Word: hmong
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...WISCONSIN, WAS HOMOGENEOUS AND COMPLACENT, among the whitest of cities in the country. No longer: beginning in the late 1970s, local churches began sponsoring displaced refugees from the wars in Southeast Asia, allowing them to settle in Wausau. As a result, the town (pop. 38,000) is now 15% Hmong, a people native to the mountains of Indochina who speak a language that until the 1950s had no written form...
Nowhere has the transformation been as dramatic and tense as in Wausau's school system, where today 30% of elementary students are Southeast Asian. Yet there is no formal bilingual program in Wausau because there are virtually no certified Hmong-speaking teachers. So the school system has relied on teaching English with assistance from bilingual aides, who step in to make the transition to the new language easier. But as the vast majority of Hmong children became concentrated in four of the district's 13 elementary schools, test scores showed the immigrant children were not keeping up with their...
...Fred Prehn, who had championed the plan. "I received phone messages telling me that I would get a bullet in my head and that my child would never reach the first grade," said Prehn, a dentist. He says eight white families stormed into his office, denounced him as a "Hmong lover" and took their business elsewhere. Under threat of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, the new board conceived a plan for racial balance in the schools by redefining the boundaries of some neighborhoods. And while the busing continues, it is now mostly Hmong children who travel...
...situation on the Laotian side is somewhat better. Laos is sparsely populated, but animals large and small are relentlessly hunted by both Hmong tribesmen and Vietnamese poachers who freely cross the border. Wildlife Conservation Society biologist George Schaller has noted that all villagers over the age of 13 seem to have guns, ranging from muzzle loaders to automatic weapons left behind during the war. Alan Rabinowitz, the organizer of the WCS team, says that the area still has remarkable diversity but that all species have been radically reduced by hunting. Laotian trees are also under threat, as deforested neighboring countries...
...metropolitan area has a population of 477,400 (it was 358,800 a decade ago), and the number is expected to double in the next 10 years. The U.S. government used Fresno as a dumping ground for refugees created by its actions in Indochina, particularly the mountain Laotians called Hmong. There are 31,000 Hmong in the area, many clustered in a neighborhood known as Ban Vinai -- for the refugee camp some of them came from. The ethnic mix has placed heavy burdens on the school system, and gangs are forming among the young...