The Lee Family Culture

The Lee family was originally from northwest Laos. They arrived in America during the 1980’s after fleeing from their country, which had been over taken by communist groups. After much scrambling around and moving from place to place, they resided in a Merced. They spent their first days being showed around by relatives who had arrived earlier than the Lees. This was a very confusing time for the Lees, as what they had known as normal, wasn’t so normal in a western society. The Hmong were farmers, growing their own vegetables, grains and livestock. It took some adjusting to the fact that they couldn’t just take a piece of land and starting farming it. Hmong immigrants were also separated from one another, no longer finding comfort in their groups. Their “group solidarity, the cornerstone of Hmong social organization for more than two thousand years, was completely ignored” (p.185). The Lees lost many of their children before they fled to America, leaving their
At a young age, many of use have values, beliefs and ways of thinking instilled into us by our parents and grandparents. As mentioned above, the Hmong people originated from Laos. Their values and cultural traditions were passed on from generations to generations. This spiritual group of individuals, looked at the world differently than many of those in American society. Their lives were made up of many customs, practices and beliefs, which directed their way of thinking. The Lees were exactly this, in that they followed their traditional ways of living even though they were faced with challenge and backlash for many years. It is said that the Hmong are a stubborn group of people, but maybe it is because for many years groups have tried to strip them of who they were. The Hmong “would rather flee, fight, or die than surrender” (p.17). They believed that as a group they were all equal, that “no one was more important than anyone else” (p.