It Begins with the People: Community Development and Indigenous Wisdom

Abstract

Increasingly, educators and community development practitioners are seeking to expand their knowledge base and engage racial and ethnic minority learners (Alfred, 2002; Guy, 1999; Ross-Gordon, 1991; Lee & Sheared. 2002). Many of these scholars argue that we should pay attention to learners' own socio-cultural and historical knowledge and how these shape their learning experiences. When those experiences and their worth are minimized, as they often are for minority adults, the adult feels rejected as a person (Knowles, 1970). While this may seem only natural, what is surprising is the lack of information and documented strategies that enables learners of diverse cultures and languages to use and interpret their own deeper forms of cultural knowledge in the learning environment. Many newly arrived ethnic and marginalized communities, like Hmong refugees from Laos, have existed for generations as self-sustaining and self-governing communities with their own indigenous concepts and laws to guide their way of life. There are clan councils to decide on the development of the communities, mechanisms for democratic decision-making, and conflict resolution strategies that guide the social relations. However, in order to survive in a new environment, they are forced to forget what they know and compelled to learn and do what they do not. In addition, most indigenous people have remained illiterate; hence, their knowledge is not recorded. The traditions remain only in the memories of the elderly and are under constant threat of extinction. This pattern of integrating these immigrated communities into the dominant ways of learning has often led to the disintegration of indigenous communities and consequently, the loss of their culture, traditions, and knowledge systems. This struggle of the newly immigrated community presents a challenge for adult educators and community development practitioners to find ways to provide meaningful learning opportunities for the mutual benefits of both the marginalized and the dominant groups. This article presents a case study to illustrate how the University of Wisconsin Center for Urban Community Development (CUCD) learned ways to enhance the involvement and engagement of the Hmong communities in accessing the benefits of mainstream legal services when dealing with problems of domestic violence. The Hmong Immigrant Population The Hmong are newly arrived Southeast Asian refugees in the United States. According to 2000 Census data, the Hmong population is among the fastest growing Asian groups in the United States. Overall, Hmong immigrants live in more dire circumstances than most Asian Americans (Foo, 2002). While the poverty rate among all Asian Americans is 14 percent, it is 66 percent for the Hmong. Similarly, 56 percent of Asian Americans aged five and older do not speak fluent English, and 35 percent live in linguistically isolated households. Rates among the Hmong are 88 percent and 61 percent respectively (Foo, 2002). Comiug from a preliterate agrarian society, the Hmong have many problems common to other newly arrived refugees, but they also have unique needs and problems relating to language, culture, and lifestyle. It is not surprising that the Hmong are experiencing many challenges in adjusting to a new way of life in America: overcoming language and cultural barriers, intergenerational differences, gender role changes, defining their own identity and interfacing with mainstream institutional structures. These changes have brought a noticeable rise in divorce and an increase in domestic violence cases in the Hmong communities (Report from the Wisconsin Office of Refugee Resettlement, Madison, 1995, 2002). In an attempt to address this problem, many state-funded programs, such as the Family Strengthening Initiatives, are being developed and implemented within the Hmong community-based nonprofit agencies. The need for service providers to effectively address the issue of domestic violence with the community while respecting their traditional governing structures is a core challenge that remains to be addressed. …