The Wake

St. Paul has the largest Hmong population of any city in the United States, and yet most Minnesotans probably know little about the culture. For whatever reason, the mainstream media are also notoriously clumsy in their depictions of complexities of and changes in culture, especially for those populations that are somewhat new to the area. The Star Tribune’s October series on rape in the Hmong community, entitled “Shamed into Silence,” emphasized the Hmong culture’s role in the sexual abuse of Hmong girls.

University curriculum and instruction professor Bic Ngo responded to the article and addressed such issues on Nov. 7 in her speech “Hmong Marriage Customs: Feminism, Transformation, and Legislation.” The purpose of the presentation was to highlight the changing nature of cultural practices of marriage and relationships, as well as to examine the effect of different contexts on Hmong culture in Laos and the United States.

Ngo described the process of Hmong marriage in Laos, which is based on unwritten or common laws. “Marriage is the most significant event in the Hmong life course,” she says. Ngo stressed its importance in joining not only two people, but also two families, clans, villages, and communities. Marriage involves negotiations that can last several days. These negotiations are handled by “mej koob,” four men who act as family representatives and messengers.

Hmong marriages that are not also performed by a minister or a judge are not legally recognized in the United States, although Minnesota lawmakers have attempted to pass laws that would remedy this problem. The Hmong Marriage Bill was first proposed in 1991 by then-Rep. Andy Dawkins. Among other changes, the bill would require two mej koob to be licensed by the state in order to legally solemnize the marriage. However, the bill failed due to the lack of Hmong support, Ngo says. State Sen. Mee Moua, Minnesota’s only Hmong senator, tried to reintroduce the bill in 2002, but, the bill was again withdrawn.

Ngo says that proponents of the bill aimed to curb underage marriage and polygamy, as well as to prevent legal problems with child support, taxes, pensions, and insurances. Opponents of the bill argued that it upheld a patriarchal system that perpetuated cultural practices that oppress women.

These perceptions of a patriarchal and oppressive culture came up in the Star Tribune’s series. An excerpt from one of the articles describes one rape victim’s struggles: “She feared her culture would require her to marry one of her attackers to save her reputation.” Ngo says that such statements in the series emphasized the role of Hmong culture in abetting violence towards Hmong girls and women. The article portrayed Hmong culture as “static and immutable” and failed to take into account the process of cultural change. Ngo also says the article’s portrayal of Hmong traditions and values is not necessarily accurate of either traditional Hmong culture or the new culture of Hmong immigrants who have come to the United States. Ngo also emphasized that aspects of Hmong marriage and culture that are true in Laos can not necessarily be assumed of the Hmong who live in the United States. Immigrant cultures change rapidly and dramatically when they enter a new country and it is therefore better to think of culture as an ever-changing concept, instead of a set of fixed qualities that are somehow inherently true of all people from a certain group. “Culture is imagined, remembered, reinvented, created, and continued within communities and through relationships,” said Ngo.