> How many of you read the article in the Fresno Bee (12/03/07) entitled
> "Abuse Out of the Shadows"?
>
> What is everyone's opinion?
>
> Did you think our Hmong brothers and sisters portrayed an accurate
> picture of our society?
>
> Why do our Hmong sisters keep insisting on pushing an agenda that is
> more "hate-filled" than "justice-filled"?
>
> I think we need to talk about our issues with more tact.
>
> I also think these issues need to be broader than just focused on the
> "Hmong". Isn't spousal abuse a worldwide issue? Why does every
> article that involves the Hmong have to be so racially divided and
> culturally specific?
>
> Please share your thoughts.
>
> Here is the article...
> _____________________________________________________
>
> Abuse out of the shadows
> Domestic violence often is kept secret in Hmong families. But some
> victims have broken the silence, and more people are urging
> openness.By Vanessa Colon /
> The Fresno Bee12/03/07
> 08:08:27
> More information
> How to get help
> Toll-free phone numbers: (559) 233-HELP (4357) and (800) 640-0333
>
> United Hmong Women and Men Against Violence: (559) 579-0040
>
> Patty Yang was just 13 when she got married in Thailand. It wasn't
> long before her husband, then 25, began abusing her.
>
> Her husband kicked her, punched her and once pushed her down stairs,
> she said. The abuse caused a miscarriage in 1980, the year they
> arrived in the United States as refugees. They settled in Minnesota.
>
> Yang, now 45, said she never called police because her husband's
> family prohibited her from dialing for help. Following Hmong
> tradition, she sought help through her husband's clan, but that did
> little to stop the abuse.
>
> "At the time, I did not know better. I didn't know how to call 911 and
> I didn't speak English," Yang said.
>
> She left her husband in 2004, then returned to him -- only to be hit
> once again. Finally in 2005, after 26 years of an abusive marriage,
> she divorced her husband. The split was mutual, she said. Her ex-
> husband could not be reached for comment.
>
> She moved to Fresno in 2005 after she sought help from a pastor at a
> church in Minnesota.
>
> Gradually, more Hmong abuse victims -- mostly women -- are learning to
> reach beyond their clans for help.
>
> It is a slow transition, as Hmong women get jobs and education and
> acclimate to American culture. Hmong women still try -- sometimes for
> years -- to end abuse before seeking outside help from a social
> service group or police.
>
> "For the younger generation, it's more acceptable to go outside and
> seek help. ... It's usually after going to the elders a multiple of
> times," said Jamie Xiong, an attorney at Central California Legal
> Services in Fresno. The nonprofit agency provides legal assistance to
> the poor, including helping with divorce cases and restraining orders.
>
> Fresno police and Hmong activists are trying to encourage abuse
> victims in the Valley's Hmong community to seek help.
>
> Because many Hmong women don't report abuse, numbers are hard to come
> by. Central California Legal Services, which helps about 500 domestic
> abuse victims a year, handled 17 cases involving Hmong women in 2005
> and 35 in 2006. Through September of this year, the nonprofit has
> helped 20 abused Hmong women obtain divorces, restraining orders or
> other help.
>
> "Anecdotally, the numbers have gone up," said Justin Red,
> communications coordinator at Fresno's Marjaree Mason Center, a
> shelter for women and children. "As the Hmong culture assimilates to
> American culture [so does] their understanding of American laws."
>
> The San Joaquin Valley is home to more than 35,000 people of Hmong
> descent, most of them in Fresno County.
>
> The Hmong and Lao people helped the United States fight communism from
> 1961 to 1975 in Laos and Vietnam. After Laos fell to the communists,
> the Hmong fled. Many of them landed in the United States, bringing
> along their clan-based traditions and customs, including the view that
> marital disputes should be resolved within the 18 Hmong clans.
>
> Under clan tradition, a married couple struggling with abuse or other
> problems are expected sit down with an elder. The elder listens to
> both sides and offers a solution, but it usually involves keeping the
> family together, said detective Pao Xiong of the Fresno Police
> Department's domestic violence unit.
>
> Xiong said in some cases the elder might force the wife to return to
> her husband. A wife who runs off to a shelter without first speaking
> to a clan elder risks abandonment from relatives, he said.
>
> "Not every case is like that, but it's happened many times. It depends
> on the family and the level of assimilation of the family. Some will
> accept her. Some will consider her as dead," Xiong said.
>
> That risk of abandonment is why Hmong abuse victims may wait 15 years
> or more before seeking outside help, he said.
>
> Mai Na Lee, a history professor at the University of Minnesota-Twin
> Cities, said some Hmong women take years to report the abuse because
> they don't want to look like they've turned their backs on their
> culture.
>
> "They want to prove they've exhausted the channels in the community.
> It's to eliminate any stigmas. It's to show they are good women," Lee
> said.
>
> But Hmong women also may have problems obtaining help outside the
> community if they don't speak English or can't find service agencies
> that understand Hmong culture.
>
> The Marjaree Mason Center had Hmong-speaking employees in the last
> four years but they all left for higher-paying jobs. The center works
> with Hmong speakers at Central California Legal Services in Fresno,
> the Fresno Police Department and other agencies.
>
> Others have stepped in to fill the void.
>
> Summer Vue, who said she divorced her husband after he abused her, co-
> founded United Hmong Women and Men Against Violence in Fresno earlier
> this year. Her ex-husband could not be reached for comment.
>
> The group is not active yet but is in the planning stage of working
> with victims and their families. Vue works with the Marjaree Mason
> center to provide interpreting services, referral service and support
> groups to Hmong who have suffered abuse at the hands of a partner.
>
> Vue, 39, said she helped found the group because there is little
> support and help for Hmong women who have been victims of abuse.
>
> Traditional Hmong women are groomed to be good homemakers and cooks,
> she said. But when women challenge their husbands, arguments develop
> and can escalate into violence.
>
> "We do have great Hmong men but it takes one rotten apple to corrupt
> the whole tree," Vue said.
>
> Lee Pao Xiong, director of Hmong studies at Concordia University-Saint
> Paul in Minnesota, said adjusting to the different roles of women and
> men in the United States can create tension.
>
> "In Laos, the roles of women and men were clearly defined. ... Men
> were out there hunting" and the women stayed at home, Xiong said. In
> America, "you need a two-income household to survive."
>
> A 2002 Ford Foundation report echoes that assessment.
>
> Domestic violence in the Hmong community has escalated because Hmong
> men feel threatened when Hmong women work and become independent, the
> report said. The power structure of the family changed as some women
> became wage earners and obtained "economic independence."
>
> "They become jealous of their wives' new found independence and
> suspicious because they are out of the house all day. ... Such gender
> role changes are dramatic in the patriarchal Hmong culture. ... When
> life as Hmong men understand it changes beyond recognition, some see
> suicides and homicides as the only solution," the report states.
>
> That apparently is what happened this past summer in Fresno, when Ker
> Vang followed his estranged common-law wife, May Yang, to a home on
> North Valentine Avenue and fatally shot her before killing himself.
>
> The couple had been living in Minnesota. Yang, 31, had been with Vang,
> 41, for about 17 years but didn't report domestic abuse to authorities
> until December 2006, during a visit with relatives in the Fresno area,
> the Fresno County Sheriff's Department reported.
>
> This summer, Yang returned to Fresno with her five children and moved
> in with relatives on Valentine Avenue in an effort to escape the
> relationship.
>
> On Aug. 20, Vang arrived at the two-story house and demanded that Yang
> and the children return with him to Minnesota. According to the Fresno
> County Sheriff's Department, they began arguing. Then Vang shot Yang
> four times before shooting himself twice in the chest.
>
> At least nine Hmong women have been killed in domestic disputes since
> 1998 in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Fresno, according to the 2002 Ford
> Foundation report and more recent news accounts. Many of them were
> murder-suicides.
>
> Detective Xiong said that despite such deaths, there has been
> tremendous progress in the community. Xiong chose to join the domestic
> violence unit five years ago because he believed there was a great
> need. He has done about a dozen presentations on domestic violence in
> the Hmong community.
>
> Xiong has gone on Hmong radio on KBIF 900 AM to talk about the issue.
> About a dozen people called him asking him questions about what to do
> if there is domestic violence. Xiong has encouraged them to obtain
> counseling and contact police or court authorities.
>
> Some Hmong elders have praised him for his advice that seeking help
> outside the clan isn't shameful but in the best interest of the
> family.
>
> "In the past there was resistance, but in the last five years, it's
> opened up," Xiong said of clan elders.
>
> "I think more people are slowly catching on."