Countering the Misguided Interpretations of Fashion Shows and Thug Life: A Material-Cultural Analysis of Hmong Father and Son's Experience in School(s)

Y

18

Hmong People; Fathers; Sons; Refugees; Student Experience; Elementary School Students; Parent Participation; Clothing; Asian Culture; Family School Relationship; Acculturation

10.1080/02568543.2018.1531453

0256-8543

Ethnographic methodology across place and time is used to describe the perspectives of one young refugee boy and his father within the son's school experience. The research illuminates the cultural histories of refugee experience through the Pa'Ndau. The social position of visual texts within Hmong quilts in the son's elementary school and ethnographic data of informants are described to amplify the changes and preoccupation in father and son's school participation across time. The authors argue that though the father's volunteerism in a display of Hmong costumes during a Hmong fashion show at the school is authentic to his culture and history, the relative absence of historical details within the curriculum imparts a misguided understanding of place and people to the children present, assisting (inadvertently) the Hmong refugee assimilation to American culture.

As Provided

47

2019

EJ1201420