Reconstructing Belonging: Hmong Immigrant Youth in a Media Arts Program

• In Event: Transformative Literacy for the Digital Age: Multimodal Composing as Embodied Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Against the backdrop of U.S. cultural politics, and the nation’s extensive history of subtractive schooling and anti-immigrant practices, immigrant youth need to reconstruct belonging. This paper draws on an ethnographic study with Hmong immigrant youth in a media production arts program to illuminate the ways in which an arts program allows immigrant youth to be “known”. The primary guiding questions for the paper includes: How do Hmong immigrant youth nurture relationships in an arts program? How do Hmong immigrant youth reconstruct belonging in an arts program?

Authors

• Bic H. Ngo, University of Minnesota

• Erin Lee Dyke, University of Minnesota

• Jana LoBello, University of Minnesota