Presentation # 2

Mai Moua Vang
996966821
5/3/2012

            The article about Mien women as resilient individuals had its pros and cons. Reading the first page of the article, I thought that it was going to provide new and interesting information about the Mien community and I was excited to read it because I do not know much about them. Unfortunately the article did not have a unique take of the Mien community. I believe that it is important to highlight the resilience in Mien women, but I can say that other Southeast Asian women are also resilient. The information she provided was vague therefore it did not spark an appealing criticism when she tied it with her data collection. In addition, she only interviewed ten Mien women who all went to a faith-based institution, which is a small sample group that will not be able to represent Mien women entirely.

            Besides some of the cons mentioned here, there are some pros. This is simply not an article, but a dissertation written by a Mien woman; which says a lot. There is Mien representation in academia or scholarly articles. I know the general history of the Hmong and I was surprised how similar both of the groups are. In general, I think it’s wonderful to highlight mothers and the amount of work they put in a family. Drawing some information from another class (CRD 180 to be more precise), microfinance agents are more willing to give loans out to women because mothers have to make sure that the family will eat. If there isn’t enough food, the mother will have to give her portion away and starve or she will have to find some way to earn money. This shows how much families rely on their mother because without them willing to sacrifice for the family, they would not exist or to rise up and do something good in their life.

            For the Vietnamese mother article, I thought that it was well written and well researched. I liked how the author introduced how he discovered his inspiration to his piece: his mother! Although he researched only one person, the author delved real deep in his analysis. I really like how the article highlighted the older folks because it gives us an insight of how the older generation was raised by the literature and folk tales that surrounded them. I also really like the concept “normalized suffering” which means that the family praises how great of a mother she is because she is willing to work hard and keep the family together. Although this may sound positive, it’s real bad because when we praise their mothers, they don’t recognize her physical and mental health, and that it is ok to feel that way because history, literature, culture, and family members perpetuate it, causing it to feel normal. I can also relate with this article because my mother also works very hard and sometimes her personal needs drown in a pool of praises.