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By Pa Xiong Hmong Means "Free," or Does It? Memoirs of the Hmong Dead "Late Nite with David Letterman." I'm laughing. Really hard. My younger sister calls from Fresno. She sounds sad. Soft-spoken. I'm lying comfortably on an old brown couch my roommates and I had found on Glenrock earlier this Fall. She asks me if I've heard. Heard what? The suicide. The suicide, Pa. There's been another suicide. A few days later. A single envelope arrives for me. I recognize her writing. I know what is inside. Two roommates are there in the apartment with me. So I hide. I go inside the bathroom and I lock the door. I carefully tear open the sealed flap. I look inside. And quietly. Very quietly. I cry... Tragic news. On white paper, English words replace the faces of the Hmong dead. Exploited are my people, hidden behind the faded Xeroxes of token compassion. On September 13, 1997, twelve days after I turned 21, twelve days after I received the legal right to drink, Hmong refugee Ye Vang, 59, strapped a black nylon stocking around her neck, tightly fastened it to the bed post of a wooden bed frame that had been turned on its side, and readily escaped to another world. All the while, she is in a sitting position. Lost. While it had only been a few days since I had begun to enjoy my newfound rights as an adult, Vang had been fearing the loss of hers for the whole past year, as an illiterate and elderly refugee, dependent upon Supplemental Security Income benefits for her disabilities. The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 has devastated Hmong communities across the U.S. This bill intended to cut government benefits, such as SSI, AFDC, and food stamps from all non-citizens, children and elderly included. However, it would exclude U.S. veterans and any individual who could prove that they had worked in this country for more than ten years. Little did the U.S. government consider how drastically it would affect Hmong elderly. This bill has created fear as they contemplate how they are going to survive in America's capitalistic world. Upon their arrival into the United States in the 1970s, the government gladly handed over welfare checks to these refugees. Instead of receiving language skills, job training programs, and educational tools, they were put on a system of receiving free benefits. Now after twenty years, the same government tells them that they are no longer eligible for such aid. Ernest Velasquez, the former welfare director in Fresno County, remarked, "Here we've put them in the urban jungle surrounded by hostile people and handed them a welfare check. We've confused them, and then we want them to become self-sufficient." The government is responsible, not only for bringing this group of people here, but for also contributing to their reliance on welfare. The Hmong are caught between capitalism and a culturally insensitive government, where either way, they are barely able to survive. The Hmong, now barely becoming visible in America's land of opportunity, have been long connected to this country. During the 1960s, the Hmong were recruited by the CIA to fight the communist troops of North Vietnam. By that time, Laos, too, had become home to its own communist troops, the Pathet Lao. About 10 percent of the Hmong population, or around 45,000 Hmong men, joined the military and CIA operations, 70 percent of whom were between the ages of ten and sixteen. Known for their strength on feet and knowledge of the mountains, these young boys were not given education, but rather machine guns and taught to kill. My father was nearly one of these recruits. He tells me now, "I was lucky. I was one of the very few that was able to go to school. Working for the government saved me from serving in the war." About half of the 400,000 Hmong population in Laos were killed by September of 1970. By 1975, when the U.S. decided to withdraw from Vietnam's War, the Hmong had already suffered the highest casualty rates of any ethnic group during the war. An estimated 50 percent of the Hmong population of Laos was wiped out. As allies of the U.S., the Hmong desperately sought for refuge and shelter amidst the postwar period of rampant persecution in Indochina. The unwritten contract, sealed by nothing more than a handshake between the CIA and the preliterate Hmong, was now in question. Suddenly, America had forgotten its original promise -- to protect the Hmong in case the war was lost. Today, there are over 150,000 Hmong refugees in America. This preliterate group of refugees came to this country, unprepared and psychologically scarred by a war-torn Laos. The shift from primitive slash-and-burn lifestyle to a First World nation has been a difficult one. Located mostly in central California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, the tight ethnic enclaves of Hmong refugees have overwhelmingly high welfare dependency rates. In counties such as Fresno, Merced, and Tulare, where over 65,000 Hmong reside, the welfare dependency rate is 70%, higher than that of any immigrant group. Officials estimate that 62% of Hmong families in the United States rely on government aid. Because dependency rates are so high within Hmong communities, the Welfare Reform bill has stirred up much controversy. Especially for elderly Hmong, who are illiterate and unable to take the citizenship test, this bill has created a fear large enough that many have committed suicide. In Dane County, Wisconsin last spring, two older Hmong killed themselves, one by a hanging. These deaths were a result of Welfare Reform. However, what sets Ye Vang's suicide in Fresno apart from these two prior suicides is that the bill had been amended this past summer, two months before its Oct. 1 effective date, to restore benefits to legal residents. Yet, even after receiving news that Vang's SSI would not be cut, the bill had left such an emotional mark on her that she went ahead and took her life. Hmong communities are outraged with the insensitivity that the American government has shown towards their people. This feeling of exclusion and unwantedness has not been limited to Vang alone. It has emotionally impacted Hmong families across America. Many have contemplated suicide as their only solution, before and after the amending of the bill. In Fresno, Alinda Vang noted that many of the elders in her English class were talking about suicide. She expressed their feelings of hopelessness and their inability to learn English. What the U.S. government needs to keep in mind when administering such legislations is the special circumstances of the Hmong. First and foremost, this group of refugees did not ask to come to America and arrived here unprepared for this industrial nation. Many were physically disabled from the war, as well as mentally traumatized and psychologically scarred. The government must remember that this group of refugees is here because of the U.S. war -- not by choice. With this in mind, the government must take proper responsibility for their welfare, at least until the Hmong are able to survive in this country. The government argues that it should not be responsible for the Hmong anymore, especially since two decades have past since the war. But is twenty years enough time for the Hmong to adapt from a slash-and-burn lifestyle to a new one in an industrial capitalistic nation? Twenty years may be enough time for their children to have received adequate schooling here, but even then, there are still many cultural barriers that have placed an extra burden upon families. The Department of Social Services spokesperson, Corinne Chee, states, "I feel for these people; they fought and died for us. But in the era of welfare reform, the new mantra is 'work.' It's not 'what the government owes me.'" Working would be nice for these families. It would be really nice. But where are these well-paying jobs that the government wants so much for these refugees to take? They are nowhere to be found for these uneducated, unskilled Hmong immigrants, many with families as large as nine in a household. Adaptation is a long process, and unlike many other immigrant groups who came here to provide better education for their children, the Hmong knew nothing about education before coming to the United States. Thus, terms like education, competition, and capitalism are things that have to be learned. College educational attainment rates are as low as 2.9%, putting the Hmong at the very bottom of America's success rate. Not only has this welfare reform bill affected many Hmong families, but it has also affected those who served in the war. Thousands of the Hmong elderly here in America are veterans of this nation's secret war. Yet, although the new welfare bill specifically excludes veterans from its provisions, it has failed to exclude Hmong soldiers. It is blatantly racist, contending that the Hmong who fought in the war are not considered veterans. Efforts at the national level have focused on two measures: passing the Hmong Veteran's Naturalization Act of 1997 (H.R. 371), and amending the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 to reclassify Hmong soldiers as U.S. veterans. These efforts would allow them to take the citizenship test with the assistance of an interpreter and it would waive the five-year residency requirement. The first measure has failed twice already in two other forms. According to Philip Smith, who has been coordinating the Washington lobby effort for the Lao Veterans of America, "The Hmong community has limited resources. The obstacle they face is that they are just becoming politically aware, and the battle is tremendous." After two decades in America, the Hmong are discovering that the war is not yet over. Two months ago, my father attended a funeral in Sacramento. My mother told me that Chia Yang had hung herself in her garage. "She didn't want to become a burden on her children if her SSI was cut. She didn't want them to have to support her," my mother says. The 54-year-old mother of seven was a distant aunt of mine, receiving SSI for her many disabilities; high blood pressure, panic attacks, diabetes, kidney stones, bladder infections, arthritis, night sweats, and even a stroke. Her husband, Sua Chai Vue, was one of the many thousands of Hmong men who served in the CIA's secret army. "She had a very good heart," my mother tells me. and I believe her. It's getting closer to home everyday. As I am writing this, in the back of my mind, I'm remembering all those times I overheard my grandmother talking about her difficult it is to survive here in America. I'm remembering how easily she is able to talk about taking her own life. I'm remembering all those times she told me to work hard in school. "Study hard, Pa. We're so old. We know nothing. Don't be like us." It was too late for her. She knows that. She just hopes that I will not be swallowed by "America's big monsters." I am afraid, so afraid that maybe, maybe she has been. My mother always taught me to help others. Throughout my life, I remember her telling me that when someone you know is suffering, you just simply help them. You needn't be asked. You needn't be told. You just help, because it's the right thing to do. The stronger helps the weak, and the richer helps the poor. The wiser helps the ignorant, and the liberated helps the lost. It's all really simple. Really. I remember clearly as a child that I never had many things. And I didn't ask. I knew we were poor. But then, I'd see my parents helping other families, giving money and buying gifts for other children. I was hurt. I was angry. So I asked my mother, once, why she was giving to people what we could not afford for ourselves. She simply said, "It is because we're Hmong, Pa." And I understood. What my mother taught me is that helping each other is merely the act of having respect, as well as taking responsibility, for all life, as human beings. Both of which, as history has revealed to us time and time again, America has shamelessly forgotten. Even my mother knows this -- my unwesternized, highly illiterate Hmong mother. She, who falls into America's headlines and is labeled as "the most ill-prepared immigrant group ever to land in America." Yes, even my mother knows these simple things in life. As for the suicides, one website reads, "I think the only realistic course is to watch the obituaries and maybe to send flowers." "Tonight Show" with Jay Leno. My younger sisters calls from Fresno. She is not quiet, or soft-spoken. she is eager to share what she has learned. She does not hesitate to tell me what she thinks. I think that the U.S. government is right, she says. Blood spilt in America's foreign wars should not entitle Hmong refugees to claim patriotic benefits, or leaking roofs that will shelter their families, or food for their children and medicine for their elders. No, she says. No, because I know that we deserve more than that. We deserve so much more than what little they have given. We deserve time to adapt. We deserve time to become educated. We deserve time to empower our people. Suddenly, Jay Leno becomes humorously ugly to me. I can no longer laugh. So I turn off the T.V. And pride. And anger. And doubt. And sadness. They all asked me to reflect... So I do. So I will. I learned. I learned from a late night caller, that there is hope yet... There was hope in hearing my sister, even younger than I, so deeply moved and hurt by the tragedies of our people. In her voice, I heard the sounds of a bittersweet hope, whispering to my people. We are tired. We have been used, and abandoned, and scarred. We are tired, and can run no more. We can no longer continue to carry such senseless casualties upon our backs. We can no longer endure the sounds of traditional Hmong drums beating at funerals, beating so loudly so the souls of our mothers and our fathers can find peace in a less painful world. We have no more limbs to lose, and no more blood to spill... This hope loudly whispered to my people. We must never forget, or give up, what we are -- and that is a "free people"... (Pa Xiong is a junior majoring in Asian American Studies.)