Hmong Elderly: A Cultural Analysis

It is very important for the health care workers to invoke the reflexive question when working with the Hmong elderly. The reflexive question asks, where am I in this encounter with culture? What is my point of view? How is that perspective affecting my view of these events? How is this inquiry changing my understanding of myself and my culture? How well tuned is my instrument, namely, me? Pg.315 (Omohundro) When working with the Hmong elderly, health care workers should be mindful of the plight of the Hmong people. Understanding where they came from and what their struggles were like to get here, will give health care workers a better sense of how to approach the elderly Hmong without putting them on defense. The United States pulled out of Vietnam in 1975 and many Hmong solders who served for and supported the U.S. military were left behind. The Hmong solders and their families had to survive on their own. These people had no one to help them escape the looming prosecution that awaited them.
The many travels of the Hmong people through treacherous Mekong River into Thailand, and relocation to countries such as
The elderly Hmong may not be open to traditional modern medicine. Health care workers should evaluate their approaches and notes to see if they can be more reflexive when working with the Hmong elderly. They should also reflect regularly on how their cultural inquiries are affecting themselves and how they perceive the culture that they are examining. Understand that the Hmong culture has other ways of healing elders through spiritual healers and that they should respect those values. The health care worker should be careful not to generalize the Hmong culture by presuming situations and conditions simply because they are Hmong. Understand that even though their culture is different, there is difference within the