reserved.

ISBN:

9780824837778 (ISBN); 9780824835972 (ISBN)

Identifier:

HmongStudies3674