.The Hmong were blamed, at least partially, for Merced\'s \"economic catastrophe
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.The Hmong were blamed, at least partially, for Merced's "economic catastrophe." (p. 232) How did they strain Merced's economy? What could the United States have done to alleviate some of this stress? Is there anything the Hmong could have done? Do you think the economic pressure the locals felt affected how they treated the Hmong? '" CAN SOMEBODY ANSWER THIS QUESTION PLEASE" THANK YOU!!!!!!!! .The Hmong were blamed, at least partially, for Merced's "economic catastrophe." (p. 232) How did they strain Merced's economy? What could the United States have done to alleviate some of this stress? Is there anything the Hmong could have done? Do you think the economic pressure the locals felt affected how they treated the Hmong? '" CAN SOMEBODY ANSWER THIS QUESTION PLEASE" THANK YOU!!!!!!!!Explanation / Answer
The Hmong are a major ethnic group residing in Merced, California. As of 1997 Merced had a high concentration of Hmong residents relative to its population. The Hmong community settled in Merced after Dang Moua, a Hmong community leader, had promoted Merced to the Hmong communities scattered across the United States. As of 2010, there were 4,741 people of Hmong descent living in Merced, comprising 6% of Merced's population.
As of 1997 Merced has fourteen Hmong clans; they are the Cheng, Fang, Hang, Her, Kong, Kue, Lee, Lor, Moua, Thao, Vang, Vue, Xiong, and Yang. As a result, as of 1997 young people easily found exogamous marriage partners. Hmong often drive from city to city in the CentralValley. The Hmong who moved elsewhere go to Merced for subclan gatherings in a manner similar to how, in history, Hmong residents in Laos traveled to their home villages from satellite villages. Because of the manner of the Hmong using Merced as the location of the subclan gatherings, Anne Fadiman, author of TheSpiritCatchesYouandYouFallDown, said, "Sometimes I felt that the other cities of the Central Valley—Fresno, Visalia, Porterville, Modesto, Stockton, Sacramento, Marysville, YubaCity—were mere suburbs of Merced."
In 1988, the Merced County Chamber of Commerce estimated that the Southeast Asian community in Merced County, which had over 10,000 people, spent $25 million each year. The Hmong community leader Dang Moua estimated that if each Southeast Asian refugee spent $1 per day, the figure spent by the Southeast Asian community on an annual basis would be $36.5 million. Moua said that because Merced-area companies are not aggressively courting the Southeast Asian refugee market sufficiently, millions of dollars left the Merced community each year.
As of 1997 the Merced Chamber of Commerce distributed a tourist brochure showcasing a Hmong woman holding vegetables.
Merced residents often perceived the Hmong as being a cause of economic troubles because, as of 1997, a far greater proportion of Hmong are on welfare than WhiteAmericans and HispanicAmericans (their numbers are great, but not the percentage). Other factors contributed to the economic distress of the Merced region. AnneFadiman, author of TheSpiritCatchesYouandYouFallDown, stated that the Hmong residents were visible to the people of Merced while abstract economic factors were not visible, so the people of Merced focused upon the Hmong.[38]
By October 1982, as a result of the sudden appearances and increases in the Hmong population, several Merced, California area officials expressed surprise, and the MercedCounty Board of Supervisors held a meeting on assessing the social service needs of the new Hmong population. Fred Wack, the chairperson of the board, said "The problem isn't the refugees, per se, but the money and costs that follow."
Seven out of ten Merced County residents voted for Proposition187. Based on that statistic, Fadiman concluded that "even legal immigrants are unlikely to be received with open arms."Some groups in Merced gave favorable treatment to the Hmong, including local churches and a group of well-educated professionals, including politicallyliberal transplants from other U.S. cities.
John Cullen, director of the Merced Human Services Agency, said, "Merced has been a fairly conservative, WASPy community for many years." Cullen said that while other ethnic groups trickled into Merced over a long period of time, the Hmong came "in one big rush" and were "a jolt to the system," "inevitably" causing "more of a reaction."Cullen argued, "I think Merced's reaction to the Hmong is a matter of water swamping the boat, not a matter of racism." While recalling an event that Dang Moua told her, Fadiman said that on some occasions racism is a factor in the reception to the Hmong.Dang believed that a man who insulted him was a veteran of the VietnamWar who had mistaken him for a Vietnamese person, and thus perceived Dang as an enemy. Fadiman said that "Dang's hypothesis is not as farfetched as it sounds," since many in Merced had confused the Hmong for the ethnic Vietnamese.The former mayor of Merced, Marvin Wells, told a Chamber of Commerce luncheon that the "Vietnam refugees" were "a problem" for California.Fadiman added that, as of 1997, "it is not uncommon to hear the Hmong called "boatpeople,"" even though Laos is landlocked and "the only boat most Hmong are likely to have seen was the bamboo raft which they floated, under fire, across the MekongRiver.
As the Hmong settlement matured and the Hmong children gained English language skills, the town's overall attitude began to be more accepting of the Hmong.
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