About the Author
Kangshueh Thao is currently a third-year at California State University, Sacramento and majoring Biochemistry.
She is the oldest out of four children and is the first in her family to attend college. She was born in Bakersfield, CA and raised in Sacramento, CA. Kangshueh plans to attend pharmacy school and pursue a career in pharmacology.
Kangshueh's interests include make-up, nail art, crafting, and photography. In addition, she loves hiking, traveling and trying out new foods. Kangshueh loves animals and is the owner of three beautiful Pug-Chihuahua mix fur babies.
Kangshueh Thao is currently a third-year at California State University, Sacramento and majoring Biochemistry.
She is the oldest out of four children and is the first in her family to attend college. She was born in Bakersfield, CA and raised in Sacramento, CA. Kangshueh plans to attend pharmacy school and pursue a career in pharmacology.
Kangshueh's interests include make-up, nail art, crafting, and photography. In addition, she loves hiking, traveling and trying out new foods. Kangshueh loves animals and is the owner of three beautiful Pug-Chihuahua mix fur babies.
Community Influences
Near of the end of 6th grade an opportunity came my way and I decided to apply unaware of how it was going to impact me and my education. The last community that influenced me is BREAKTHROUGH SACRAMENTO. Breakthrough Sacramento is a six-year, tuition-free, college-preparatory program for an ethnically-diverse group of academically motivated students from under-resourced schools. Here I devoted my 7th grade and 8th grade summer to this program where I interacted with high school and college students. College was topic that Breakthrough Sacramento highly encouraged and educated their students. This is where I and other students were first introduced to the topic of college and it's importance with our future. We visited colleges like Sacramento State University, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, and Stanford. After 8th grade, Breakthrough continued to monitor my education in high school and made sure I was on the right track with my classes. I went back to volunteer and chaperone at Breakthrough Sacramento even after my six years.
Community Analysis
Culture: The culture and beliefs of a community greatly impacts an individual growing up. In the Hmong culture, the majority believe in either Shamanism or Christianity. As I was growing up, my family followed the traditions of the Shamans. Shamanism consist of many rituals: calling of the spirits (hu plig), ritual for the sick (ua neeb), the calling of a new year (noj peb caug), and many more. I grew up to waking up early and killing chickens for the calling of a new year. My grandma would tell me the significance and reason why the girls are the ones killing chicken and why Hmong boys kill pigs. Boys killed pigs because it represented toughness and manliness. The reason why girls kill chicken is because it represents the traits of that individual. If the girl can kill, butcher and prepare chicken by herself, then she would be considered by the Hmong community as a good daughter and future daughter-in-law. Back in the days before Hmong came to the United States, chickens were the main source of protein because they were easy to take care of and did not cost a lot of money to grow corn to feed. The Hmong would use chicken for many things including: to unite a marriage between two people, the calling ritual of an individual's lost spirit, and the famous Hmong Chicken Herb soup for the sick or postpartum. Although I disliked the thought of killing chickens, I had to force myself to do it due to my beliefs and the cultural aspect of the community. The modern day Hmong daughters do not practice the process of killing chickens anymore because most are going to school and working to pursue their education/careers in the United States, compared to the earlier years of the first arrival in the United States when Hmong still practiced traditions of the Shamans.
Identity: I grew up in Sacramento, California and had the privilege to go to school with people of other race and ethnicities besides mine. In my elementary years I made friends with whomever I pleased and did not care much whether my friends were of my ethnicity or not. I think the change happened when I reached middle school. Instead of going to a middle school with all of my Hmong friends, I chose to go to a rich, white neighborhood middle school because a counselor suggested it to my parents due to my good grades. Being one of the very few Hmong students in that middle school, I began to realize how lonely I became. Middle school was very different because I noticed that everyone were in their own cliques. There were Asian cliques, African American cliques, Latino/Latina cliques, and others. There was a time where I tried connecting with the Asian clique because I wanted to make friends. I think I geared towards the Asian clique because I felt that they were the closest to me since they were Asian, and being so that they would accept me. The Asian clique consisted of mostly Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans who were fluent in English and wore the most expensive clothes. I, coming from a low-income family, wore tee shirts, bell-bottom jeans, and a pair of fake Converse sneakers from Wal-Mart. I went up to the group and asked if I could hang out with them. One immediately looked at me, bent down to my shoes and pointed that they were fake and told me that I was weird. From that point on, I realized that I was not like the regular Asian American; I was a low-income Hmong American who was definitely not up to the standards of other Asian Americans whose families were born and raised in the United States even before my parents and grandparents were born. This relates to chapter 1 of Timothy P. Fong's The Contemporary Asian American Experience , where most of Chinese and Japanese immigrants came to the United States in the mid 1800's. Hmong immigrants did not start coming to the United States till after the Vietnam War ended after 1975, making Hmong immigrants one of the newest groups of immigrants to come to the United States. In addition, the fact that I was wearing different clothes from everyone else in school showed that I was different, that I was from the low-income community and that I should not get the same privileges as anyone else just like the video A Class Divided by educator Jane Elliot where eye-color was dominant. In my case, the style of clothing represented who was and was not dominant in school and there I was bullied and discriminated from the clothes that I wore.
After middle school, I ended up going to diverse high school and met with all my friends from elementary school. My Hmong friends, new and old, welcomed me as one of their friends. This soon made me realize that the background and history of certain groups of people play a major role in shaping identities. In high school, I began to realize that the community of Hmong people were stepping up their game. The students, boys and girls, were all competing against each other to get into big well-known universities like UC Davis, UC Berkeley and Stanford. First and second generations of Hmong Americans were quickly adapting to the American culture, shaping their identities.
Power/Resistance: Growing up, I have noticed that the Hmong men were the ones who dominated. Hmong men made decisions for everything and everyone in the Hmong Community. Traditionally, the men were the only ones allowed to go to school and pursue higher education. The boys were to go to school, come back to help the family, and stay with the parents/elders. The reason why women were more limited to education in the past was because they were to be married off into another family anyways, so it did not matter if the girls went to school or not. In today's time, Hmong women in the community are slowly rising to change these rules and are pushing the culture to it's limits. The fact that the United States is the land of the free, Hmong women are going to school and pursuing higher education more than the men; making the elders unsure of who to depend on for the future. Coming to the United States, these were just some of the struggles in chapter 2 of Fong's The Contemporary Asian American Experience where immigrant families had a hard time living away from each other and adapting to the new lifestyle in the United States. Hmong parent's of this generation are now depending on both their daughters and sons to go to school. In my family, my parents, too, realized that the boys are not to be loved more than the girls but just the same because all have the same privileges in the United States to pursue higher education.
Identity: I grew up in Sacramento, California and had the privilege to go to school with people of other race and ethnicities besides mine. In my elementary years I made friends with whomever I pleased and did not care much whether my friends were of my ethnicity or not. I think the change happened when I reached middle school. Instead of going to a middle school with all of my Hmong friends, I chose to go to a rich, white neighborhood middle school because a counselor suggested it to my parents due to my good grades. Being one of the very few Hmong students in that middle school, I began to realize how lonely I became. Middle school was very different because I noticed that everyone were in their own cliques. There were Asian cliques, African American cliques, Latino/Latina cliques, and others. There was a time where I tried connecting with the Asian clique because I wanted to make friends. I think I geared towards the Asian clique because I felt that they were the closest to me since they were Asian, and being so that they would accept me. The Asian clique consisted of mostly Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans who were fluent in English and wore the most expensive clothes. I, coming from a low-income family, wore tee shirts, bell-bottom jeans, and a pair of fake Converse sneakers from Wal-Mart. I went up to the group and asked if I could hang out with them. One immediately looked at me, bent down to my shoes and pointed that they were fake and told me that I was weird. From that point on, I realized that I was not like the regular Asian American; I was a low-income Hmong American who was definitely not up to the standards of other Asian Americans whose families were born and raised in the United States even before my parents and grandparents were born. This relates to chapter 1 of Timothy P. Fong's The Contemporary Asian American Experience , where most of Chinese and Japanese immigrants came to the United States in the mid 1800's. Hmong immigrants did not start coming to the United States till after the Vietnam War ended after 1975, making Hmong immigrants one of the newest groups of immigrants to come to the United States. In addition, the fact that I was wearing different clothes from everyone else in school showed that I was different, that I was from the low-income community and that I should not get the same privileges as anyone else just like the video A Class Divided by educator Jane Elliot where eye-color was dominant. In my case, the style of clothing represented who was and was not dominant in school and there I was bullied and discriminated from the clothes that I wore.
After middle school, I ended up going to diverse high school and met with all my friends from elementary school. My Hmong friends, new and old, welcomed me as one of their friends. This soon made me realize that the background and history of certain groups of people play a major role in shaping identities. In high school, I began to realize that the community of Hmong people were stepping up their game. The students, boys and girls, were all competing against each other to get into big well-known universities like UC Davis, UC Berkeley and Stanford. First and second generations of Hmong Americans were quickly adapting to the American culture, shaping their identities.
Power/Resistance: Growing up, I have noticed that the Hmong men were the ones who dominated. Hmong men made decisions for everything and everyone in the Hmong Community. Traditionally, the men were the only ones allowed to go to school and pursue higher education. The boys were to go to school, come back to help the family, and stay with the parents/elders. The reason why women were more limited to education in the past was because they were to be married off into another family anyways, so it did not matter if the girls went to school or not. In today's time, Hmong women in the community are slowly rising to change these rules and are pushing the culture to it's limits. The fact that the United States is the land of the free, Hmong women are going to school and pursuing higher education more than the men; making the elders unsure of who to depend on for the future. Coming to the United States, these were just some of the struggles in chapter 2 of Fong's The Contemporary Asian American Experience where immigrant families had a hard time living away from each other and adapting to the new lifestyle in the United States. Hmong parent's of this generation are now depending on both their daughters and sons to go to school. In my family, my parents, too, realized that the boys are not to be loved more than the girls but just the same because all have the same privileges in the United States to pursue higher education.