I Refused to be Absorbed into a World of Cultural Lost

What is your ethnicity?

 

I'm Hmong.

 

Mongolia?

 

No, Hmong. Miao Tzu. A hill tribe of China.

 

Do you find it a humility that your ethnicity remains anonymity to society?

 

What are you? Chinese? Go back to where you came from, HA-MONG, oh wait, you don't have a country! Lost all of your cultural history, remaining a mystery, only thing you have left today is worshiping ancestry. You would've never smelt the aroma of free if it wasn't for the help of my American military

 

Made it through generations of mass genocide

Nowhere to run or to hide

 Escaping Miao rebellions, refugee camps of Laos

and running through rivers and jungles of Thai

 

Scattered throughout every country worldwide

Exposed to diversity, leaving my cultural roots behind because

growing up as an Asian descent is an easy target for people to tyrannize

 

Putting fingers to their face, ching chong ling long, slanting their eyes

Didn't want to speak my native tongue nor wear my cultural clothing outside

Gave up learning my cultural history because of the fear of judgment

 to concentrate on living the American dream peacefully

and to be more Americanized

 

 

 

So, what is my ethnicity?

I’m Hmong. Miao tzu. Hilltribe of China.

I do not find it a humility that my ethnicity remains anonymity to society

We do not have a country, but what I can tell you

is that we, I, held on to our cultural history

 

The cultural history that made it through generations of mass genocide

with nowhere to run nor to hide

Escaping Miao rebellions, refugee camps of Laos

and running through rivers and jungles of Thai

The traditions and cultural history that we carried on for thousands of years

not letting our rituals and practices die

 

Scattered throughout every country worldwide

Exposed to the sun of diversity, I spread the seeds of my cultural roots,

watering it every day to keep it alive

Speaking my native tongue and wearing my cultural clothing outdoors with pride

 

We do not have a country

but when we were promised a country of our own,

there must have been a misunderstanding

 They meant America and this IS my country

Though I strive to live the American dream,

I refuse to be absorbed in a world of cultural lost

and will balance being Hmong and being Americanized

 

Comments

Annette M Velasquez

Fascinating and honest. This is emotional, descriptive and well-written. Look at my posts " Loving the Skin I'm in" and " Nature- Borders," I think you'll like them- please give your opinion.

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