First time I heard of this author.
Maybe those old folks got offended because they misunderstood her.
Funny thing is, whenever Hmong folks have to spend some kind of money to support their own people, most are always complaining. But when it comes to getting charge, even overly pay or cheated by somebody else, a non-Hmong person, it’s all fine and dandy all of a sudden. Idiots!
I live in a non-Hmong community, but when I do visit every now and then those bigger Hmong communities, I make the effort to check out the Hmong stores, restaurants, and other businesses there. Financially showing my support to help keep the money circulate within the community, or at least hoping my money will help support some of my people so they have the money to take care of themselves and their family. Who cares if some are more successful. I certainly am not envious at all. When you help your own people succeed, their success will also reflect on you too. Their success will become your success and your success will become their success because you are all one and the same- from the same group. I’ve met some prejudice ass non-Hmong folks that like to rub their people’s success in my face and ever since that, it changed my whole perspective. I have become a lot more actively supportive of my community, not that I hated my identity before. I never had and never will, just it opened my eyes to some things I wasn’t so aware about before.
She’s a writer. She makes her living by writing. No more different than artists that paint, draw or whatever else. I’m already first generation born and raised in the States, I have even less memories than someone like her. At least I still have my elders to look to for answers about who I am. Those generations afterward, they will get less and less. At least a writer like her is recording our people’s history down, even in the form of storytelling. One day, it will become of value to those future generations like my kids, their kids and so forth- when our elders and the rest of our generation (that have first contact with our elders) are all gone. They at least have something to look back on and discover about themselves if such question(s) ever arise about their identity. Yeah, I’m interested and might consider in purchasing some of her books, adding them on to my other Hmong books I’ve been collecting. Thought maybe someday, I’ll pass them on to my kids in case they may have questions or want to know more about their heritage. I think the next time when I’m visiting one of those big Hmong community, I’ll also look around and buy some Hmong arts too. I’ve seen some beautiful Hmong paintings posted on the net.
Man, why some individual out there have to have such a negative mentality?