Fresno woman bridges cultural rifts to become ‘Hmong enough’

Growing up, Chelsey See Xiong never felt Hmong enough.

“In my family I’m the black sheep,” she said. “I’m this Asian kid but I’m this American kid at the same time.”

Xiong was born in a refugee camp in Thailand. Her family relocated to Fresno after she turned 5.

Now 25, Xiong is discovering what it means to be part of generation 1.5 — immigrants who arrived in the United States as children and adolescents. She spent the past year and a half studying how Hmong immigrants like her form their identities.

Xiong is a fellow through the Pan Valley Institute, which helps immigrants become community leaders. On Saturday night, she will share her story and present her findings at the Fresno Art Museum.

Program director Myrna Martinez Nateras said part of the goal with the fellowship is to humanize the immigration debate and mobilize immigrant communities.

“We really want to change the narrative and give these communities the opportunity to share,” she said. “They are not people that burden society and they are working hard, but they also have history and culture they can really contribute to the Central Valley.”

Xiong’s parents are survivors of the “secret war” following the 1975 collapse of the kingdom of Laos, where Hmong are considered an ethnic minority group. The Hmong fought with the U.S. against communism in Indochina, making them targets for extermination after the Laotian communist government took over.

Most refugees fled to Thailand, where Xiong’s parents spent 10 years, before being resettled. Fresno now has the second largest Hmong population in the country with 30,000 people.

Younger Hmong Americans don’t talk about their identities often enough, Xiong said. She hopes to spark a discussion about current issues the community faces and break away from the long-told refugee history.

“I feel as though we can’t shed the refugee stamp from our skin,” she said.

Matthew Jendian, chair of sociology at Fresno State, explored immigrant adaptation in his 2008 book, “Becoming American, Remaining Ethnic.” He said the dominant narrative pushes immigrants to forgo their culture to become American, while the ethnic narrative tells immigrants they shouldn’t forget who they are.

“That pressure creates a double fold for the person in the 1.5 generation because you’re being forced in a way to choose,” he said.

As a result, Jendian said, such immigrants often also experience estrangement from both cultures.

Xiong knows all too well those issues of cultural assimilation and segregation. She adopted the name Chelsey at 13. She said Hmong people have long called her whitewashed because of the way she talks, her interests, the way she dresses.

People labeled Xiong as American, alienating her from the Hmong community. But the stories she often heard were the opposite: Of Hmong people facing difficulties assimilating to American culture.

“I would go to school and I would be Chelsey; I would come home and be Chelsey,” she said. “I couldn’t find anybody like that. I couldn’t talk about it. As much as I wanted to be part of the community, I couldn’t relate to them.”

In the past few years, Xiong started trying to connect more with fellow Hmong. She went from being conversational to proficient in the Hmong language. She pushed past shyness to make more Hmong friends. She stopped letting people define who she is.

The third of seven siblings, Xiong said she doesn’t know how her brother and sisters feel about their identities as Hmong Americans. She hopes to have that conversation with them after her presentation Saturday.

Xiong graduated from Fresno State in 2012 with a criminology degree. She works part time at P*DE*Q Bakery and as a freelance writer. She is interested in storytelling as a tool for advocacy.

Through her fellowship research, Xiong found that young Hmong in the Valley face a lack of cultural resources. She said there are no efforts to address cultural conflicts, generation gaps and other concerns.

Xiong hopes her presentation will show that community organizing starts with finding shared values and being able to identify with different people.

“It starts with each one of us and being willing to change ourselves in order to change our community,” she said.

This story was originally published July 8, 2015 at 2:05 PM with the headline "Fresno woman bridges cultural rifts to become ‘Hmong enough’."