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Factors Supporting Academic Engagement Among Cambodian American High School Youth, Vichet Chhuon, Angela Dosalmas, Nida Rinthapol

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This exploratory study examined the relationship between Cambodian American

students’ (N = 77) attitudes and beliefs regarding school climate and school

engagement. We examined engagement through two primary constructs:

academic intrinsic motivation and future educational expectations. Four specific

correlates of engagement were examined to understand the quality of Cambodian

American students’ school engagement: sense of racial fairness; feelings of

teacher support; perceptions of self-competence; and perceptions of positive

classroom environment. Perceptions of self competence were positively

associated with higher educational expectations. Our regression models found

that students’ sense of positive classroom environment in addition to teacher

support was important …

A Review Of The Cambodian Family: Holocaust Survival By Cathy Long, Jalisa Sang

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

The Cambodian Family: Holocaust Survival, by Cathy Long, is a powerful memoir that recounts the darkest days or “Year Zero” in Cambodian history. It captures the story of how the author survived the harsh regime under the Khmer Rouge as a wife, mother and caregiver. Long’s memoir also touches on the horror, trauma, grief, family separation and the loss that occurred from 1975-1979 that was experienced by so many, shedding a light on the atrocities of the Cambodian people during this era. Through the hardships, Long instilled a pillar of hope, resilience and faith for a better future for her …

A Review Of The Song Poet, Vikrant Chap

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

The Song Poet is a collection of Kwv txhiaj (Hmong songs) by Kao Kalia Yang and her father Bee Yang. The songs were the senior Yang’s way of honoring Hmong traditions and history. The collection symbolized his careful selection of language to communicate softly with family, even during the war. His nurturing words accompanied his family’s survival through those difficult moments. However, at one point in his life, the songs refused to unfold, disrupting the happy chapters. To honor her father’s legacy, Kao Kalia Yang completed his songs in The Song Poet. The album begins with a note on Bee …

Cultural, Psychosocial, And Educational Factors In Relation To Ethnic Identity Among Cambodian High School Students In The United States, Traci L. Weinstein, Khanh Dinh, Tamara Springle

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This study examined the relationship between preferred ethnic labels an cultural, psychosocial, and academic variables in a sample of 174 Cambodian high school students in the U.S. Results indicated that participants who chose “American” ethnic labels reported higher scores on White/Anglo orientation and on English language usage and fluency, whereas participants who chose the “Cambodian” ethnic label reported more Khmer language usage and frequency. Students who chose the combined “Cambodian American” ethnic label reported stronger beliefs in the utility of education and higher academic aspirations. The findings from this study expand the research on ethnic identity by focusing on 2nd …

Book Review: Teaching Asian America In Elementary Classrooms, Jenna Cushing-Leubner

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Book Review Rodríguez, N.N., An, S., & Kim, E.J. (2024). Teaching Asian America in Elementary Classrooms. New York: Routledge.

192 pp.

Pb. $23.96 ISBN-13: 978-1032597157

Lai Mi Ka Si (I Am Lai Mi): A Poetry Collection, Thang C. Lian

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

In this poetry collection, I combine oral history with official Burmese history to trace my family’s diasporic journey from the mountains of Myanmar to Kentwood, Michigan in 2008. To do so, I conducted interviews with my mother, father, grandmother, and grandfather over Zoom and accumulated dozens of hours of material. A rumination on refugee grief and displacement, this creative work expresses and investigates the multi-layered ritual of grief refugees conduct internally and externally—an intentional and powerful foray into the “affective.” Finally, this creative work intends to sift through the complications of transnational grief: how, when, and why do we grieve?

Review Of Fighting Invisibility: Asian Americans In The Midwest. Rutgers University Press, Xiang Zhou

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Despite the imperative to shed light on the experiences of Asian Americans residing in the Midwest, previous research has predominantly centered around Asians residing on the coasts. This phenomenon, as elucidated by Erika Lee in her concept of “doubly invisible” Midwest Asian Americans, highlights their dual marginalization—they are not only conspicuously absent from mainstream literature but also from the broader discourse on Asian American experiences, which primarily revolves around those on the East and West coasts. However, it is within the heartland of America that we witness one of the most profound transformations in Asian America over the past few …

“Neoliberal Diversity” At The University Of California, Merced: Hmong Students Creating Belonging And Building Community, May Kao Xiong

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Neoliberalism impacts the implementation of diversity in higher education, consequently this affects the place and meaning of diversity as it relates to Hmong students. Within the neoliberal university, diversity is increasingly co-opted to stand for institutional inclusivity and implemented to silence critiques about the academic industrial complex. I consider and examine the interplay between “neoliberal diversity” and Hmong students’ experiences at the University of California, Merced (UC Merced). I use critical refugee scholar Yên Lê Espiritu’s (2014) refugee framework and Indigenous scholar Glen Coulthard’s (2014) self-recognition model to examine the Hmong Student Association. The data for this study is from …

Sib Hlub Sib Pab As Cultural Capital: Community Cultural Wealth, Radical Love, And A Hmoob Language Teacher’S Determination, Ariana Yang

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This theoretical article examines a form of cultural capital, sib hlub sib pab as capital, that emerged out of my dissertation research with HMoob American teachers. Drawing on the structure of Yosso’s (2005) theory of community cultural wealth (CCW) and literature on radical love (Freire, 1970; hooks, 2003, 2006), this article outlines an alternative form of cultural capital: sib hlub sib pab as capital, which encompasses an obligation to community and relationality rooted in radical love. Although this is a primarily theoretical article, I provide an excerpt from an interview with a HMoob language teacher and her struggles with building …

Hmoob Eldership As Pedagogy: Reclaiming Hmoob Knowledge As Hmoob Education, Thong Vang

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

For centuries non-HMoob people and scholars have sought to label and define who HMoob people are, but this paper reclaims and repositions HMoob people as agentic and reinforces our people’s power to define themselves as we have for centuries. This paper also addresses problematic discourse about HMoob people and HMoob education, such as “peb HMoob tsis muaj kev kawm”1 or “peb tsis muaj kev txawj hab kev ntse le lwm paab lwm pawg.”2 Departing from such deficit discourse, this paper explores HMoob eldership as pedagogy as one way that HMoob people have valid knowledge systems. HMoob eldership as pedagogy examines …

Hmong Narratives As Testimony, Pa N. Vue

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Refugees are often depicted in studies and popular media as helpless and in need of rescuing. In the song “Hmoob Zaj,” which was released on YouTube in 2019, Hmong rapper Shong Lee humanizes Hmong refugee experiences by sharing a story that has been “secreted” (M. Vang, 2021, p. 10) by the U.S. government. Through the public archiving of this story on YouTube, Lee presents what Espiritu (2014) calls an “oppositional narrative” (p. 163) that speaks back to the empire. He asserts a critical stance to challenge the dominant narrative, validate the experiential knowledge of Hmong people, contribute to Hmong collective …

Paj Xyeem, Mao S. Lee

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Paj Xyeem reflects a time period when I was processing my educational experience. It expresses my emotions of being invisibilized—existing without being seen or heard—in U.S. academic spaces. This invisibility is the ways in which my belonging in intellectual spaces were challenged and denied. Paj Xyeem, which is translated to grade, captures moments when I was made invisible in classrooms that operated on White Supremacist ideology. In this writing, I highlight the problematic processes of classroom policies and teaching pedagogies that centered Whiteness. Additionally, this poem captures instances when I was given a majoritarian narrative (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) to …

“My Own Kwv Txhiaj: Reflecting On Self Learning Of A Hmong Oral Tradition”, Chong A. Moua

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This piece is inspired by the life of my mother, Yaj Mim Hawj, sister, Npib, and father, Npuag Looj. I have yet to tell them but this is my way of thanking them for showing me what it means to love my language. I also want to thank the teachers who’ve been a part of my kwv txhiaj learning journey: Mai Na M. Lee, Bounthavy Kiatoukaysy Thao, and Caroline Paaj Zaub Thao-Vue.

Toward Hmoob-Centered Inquiries: Reclaiming Hmoob American Educational Scholarship And Curriculum, Choua P. Xiong, Kaozong N. Mouavangsou

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

As the intersecting field of HMoob (Hmong/Mong) Studies/Hmong American Studies, Southeast Asian American Studies, and Education Studies grow, there is also an increased desire to learn, read, and produce scholarship by HMoob people. Throughout our graduate journeys and as early career scholars and educators at the intersections of Critical HMoob Studies and Education Studies, we—Choua and Kaozong—have yearned for scholarship on HMoob that is not just about representation but includes research that recognizes HMoob strengths and assets. Specifically, we craved scholarly knowledge that employed HMoob assets to interrogate racist, colonial discourses and decenter whiteness. This special issue centers HMoob (Hmong/Mong) …

“I’M Here, I Can Help”: Supporting Southeast Asian American Community College Students, Johanna M. Tigert, Phitsamay S. Uy, Argyro A. Armstrong, Francine Coston, Elias Nader

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This study examined the experiences of Asian American students with one community college’s student services: Writing Center, Financial Aid Center, and Asian American Student Center (AASC). Data included survey responses, focus group interviews, and individual student interviews. Chi square tests were conducted to see if there were significant differences in participants’ responses based on ethnicity (Cambodian/Khmer vs. other), gender, and age (traditionally vs. non-traditionally aged). Focus group and individual interview data were analyzed thematically. Results showed that about half of the students had accessed the Writing Center and the AASC, while over 85% accessed the Financial Aid Center. There were …

Transtrauma: Conceptualizing The Lived Experiences Of Vietnamese American Youth, Khánh Lê

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Drawing on empirical data from qualitative research I conducted with eight Vietnamese American youth in the Fall of 2020, this paper forwards transtrauma, a new framework for conceptualizing and understanding the lived experiences of Vietnamese American youth. The concept of transtrauma goes beyond the pathologizing of individual trauma, to examine how structures of domination inflict and extend trauma in marginalized communities, such as that of Vietnamese American communities. Transtrauma transcends the overt and linear focus on trauma as a single experience and the examination of how institutionalized violence by nation states shapes the experiences of Vietnamese Americans. This conceptualization …

Reviews Of The Shared Room And The Most Beautiful Thing, Bao Diep

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Grief and Loss are often seen as taboo subjects to discuss openly in many cultures. However, grief is universal, perpetual, and complex. Grief can take many forms and depend on the nature of the attachment between the survivor and the dead (people, animals, living things). When Loss happens, the survivor’s attachment will influence the shape and level of grief. Kao Kalia Yang (2020) has brought the topic of attachment, grief and loss to her children’s books, The Shared Room and The Most Beautiful Things, to initiate this difficult conversation.

Review Of Afterparties Stories By Anthony Veasna So, Allan Zheng

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

You’re Khmer, right?” Tevy, one of So’s characters from “Three Women of Chuck’s Donuts,” asks a customer (So, 2021, p. 21). Khmer is commonly seen as an ethnic identity and distinct from the broader national identity of Cambodian. Therefore, what does it mean to be Khmer, or generally as I will write in this review, Cambodian American? In his short story collection Afterparties (2021), Anthony Veasna So explores this question in Afterparties (2021) through a rich collage of stories featuring sisters in a donut shop, a cynical high school literature teacher, a reluctant son at the temple to tver bon, …

Notes To My Dad, Karen Vang

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This is a critical reflection of my experience navigating higher education as a Hmong woman. My dad is well known among our clan to be very “traditional” and respectable. However, over the past 6 years during my graduate studies, my dad has remained my number one supporter. I sometimes, I tell him he is the chosen one, to derail his beliefs. At times, I begin to imagine what life would be like if I were a son. As for me, one of my mentors told me one time, that it is my sacred path to do this work. I have …

An Imaginary* Interview With A Philippines Collections Museum Donor, Camille Ungco

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Ontological distance is the dehumanization that emerges from uninterrogated coloniality between colonized subjects and the oppressive systems. This distancing has occurred in the histories of U.S. teachers both domestic-based and abroad, especially in Southeast Asia. In Steinbock-Pratt’s (2019) historiography on the relationships between early 1900s U.S. teachers and their Filipinx students, ontological distance was “The crux of the colonial relationship was intimacy marked by closeness without understanding, suasion backed by violence, and affection bounded by white and American supremacy” (Steinbock-Pratt, 2019, p. 214). This dehumanizing psychological or ontological distance existed during U.S. colonial regimes abroad, specifically in Southeast Asia and …

Three Poems: “My Mother Is A Hungry Ghost,” “Lok-Yeay,” And “My Heart Is A Chest Of Drawers”, Bunkong Tuon

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Three Poems: “My Mother is a Hungry Ghost,” “Lok-Yeay,” and “My Heart is a Chest of Drawers”

Three Poems: “Same Identity, Different Lives,” “Into Obscurity,” And “Community”, Hyleigh Pan

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Three Poems: “Same Identity, Different Lives,” “Into Obscurity,” and “Community”

An Empirical Exploration Of Southeast Asian American Residential Patterns In The San Francisco Bay Area (2000–2019), Minh Q. Nguyen

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This paper explores three methods of reporting residential patterns: (1) concentration profiles, (2) density maps, and (3) proximity profiles. I analyze U.S. Census data to map and evaluate the residential patterns for Southeast Asian Americans in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. Drawing from the field of urban planning, I report two measures of segregation and concentration (a) dissimilarity indices and (b) spatial proximity indices, and I discuss their limitations. Since mapping and spatial statistics are essential to understanding the histories, development, and advancement of Southeast Asian American communities, it is important to promote their broad usage. …

#34 Luk Lao, Victoria Gill

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This bilingual poem, using Lao (Isaan dialect) and English, narrates how her genocide survivor, Lao refugee mother uses language as a form of resistance and as a cultural legacy to pass on to her first-generation American born children.

Hmong Parent Day/Hnub Txhawb Nqa Niam Txiv: Implementing Psychosociocultural Educational Programming To Honor Rau Siab, Pa Her, Alberta M. Gloria, Shee Yee Chang, Pahoua Thao

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This paper describes the interrelated conceptual activities that took a Psychosociocultural (PSC) approach to direct best practices, interactions, and processes to implement HMong Parent Days effectively. The purpose of HMong Parent Day/ Hnub Txhawb Nqa Niam Txiv, a culturally-centered community-focused intervention, was to bring HMong parents onto a midwestern predominantly White university campus for a day of college knowledge. The day honored HMong parents' support of their children into and through higher education via the cultural value of rau siab (hard work). Three levels of learning that emergent as new knowledge for HMong parents were highlighted and discussed relative to …

Identities Development Of Adult Chinese Heritage Language Learners From Southeast Asian American Families, Feng Liang

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Although linguistic and cultural varieties exist among Chinese Heritage Language Learners (CHLLs), little attention has been given to how adult CHLLs with non-Mandarin backgrounds attempt to negotiate their identities when they learned Chinese. Grounded in He’s (2008, 2016) theory of Chinese heritage language (CHL) development, this study explored the construction of identities of Chinese adults with non-Mandarin backgrounds in the process of Chinese heritage language learning. Three adult CHLLs in the United States participated in a multiple case study that lasted for six months. Data collection included interviews, journals, observations, and informal communications. Findings suggest that CHLLs of non-Mandarin backgrounds …

Review Of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Bao Diep

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

The paper is the review of Ocean Vuong’s novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, which was published in 2019 by Penguin Press, New York. The paper contains a brief summary of each chapter and the author’s views about the complexity of queer identity in Vietnamese culture. The paper also touches on taboo subjects, such as mental health and queerness, and how they shape Vuong’s perspectives on family relationships, generational trauma and toxicity of nail culture. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous represents a new generation of young writers who carry multiple identities and want to reveal themselves to the world.

On The Struggles And Experiences Of Southeast Asian American Academics, Long T. Bui

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This article examines Southeast Asian Americans (SEAA) academics in the U.S. academy, relating their complex positionalities within higher education to their communities and societies. While many educational studies have been done on SEAA students, almost none focus on professional scholars and college faculty. Combining cultural-structural critique with close analysis of public writings and personal interviews, the article finds that that SEAA are ignored, and/or tokenized in the Ivory Tower due to structural as well as epistemological issues. It indicates that the public discourse and policies about Southeast Asians in academia not only neglects racial and class hierarchies, but obscures issues …

Socioeconomic Status Of Second-Generation Southeast Asians: New Evidence And Analysis, Wayne Carroll

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Over a million refugees and other immigrants arrived in the United States from Southeast Asia starting in 1975. Forty-five years later, their adult children have completed their education in the U.S. and entered the labor force. This study uses a large microdata sample from the American Community Survey to describe and compare the socioeconomic status of Southeast Asian American adults and native-born white adults. Results are disaggregated by gender, generation (Generation 1.5 and Generation 2), and ethnic group (Hmong, other Laotian, Cambodian, and Vietnamese). Regression analysis – controlling for age, educational attainment, and other factors – shows that native-born white …

Vietnamese Americans: History, Education, And Societal Context, Stacy M. Kula, Vinh Q. Tran, Iraise Garcia, Erika Saito, Susan J. Paik

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

While Asian Americans are often depicted as one high-achieving group, there are in fact a wide diversity of Asian American populations that each have their own history and acculturation experiences in the United States. Vietnamese Americans are a particularly unique group; having come with other Southeast Asian refugee groups after the Vietnam War, they are a relatively recent addition to U.S. society with very different circumstances of arrival in comparison with groups from other regions of Asia. This article takes a historical lens to understand the unique factors surrounding Vietnamese American entry to the United States—including policy, societal reception, co-ethnic …