"HMoob Tuag Nthi": Creating Spaces and Community by and for Queer and Trans HMoob Youth

• In Event: Research for the Next Generations: Doctoral Education for Black and Indigenous Communities

Abstract

Objectives:
For this project, I explore and outline the different ways a Facebook group like Kev Ywjpheej facilitate queer and HMoob youth to reclaim language, culture, and traditions by interrogating white cis-hetero-patriarchy. The paper seek to address the following research question: How does Kev Ywjpheej foster a space for QT HMoob youth to negotiate and sustain their racial, gender, and queer identities? The findings in this paper will provide implications for the HMoob community, educators, and community members with how to best support QT HMoob youth as they continue to carve out spaces for themselves.

Perspective(s) and theoretical framework:
This project blends two theories: History on the Run and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy. History on the Run reframes the HMoob people as agentic for how they take up fugitive tactics, such as underground organizing, to challenge “official” United States government and military narratives about the Secret War and the roles of the HMoob people (Vang, 2021). Meanwhile, Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy recognizes the way young people are cultural reworkers who interrogates and negotiates how culture should be sustained or revised to fit their current lived realities (Paris & Alim, 2017; Paris, 2021). Marrying the two frameworks assists in understanding the way QT HMoob youth are agentic and continue to take up fugitive tactics like their ancestors to reclaim what being queer and HMoob means to them, as they disrupt white cis-hetero-patriarchal violence.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry:
Storytelling in Indigenous methodology involves co-designing questions and curiosity with those we are seeking to learn from (Tuck and McKenzie, 2014). To collect data, I opted not to have a structured interview and instead, constructed my questions based on the stories that my co-learners shared with me. I engaged in one-on-one conversations with three youth who are a part of Kev Ywjpheej and also joined them for three of their webinars to observe their interactions with one another.

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials:
The paper focuses on data collected through one-on-one conversations (interview) with three young people who are part of Kev Ywjpheej, a Facebook support group created by and for QT HMoob youth, and participant-observation notes from three separate webinars that I joined.

Results substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view:
In exploring how Kev Ywjpheej can foster a space for QT HMoob youth to negotiate their racial, gender, and sexual identity, two themes emerged:1) embracing HMoob and queer heritage opens opportunities for cultural negotiation and 2) facilitating conversations to understand the changing landscape of gender and sexuality is essential for HMoob futurity. The paper discusses how the HMoob community can begin these conversations.

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work:
The rise of studies about queer students in learning spaces continue to disproportionately center white queer students’ experiences, and the narratives of QT HMoob youth remain largely invisible. This paper contributes to that gap in literature while also amplifying voices of QT HMoob youth and centering their experiences.

Author

• Doua Kha, University of Washington
  Presenting Author