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By Arthur Chang
My Interview with Pa Xiong
One of my goals for taking Asian American Studies classes is to learn about
different perspectives and interpretations on race relations by talking
to others. This assignment provided me with such an opportunity because
one-on-one interviews are more intimate and focused, which usually result
in more honest and interesting answers.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Pa Xiong. She was very easy-going and
answered all the questions with a great sense of humor and clarity.
Pa was from a city in central California called Porterville, a predominantly
white neighborhood. She and her family moved to Porterville from Long Beach
after the huge quake of 1987.
As a fourth-year Asian American Studies major, Pa plans to continue her
education here at UCLA and attend graduate school, with an emphasis on the
"research of Hmong history and Hmong women and their lives here in
the United States." It seems to me that Pa is very passionate about
researching the lives of Hmong women in the United States because she can
draw from personal experience. Throughout her life, Pa has "experienced
more struggles with her gender rather than with her race." This is
not to say that she wasn't a subject of mockery in school, it is just that
Hmong culture does not view women as equals and therefore creates an oppressive
atmosphere for women. She had to beg her family in order to attend school
here.
Aside from academic goals, Pa is also an accomplished writer. She is a writer
for Pac-Ties, and is currently working on an autobiography. And what surprises
me the most about Pa is that she listens to country music. Not that there
is anything wrong or right with that.
Pa feels that race relations at UCLA are better than that of the United
States as a whole. "The school is more ethnically diverse than other
campuses." Pa also feels that there are more clubs and organizations
for different ethnicities at UCLA than do other campuses.
She does have a particular gripe about how small and financially deprived
the ethnic studies libraries are. This would be one change that she would
like to be made in order to better promote race relations at UCLA. The others
are to increase the number of ethnic studies classes and clubs.
Although Pa is not currently not doing anything to solve such problems,
she does want to put together a Hmong culture night and she did aid in the
awarness of Hmong culture by being the president of the Hmong club last
year. She is debating about starting one this year because there were only
ten people in the club, which doesn't make a huge impact, especially in
a school as large as UCLA. The other reason is that she doesn't want the
club to be a meat-market for the guys and girls, which, by the way, doesn't
make it very appealing for the average college student. She has a higher
agenda: to promote and learn about the Hmong culture. And for that, I admire
her greatly.
(Arthur Chang is Junior majoring in Philosophy). |