An interview with MaiZong Vue and Peng Her
Understanding the Hmong culture
By Heidi M. Pascual
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Asian Wisconzine, in providing a forum where Asian American issues can be
discussed, is proud to share with its readers an interview with Hmong community
activists MaiZong Vue and Peng Her (right photo). They were an integral part of
the first forum and workshop titled "In Defense of Culture: When is it a Viable
Legal Strategy?" held in Madison last fall. They also participated in the recent
town hall meeting of the Hmong community in Green Bay, Wis., held in the light
of the gruesome death of Cha Vang (a refugee who arrived in the U.S. in 2004)
while squirrel-hunting in Marinette County, and to listen to Hmong community
concerns in general.
AW: Why was there a need for a forum and workshop among people in the legal system that focused on culture and traditions of
ethnic folk, particularly the refugee population in Wisconsin?
MaiZong Vue: We've been frustrated about having to educate, and educate, and educate people about cultural issues. Where I
work for example, I often go out and talk about the refugee experience/issues, cultural differences, and why people need to
understand more about them, in order to serve the community adequately. So the discussion gave birth to our desire to put
something together and that happened when we came up with this forum.
Peng Her: We're also interested in giving the new Hmong refugees, who just arrived the past two years, an opportunity to learn
the legal system, because it's pretty vast and technical. Unless you're a lawyer, you won't know the legal jargon and the
Wisconsin statutes. On top of that, coming from a country where your culture, legal system, and set of beliefs are different, a big
adjustment is needed. Many Hmong refugees or people from third world countries say that law enforcement agencies in
countries they came from are corrupt. There are corrupt judges and police officers, so a lot of times they carry that belief here.
Also, in many Southeast Asian cultures, the police or law enforcement is the last resort. It's only when the dispute cannot be
resolved by the clan leader or village leader, or in rare cases such as murder or kidnapping, that the police is called. / This
forum was a way to address this issue, educate the new immigrants, and to look at the cultural differences that exist among
diverse communities here in Wisconsin. Oftentimes, we realize that the legal system is not just black and white. There is a gray
area in the middle, in which culture plays a role. And judges and people in the legal profession must realize that everything isn't
as clear cut as what they learned from school. When people's emotions, beliefs and cultures are put into place, judges need to
take those into consideration also.
We were hoping to get those in the legal professions to come to this forum for them to know why it is so important to see that
the cultural defense is a legal defense.
AW:Specifically,what did you discuss in the workshop during the forum on Cultural Defense?
MaiZong: We talked about the diverse cultures in Wisconsin, in terms of demographics. For example, the largest refugee
community in Wisconsin is the Hmong, at 90%. Other refugee groups are the Lao, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and in the last
decade we've been resettling Africans, Cubans, Haitians, former Soviet Union folks, Croatians, etc.
We discussed why our cultural practice is something that works, something that we value deeply and that it's very real in the
community. But people who don't know about the Hmong culture would mistake some traditions for neglect. For example, a lot
of Asians do "coining" when one gets get sick. They rub the skin until it gets dark; the darker the better. We do "cupping" on body
parts. I gave an example of why a very reputable Hmong man from Oshkosh hanged himself in jail in the '80s. His child had
bruises on his body and the teacher reported him to Child Protection. The police arrested the father in front of his family and his
people. He was so humiliated that he couldn't bear the thought of coming back to the community. So cultural practices have a lot
of meaning, and when things like this happen, and we don't communicate, we're just building more gaps; the barrier just gets
bigger. People are afraid to talk to the police because this case told them, "Be careful what you share with other people. They
might use it against you." / So we have to build a mechanism to defend our own culture. We have to be understood why we do
this.
Peng: Just to elaborate on her point about coining. Coining is the process in which you use a large coin, put Vicks VapoRub,
and then rub it over the skin several times until you draw blood and it causes some bruises. In the case that MaiZong
mentioned, the teacher asked the child, 'Who did this to you?' The child said, 'My father did this to me.' The next logical question
should have been, 'Why did he do this to you?' But she never asked that question, and just went ahead and reported him to the
authorities of abusing this child, because her perception was that it was child abuse and neglect. The police came, and if they
had known about the Hmong culture, that putting handcuffs and taking away a person means losing face in the community, that
respected man would still be alive. So this community leader lost face in the community that the only choice he had left was to
commit suicide, all because a teacher failed to ask the second question which was, 'Why did he do this to you?' In this country,
the police have the right to handcuff you, put you in the car, detain you, and take you to the police station. But in the Hmong
culture, when that happens, that means you are already guilty and they're taking you away.
AW: Since a lot of "educating people" is needed, what will be your next step after this forum?
MaiZong: I think that forum is just the beginning. It indicated that we need to pursue this kind of training on an ongoing basis, so
people can, not just listen and learn about the issue, but also dialogue on it. The more you talk about it, the more it's going to be
embraced, but if we do it only as a training that's required once a year, and afterward you go your way and I go my way, then the
impact is not going to be very much. So we should have something on an ongoing basis, whether it's a forum on a quarterly
basis or a training that we do twice a year or a training targeting different audiences like the police force, school board, etc. We
are doing these on top of what we do for a living, and that's asking a lot for some people, so we need monetary support to get it
going. Because this is not an issue that only affects us; it affects the whole community, so I would like to see the community
think about the benefits that they would get as a whole from the work that we do.
Peng: The forum's a great start. I think that it's a good idea to do this regularly. I would like to see that it becomes mandated in all
police academies/courses. I talked to a lot of my friends who are in the Department of Justice and in law enforcement, and they
rarely have the opportunity to take courses or classes in cultural awareness and diversity. So one of the things we can work
toward is mandating a curriculum at every police academy in the state of Wisconsin to develop or to teach cultural awareness or
diversity, so that every law enforcement agencies, from local police officers to the Sheriff's Department, to the Fire Department
and the Dept. of Justice have some basic understanding of cultures and cultural differences.
A friend of mine who's a paramedic told me a story. One time they were called to a Hmong apartment where a woman was in
labor. When the two paramedics entered the house, they merely went to the wife and started asking her questions. The rest of
the family just stood on one side of the room and didn't say anything. When asked, no one would answer. Luckily my friend, who
lived in a Hmong neighborhood and therefore knew the culture, came in and asked the paramedics, "Did you ask permission
from the husband that you could go and touch his wife?" They said, "No, we just went to the wife; she was the one that needed
help." In the Hmong culture, you needed to ask the husband first if it's OK to talk to his wife and to get her vitals and stuff. "We
didn't know that," they said. So once my friend asked the husband if it was OK for them to check her vitals and see if anything's
wrong, he said "Yeah, that's fine." Then the husband was more than willing to share the information that they had been seeing a
doctor on a weekly basis; that the umbilical cord is wrapped around the neck of the baby -- and other medical issues. But since
the other paramedics weren't culturally competent enough to address that when they walked into the room, that could have had
devastating results, and put the life of the baby and the mother at risk.
Oftentimes we don't think we need to know these things; but we must realize that we are moving toward a more global society.
With more and more diverse immigrants coming here, we also need to learn about their cultures. It shouldn't have to always be:
When you come to America, you need to learn English, you need to learn the American way.
AW: There are indeed a lot to learn about the Hmong culture. Please tell me what happened in the recent town hall meeting with
the Hmong community in Green Bay? Why was the town hall meeting called, and who initiated it?
Peng: The townhall meeting was initiated by the Coalition for Community Relations based in Minnesota, which was created
during the Chai Vang case. One of their goals was to be court monitors to make sure that the legal proceedings took place
according to law, and that the judge wasn't racist or their lawyers weren't out of step. Before the trial, the Coalition members took
some courses on how to be court monitors. Afterwards, they wrote a five- or six-page report on what they saw. They learned that
you have to know the system well enough so that you don't get taken advantage of.
If you don't know how the legal system works, and you are the type who listens to what they tell you so that you sit quietly and
in the meanwhile, they're already making a deal with the defense attorney -- then you'll be left out. That's one of the big things
that this Coalition learned at the Chai Vang case. They wanted to be more proactive this time, so when they heard about this
new case, they came down.
The goal of the town hall meeting was to educate the community about what a hate crime is, and to get a sense of the next
steps they could do as a community. It also aimed to educate people about the legal system: what happens next after the
charges are filed, the arraignment, preliminary hearing, selection of jury, then actual trial; and what the community could expect.
At times, we don't know what to expect. The Cha Vang case in Marinette County is just the tip of the iceberg, because what we're
dealing with isn't just the hunting issue. What we're dealing with is the racial tension or the race relationship. This problem that
we have in Wisconsin has always been around and one that a lot of our officials fail to address.
MaiZong: It's very clear to me that for the Hmong community and the mainstream, our honeymoon stage is over. We came here
as refugees. People took us under their wings -- our sponsors, our neighbors -- saying, "Oh they just came, they didn't know, we
will help them, we will do this for them, and we shouldn't hurt them." That stage is over, because we are becoming full-fledged
Americans. We are here to stay, and people can't get rid of us, whether people like it or not. We are learning to understand the
assimilation-acculturation process. We have progressed here, and we are participating fully in the community -- paying taxes,
being educated -- and that includes participating in sports, like hunting
This Cha Vang case is clearly motivated by race. I worry a lot that if we don't address this issue, it's going to hurt us in the long
run. We need to talk about this, because we're not just talking about the case in Marinette County, but the state of Wisconsin.
In the town hall meeting held in Green Bay, there were so many testimonies about why people stopped hunting. They got
harassed. With the Cha Vang case, I really fear that this is becoming like a "tennis-game" where people say, "The last time, you
killed our people; now it's our time to kill your people," and vice versa.
If we don't address this, this is going to be in that mode and I think that it's really sad for the community.