Posted on 07/19/2004 11:25:42 AM PDT by television is just wrong
Posted on Sun, Jul. 18, 2004
Hmong journey
By Ben Stocking
Mercury News Vietnam Bureau
WAT THAM KRABOK, Thailand - Teng Yang and his family live on the other side of the earth from the home they will soon make in California. But in many ways, they inhabit another universe.
If they get sick, they slaughter a pig and two chickens as offerings to the spirits. A 13-year-old bride, a man with two wives -- these are accepted social arrangements in the dusty squatters' colony where they have spent the past 11 years of their drifters' lives.
Teng and his family -- a Hmong clan of 27 people from the jungles of Laos -- are moving to Fresno, a middle-class, Central Valley town whose social mores will be as baffling to them as the drive-through line at McDonald's.
Over the next several months, 15,000 other Laotian Hmong who live at this makeshift refugee camp will follow them, most settling in California, Minnesota and Wisconsin, the three U.S. states with the largest established Hmong populations.
Teng's younger brother Tong and his wife arrived in Fresno last week, and the rest of the family will follow over the summer and fall.
What was the fate of the Hmong in that period that followed those "30-40 years ago" to which you refer?
What are the moral obligations of the United States in this regard?
You are a hoot. In this little debate I have been accused of being parochial and seeing only a small local slice. Then of using non statistics. Then of using outdated statistics. Oh yeah and of being some kind of union goon.
So I get more recent stats which reflect nationwide facts, and from a neighboring and very similar state, Minnesota.
Which are at most 3-4 years old. So NOW you critisize me for NOT using parochial statistics.
Are you under the bizarre delusion that the Wisconsin Hmong are somehow signicantly different from the Minnesota Hmong, or from the national statistics for say education (50% 9 grade or less )? I used what I could find. Frankly NOTHING
Regarding our obligation to the Hmong I will repeat my response to Dr Marten:
Yeah the Hmong helped us out in Vietnam. The Vietnam war was a tragedy of bad decisions and missed opportunities. Lots of Vietnamese got screwed for helping us, do we bring them all over now? The Shia's and the Kurds rose up at our bidding after the
gulf War and got screwed. Do they get a ticket?
Poles and Hungarians rebelled against the Soviets at our bidding, do they get a ticket? There are people all over the world who have been our allies at one point or another and have gotten a raw deal, do all of them get a ticket?
At what point will you be satisfied that our debt is payed? When every last hmong is here in the US? Wasn't any of the 50,000 dead and thousands wounded, billions spent fighting FOR THEIR freedom count for nothing towards that debt?
I've accused you of nothing, have I, Kozak?
But, yes, you are being parochial and are considering a small, local slice, as you say. In more than one post you've railed about what the relocation is going to cost you and your community, and at least once you've demanded monies be paid by folks like me and my family. When it's revealed that the monies derive from a federal source -- each of us -- you do not address the facts, but instead post another few-year old study from outside Wisconsin.
I must have missed someone referring to you as a "union goon"; did you comment somewhere that you belong to a labor union? Or did someone else jump to a conclusion?
I'm not certain of the "non statistics", but you are in fact using "outdated statistics", as well as a decade-old article whose source is a publication that leans left. Countering with the plea if others think you should take a current poll is at best a specious argument; you chose to use the old statistics and have given little to no regard to facts, including those more current than the information you are sharing.
(Curious, by the way, that you denounce my posting of an article whose source is the Wisconsin Governor -- and current to that date of posting -- as being from a liberal elected official, while also ignoring the caveats that I included prominently therein.)
Ha! Minnesota is a "very similar state"? To what? Wisconsin? In what manner? How do you arrive at this ludicrous opinion?
I'm under no delusion, neither bizarre nor otherwise, but to contrast the experiences of a group of people living in one geographical area with its own laws, rules, customs and so forth, with that of another geographical area, again with its own laws, rules, customs and so forth, is faulty, to say the least.
Consider and carry your statement further: do you feel or believe that those who reside in Wisconsin are somehow significantly the same as those who reside in, say Massachusetts? Not Hmong, but any citizen?
Yes, we share some, if not much, in common. We all as Americans and free men and women do.
Yet you folks up in Wausau and Marathon County are hardly the same as those in Milwaukee County, for another example, just within the confines of the Badger State. If you think otherwise, you should travel around the state just a tad more.
I again respectfully urge you to learn more about the Hmong, with the hopes it will open your heart, mind and eyes to their history and relation with the people of the United States. You're wrong about their role "in Vietnam", well, at least if you are referring to the War and not geographically.
This is not "a ticket", it's not "a free ride". Kozak, these people have absolutely nowhere to go, have little to no worldly possessions, have lived in squallor for decades, and it's all because this country recruited them to help and serve our national interests.
How is it you arrive again and again that we fought for the freedom of the Hmong? Do you think that they are the same as the South Vietnamese? That they lived in Vietnam?
"Poles...rebelled against the Soviets at our bidding..."? To what does this refer? Gdansk? Warsaw '44?
What are the moral obligations (the Hmong) of the United States in this regard? ......
Finished. I stated that in my previous post. You act as though we have never done anything for Hmong refugees.
15,000 Hmong are slated to come over here. Will that finish our obligation or do you want 100,000 more after this? Does this ever end?
I do not "act as though" anything. I'm posting thoughts.
Part-way for those who gave all is not enough. It matters not that an initial group has found opportunity when others remain in squallor and it's all because this nation recruited their assistance to further this nation's interests.
I read further and ---->>>
But the Her family may have to wait countless more years in vain. The resettlement policy, announced in December 2003 by the U.S. State Department, will not include them. It will allow entry for a maximum of 15,000 refugees and is limited to those now living on the Wat Tham Krobak campgrounds -- a Buddhist temple about an hour and a half from Bangkok by car. That number is only half of an estimated 30,000 refugees scattered throughout Northern Thailand. With direct links to the war, these refugees, just like the Wat ones, are not accepted as Thai citizens, are not allowed to leave their respective provinces and are not welcome back in Laos.
The Wat Tham Krobak refugees were considered for resettlement because many lost UNHCR protection after leaving "established" camps in 1999.
The State Department refuses to speculate on the fate of Hmong refugees outside of the Wat campgrounds. The department now has a list, compiled by Thai officials, of those living at Wat Tham Krobak who will be eligible for resettlement. No new names will be added to that list.
Still, news of the resettlement policy will reach unintended audiences throughout Thailand. Thousands of people like C.V. Her will renew their hopes and wait on a policy that has already decided who will go and who will stay. They will likely spend their lives as squatters, hoping that the Thai government does not forcibly repatriate them to Laos, a country with a deep-rooted history of ethnic cleansing practices against the Hmong.
The Wat Tham Krobak refugees were considered for resettlement because many lost UNHCR protection after leaving "established" camps in 1999.
______________
Do you have any idea why they left? It seems they left the UN refugee camps and now we're sorta forced to take them in rather than other Hmong in Thailand. Seems like they are being rewarded for bad behaviour
"It's really tough right now, especially for people with low language skills and little work history," said Karen Calcaterra, a career program manager for immigrants and refugees at the nonprofit organization Lifetrack Resources. "In different times, refugees would come and the employers would be desperate for workers. Now there are three people competing for every vacancy."
Many Hmong families in the area are expecting scores of relatives in the new influx. Xiong's sister-in-law, Chong Thao, has about 30 more relatives arriving. While most here are filled with excitement at the prospect of family reunions, they will be presented with financial and logistical problems.
MINNESOTA | WISCONSIN | |
POPULATION | 5,059,375 | 5,472,299 |
WHITE | 4,539,000 | 4,913,299 |
% WHITE | 90 | 90 |
ASIAN | 158,941 | 101,145 |
UNEMPLOYMENT | 4.4 | 5.5 |
INCOME | 30,675 | 26,941 |
MEDIAN INCOME | 47,111 | 43,771 |
CRIME | 268 | 225 |
% HOME OWNERS | 77 | 72 |
FED AID / CAP | 1151 | 1134 |
POVERTY % | 7.9 | 8.7 |
POP18 UNDER | 24.9 | 24.6 |
POP 65 OVER | 12.0 | 13.0 |
"It is still illegal."
But biblical..__..and separate state and church is the law.
That is why a mormon man is in jail for the same thing.
One word that fails to appear in your stats: "POLITICS".
So your argument is that despite being very similar states in terms of every significant demographic measurement, somehow in some mystical way, the "politics" of the states makes their comparison invalid? And somehow that would make the Hmong immigrant experience and costs somehow magically different? Oh do tell, I can't wait to hear this one.
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