Racial socialization of Hmong American adolescents: From one generation to the next

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Race, Ethnicity, Culture, Context

Abstract

Racial socialization refers to the messages that parents share regarding racial group identification, racism awareness and diversity. Key models of racial socialization agree that it is a multi-dimensional construct that overlaps with ethnic socialization.This study engaged 24 Hmong American teenagers, Southeast Asian heritage adolescents from refugee families, to discuss racial socialization messages that they receive from their mothers.
The participants, 14-18 years old, participated in semi-structured interviews. They were 67% female and primarily resided with both parents (83%) who ranged from no formal education to college educated. Adolescents were asked: What does your mother do to help you understand race as it applies to you? Open ended probes were used to elicit 6 responses. Starting with directed content analysis, a dynamic process clarified defined codes but also allowed new codes to emerge from the data. Reliability coding for 42% of the data resulted in 93.7 percent agreement. The content analysis (Figure 2 for a summary) revealed 3 broad categories of racial, ethnic and neutral socialization practices (Table 1 for examples). Most responses (69.5%) reflected 4 aspects of racial socialization that will be the focus of this presentation.
Racism awareness, or messages about unfair treatment of groups and how to respond to racism, was most common. Mothers often directed adolescents to ignore or walk away from incidents of prejudice. Less often, the teenagers had mothers who were more proactive or confrontive in trying to address these types of problems. For Racial group identification, mothers connected adolescents to past events that occurred in Southeast Asia. Some mothers told about the challenges to coexist with other Southeast Asians in their countries. Other stories included how difficult life was for the Hmong living in other countries. Adolescents heard stories about the Vietnam war that resulted in the family eventually migrating to the U.S. Teenagers also conveyed that mothers were reluctant to discuss the past. No discussions occurred when mothers avoided or declined discussions about race. Diversity awareness, or accepting all groups as equals, was a less common approach. Some mothers believed that people of all races should be treated well and fairly.
Hmong American adolescents have racialized experiences in their daily lives. Hmong mothers were frequently successful in engaging adolescents to talk about race even though some mothers avoided talking about race. Deep wounds from war and immigration experiences may discourage open conversations. Without discussion of past traumas endured by prior generations, children lose part of their history and an understanding of resiliency as they form new lives in a foreign country. Some mothers provided negative messages about other groups or encouraged passive strategies to ignore racism. Complex intergroup relationships with other races and Asian sub-groups and language barriers may detract from mothers being more proactive. Families may benefit from community support to bolster language skills, intergroup relationships, and conversations about race which are challenging topics as revealed from the study. By further understanding Hmong American teenagers’ views on racial socialization practices, attention can focus on supporting these families in the racialized environment of the United States.

Authors

• Susie D Lamborn, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
  Presenting Author

• Julie Paasch-Anderson, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
  Non-Presenting Author