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218 Chapter 13 Parent-Child Conflict within the Mong Family  Chimeng Yang An estimated 3.4 million Mong live all over the world today, but the vast majority live in China. Those Mong who live in the United States are a group of political refugees coming from Laos after the Vietnam War. They settled all across the United States, with the majority of them in California , Minnesota, and Wisconsin. The Mong came to the United States carrying their world with them: their memories of farming, fighting the war, escaping the Communists by the arduous journey from Laos to Thailand, and living conditions in the refugee camps in Thailand. They also brought with them their culture and language. They left behind their homes, loved ones, relatives, and friends. They came to a new world of high technology, high-speed highways, high crime out of control, explosion of the number of career possibilities, fast-food restaurants, MTV, the information superhighway, freedom of speech and expression, individualism, and many cultures and values that they could not comprehend or accept. They feared for the loss of their culture and language. The Mong refugees came to America with their hands empty. They did not prepare themselves to face the challenges of the New World. Like many other refugees, the decision for them to leave their homeland and come to America was based on survival rather than economic opportunity. Those who were lucky enough to survive the dangers of escape had to face many years of hardship in the refugee camps. Unlike immigrants who came to America for economic opportunity , the Mong, because they were forced to flee their homeland, faced a double stress of adjusting to a new life in the United States as well as painful memories of personal losses and trauma. Many Mong parents are physically here, but their hearts and minds are still back in their homeland. After the Mong settled in the United States, they faced culture shock, language barriers, new laws and regulations, homesickness, unemployment, housing problems, crime, and family conflicts. Although many Mong families have been in the United States for more than twenty-five years, they still have very little or no Conflict within the Mong Families 219 contact with the mainstream society and do not know their rights and how to get involved in their children’s education, due to language barriers. Due to the fact that Mong children who have grown up in the United States have different behaviors, interests, and values than their parents, conflicts are created between Mong parents and their children. For these reasons, this chapter focuses on factors that have caused parent-child conflict within Mong families. They include, but are not limited to, cultural differences and discipline problems , language differences and communication gaps, language and cultural gaps between Mong parents and the school system, contrasts between the parents’ viewpoints and their children’s, and misunderstanding between Mong parents and the schools. Definition of Terms Due to the misinformation, miseducation, and lack of knowledge about the Mong, scholars, the general public, and the Hmong lump the Mong under the Hmong. This is clearly a misrepresentation of the Mong. Currently, the general public does not know the cultural and linguistic differences between the Mong and the Hmong people. Consequently, the Mong are misrepresented in many aspects, such as in print media and publications in English and French. The Mong and the Hmong are an ethnic minority originally from China. Culturally and linguistically, they are classified into two groups. One group is the Mong Leng (Moob Leeg). Westerners translate Mong Leng as “Blue Mong.” Another group is the Hmong Der (Hmoob Dawb). Westerners translate Hmong Der as “White Hmong.” The Mong Leng always identify themselves as Mong, and the Hmong Der always identify themselves as Hmong. Moreover, other classifications of the Mong and the Hmong (for example Black Mong, Striped Hmong, and so forth) are based on the colors of their costumes, but culturally and linguistically they all fall under the Mong and the Hmong groups. The Mong speak, read, and write the Mong language, and likewise the Hmong speak, read, and write the Hmong language. The linguistic differences and similarities between the Mong and the Hmong languages may be compared to the differences and similarities between the Lao and the Thai languages. The Mong are not a subgroup of the Hmong. The populations of the Mong and the Hmong groups are substantially comparable in terms of...

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