Cultural Differences

While working on the group culture project I spoke for a while with one of the neighborhood kids who is Hmong. He is now 12 years old. I have known of him for years. He has played at my house with my kids, has been at my neighbor's house when I was there and I knew he was Hmong but never really thought much about it. His house is directly behind mine and I have occasionally seen his parents in the yard doing yardwork. They will always nod or wave but didn't seem to really want to talk or respond if I asked them how they were or something. I talked with the child a little since I needed an interview for the project and learned a little about him and his family. His parents immigrated here in the early 90's with his older sister and he was born in 1997. They also have two other children who are 6 and 3. We had noticed that we rarely see the children out playing and never see the parents out with the children except to chase them down when they "escape" from the house. The boy told me that his parents take good care of them but don't understand the "American" ways much. The children are expected to entertain themselves alot and the older ones have a lot of responsibility in the care of the younger ones. They expect the older kids to also teach the younger ones English as the parents speak very little. They are not allowed to be involved in any extra curricular activites and don't participate in many "american" holidays like Thanksgiving and Halloween. I did notice this year that the older sister brought the younger boys by our house trick or treating. They were not dressed up and just had grocery bags for candy.

I feel bad for these kids in some ways as they don't get the opportunity to experience alot of the things the other kids in the community get to. On the other hand, this is how their culture is used to operating. The parents are not used to having sports and activities available and in their past the care of the younger children has fallen on that of the older ones since they worked long hours farming or working. It would be nice if there could be a meeting place in the middle where they could experience some of what is available but yet hold onto their cultural heritage and beliefs at the same time.