Hmong and Lao Refugee Women - Hmong Studies Internet ...

Hmong and Lao Refugee Women: Reflections of a Hmong-American Woman Anthropologist by Dia Cha, Ph.D. Hmong Studies Journal,
2005, 6: 1-35.
pervade, and had a corrosive effect upon, the community, so that even the relatively strong and educated
woman would, perforce, come to accept a belief in her own inferiority.
As an example, we may cite a meeting with a Lao Lum woman who had been a third-year
university student when she left Laos; who worked for several NGOs in Napho camp; and who further
proved her intelligence, her ambition, her personal drive – and her business acumen – by running a noodle
shop in Napho. When asked for her thoughts on why there had been no women named to any of the
various Lao refugee administrative committees, she answered, "Women don't have the ability. We're not
educated. We don't have time. Our job is to look after our children and to earn money to feed them."
When it was pointed out to her that she had more education, and might also have a good deal more ability,
than most of the men in the camp, she smiled wryly and said, "They didn't ask any women to be on the
committees, so what can we do? They don't encourage women like me to do such work; only my
husband gets asked."
The statement of this woman – who is clearly an intelligent, educated, and a very able human
being – serves perfectly to illustrate the obstacles to be overcome in modernizing traditions as these
traditions impacted camp life. Despite the leading economic role of women in the camps, a role which
led directly to the possibility of an enhanced political power if only the women had insisted upon it,
women continued to remain largely sidelined in most of the significant social activities outside the home.
In short, despite their heightened earning power, their social status remained largely as before.
This is not to say that refugee women were complacent, or that they accepted the situation with
indifference. In fact, there was considerable frustration, if not outrage. Yet, with little outlet for such
feelings, and, one might add, little interest in these feelings either among the male population or among
any of the representatives of the Thai or international organizations, such feelings were, to a large extent,
stifled. In the circumstances, deprived of material necessities – and even basic rights – and forced to keep
intense emotions to themselves, it is perhaps not surprising that these women could often be found
clinging to memories of the older, "halcyon days" of former times – times which were, after all,
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