Queer Refugeeism: Constructions of Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Hmong Diaspora
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Queer Refugeeism: Constructions of Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Hmong Diaspora A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Kong Pheng Pha IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Jigna Desai, Co-Advisor Erika Lee, Co-Advisor August 2017 © Kong Pheng Pha 2017 Acknowledgments As I reflect on this long-drawn-out and arduous journey towards the completion of my Ph.D. degree, I cannot help but feel bittersweet and downhearted all at once. It was never my plans to attend graduate school, and I had only learned about what a Ph.D. really was right before graduating from college. I am able to be where I am now through a combination of luck, perseverance, guidance, mentorship, encouragement, friendships, and love from others. Graduate school so far has been one of the most challenging times of my life, especially as I struggled to make time for my friends, family, and loved ones with a busy schedule. I was always writing and reading at random and unusual times: night, day, midnight, and mid-day. I was financially—and at times emotionally— unstable, during college and my early days of graduate school, and relied on the assistance of my parents, siblings, friends, colleagues, and mentors for all kinds of support and care. However, the cruelest and most painful thing of all was being a working-class, queer scholar of color going through the tortuous feelings of isolation, self-doubt, anger, fear, shame, selfishness, restlessness, and uselessness that came with being in a perpetual cycle of graduate school and writing a seemingly unending dissertation. I really felt like I was losing touch with reality during the last few months of writing this dissertation. Because of these difficulties and my many moments of despair, I am especially grateful to all of those who supported me and believed in my vision of working towards a socially just world in this life. The debts and gratitude that follows these pages are immense and profound. Most foremost and above all, thank you to all the participants in this study who opened up their lives and their hearts to me. I learned more about being a queer Hmong i American refugee in America from your stories and lives than I could have ever imagined. In my search for meaning and ecstasy in life, I now understand that life is indeed an intricate maze of never-ending contradictions precisely because of the complexities that I was forced to contend with through hearing about your struggles, triumphs, hopes, failures, dreams, fears, and happiness. It is through your lives that I now better comprehend the difficult work of social justice that lies ahead of me/us. Writing about your lives has provided me with the insights and clarity that once clouded my judgments and senses of belonging. Your stories have taught me that I still have much to learn about loving my community, my family, my partner, and myself. The tears that I cried, along with the joy that I felt, as I play back your stories on my recorder have only made me stronger. I thank you from the bottom of my heart! Various librarians and archivists generously assisted me during my archival research. Many thanks goes out to Mark Pfeifer at the Hmong Resource Center Library, Marlin Heise at the Hmong Archives, Lisa Vecoli at The Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies, and the many rotating reference librarians and archivists at the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library and the Minnesota Historical Society’s Gale Family Library. The Diversity of Views and Experience (DOVE) fellowship that I received from the Office for Diversity in Graduate Education and the ICGC Scholar-Fellowship from the Interdisciplinary Center for Global Change helped me finish my graduate studies on time. A dissertation writing retreat at the Center for Writing and the support of Katie Levin pressured me—but really gave me a generative space—to put all the final pieces of this dissertation together. ii I am eternally grateful to my advisors Erika Lee and Jigna Desai for their steadfast support of my intellectual curiosities all these years. In addition to being brilliant and superb scholars whom I unconditionally revere, they are also amazing and inspiring mentors. I have tremendously enjoyed working with them both in various capacities, with Erika as her research assistant at the Immigration History Research Center, and with Jigna as a participant in the Parkway Project. Erika was my undergraduate mentor and has seen nearly the full evolution of my intellectual development; needless to say, I still have much to learn! I must also mention that this dissertation grew out of an oral history project in Erika’s Asian American history class many years ago. Erika single-handedly turned me into a historian! Simply put, any success that I have had so far (and perhaps will ever have) in academia is due to Erika. Jigna reached out to me very early on and realized that I had something to say about the Hmong diaspora. She always pushed me to become the scholar and activist that I wanted to be. Every meeting with Jigna lightened up my day and reignited the passion I have for my work that seems to be dying everyday. The many theoretical portions of this dissertation grew out of the conversations with Jigna. Both Erika and Jigna offered invaluable advice, wrote me letters of recommendation, and made sure I will never give up the work of being an activist-scholar. They both gave me meticulous and honest feedback that greatly improved this dissertation, pushing me past despairing moments of impasse and intellectual roadblocks. Erika and Jigna are my best readers who saw all the loopholes in this dissertation (it is still not perfect!). They both saw my potential even when I thought I had none and were there with me through every step of the way in this journey thus far. They have gone above and beyond the expectations of dissertation iii advisors. I promise to pay your generosity forward as I go on to support and mentor my own students. Along with my Erika and Jigna, Mai Na Lee, Kale Fajardo, and Ma Vang also served on my dissertation committee. Mai Na Lee was my professor during my undergraduate years, and her courses on Hmong history and the Vietnam Wars inspired me to continue researching these two areas more in depth. I am forever grateful for all the support, advice, and mentorship Mai Na has provided throughout my career in higher education. A course with Kale Fajardo on queer studies deeply impacted my scholarship in queer theory. Kale’s scholarship is transformative on my own work, and his thoughtful questions always made me think about the missing links in my project. I have been a longtime admirer of Ma Vang’s scholarship in critical refugee/critical race and ethnic studies. Her enthusiasm and feedback about my work at its earliest inception back when I was still an undergraduate really motivated me to pursue a path in academia. She is a strong supporter of my scholarship, and she has inspired me to keep going! I am honored that she agreed to serve on my committee at the last minute! Lisa Sun-Hee Park served on my preliminary exam committee. She is undoubtedly one of the biggest influences in my academic career and her impact will reverberate throughout this dissertation. Her course on American immigration was the first Asian American Studies course I had ever taken. The course was so powerful, that on day one, I knew right then and there that I have many unanswered questions I wanted to explore regarding Asian America. She has given me the hardest advice and feedback on my work, and in so many ways, made me a stronger activist-scholar. Most importantly of all, Lisa directed me towards a Ph.D. in iv American Studies when I nearly drifted towards Sociology! Thank you Lisa for pushing me towards the right path! I must thank all my other professors who were instrumental to my success in graduate school. I thank Kevin Murphy and Jennifer Pierce for being the biggest advocates for graduate students and for inspiring me to persevere through my most difficult moments in graduate school. Conversations with faculty during coursework, conferences, and coffee greatly improved my thinking and the writing of this dissertation. I thank Bianet Castellanos, David Karjanen, Roderick Ferguson, Pamela Butler, Cindy Garcia, Rose Brewer, Elliott Powell, Vichet Chhuon, and Yuichiro Onishi for these stimulating conversations. The ethnographic portions of this dissertation began as an undergraduate research paper in an ethnographic research methods course taught by Karen Ho many years ago, whose continued advice keeps me going. Josephine Lee never faltered in her support for students on campus. I was Jo’s intern when she was President of the AAAS, and it was this experience that inspired me to go to graduate school in the first place. I learned a lot from Zha Blong Xiong when I worked with him many summers ago. Financial support from Teresa Swartz at the Asian American Studies program for conference travel alleviated the many worries I had in graduate school. Karen Brown offered valuable feedback during the dissertation proposal stage that really shaped the direction of my dissertation. Catherine Squires is undoubtedly one of the biggest champions of the work of graduate students of color. For all of this, I am forever thankful. A long time ago, I was fashionably late to a meeting with Tom Sarmiento.