Students will identify ways in which traditional media and textbooks may have skewed or rendered invisible the voices of Vietnamese refugees by critically analyzing sources from US media and educational textbooks, and construct an excerpt to add to the US history textbook.
Students will identify and describe the varied experiences and memories leading up to the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, by analyzing oral history interviews and creating a medium of choice.
Students will learn that Hmong people have settled in the United States in large numbers, primarily in California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. With the highest population of Hmong descent in California, this lesson focuses on the civic engagement and empowerment of Hmong communities. Students will explore examples of how the Hmong community in California have found their voice and made history in politics.
Students will explore the waves of Cambodian immigrants to the United States, understand the causes behind each wave, consider the challenges faced by the 1.5 generation, and examine how intergenerational trauma can affect young Cambodian Americans while relating these experiences to their own lives.
Students will develop a deep understanding of life in the refugee camps by examining primary source documents, images, and interviews. Students will be able to identify how Hmong socially and economically created a camp culture of hope and resilience that allowed them to cope with the poor human conditions of the camp, the traumas of war, and separation through group discussions and share outs.
Students will explore Hmong worldview through the oral traditions of Hmong proverbs (paj lug) and Hmong poetry songs (kwv txhia/lug txhaj). Students will analyze various examples of paj lug and learn the different themes and components that make up a kwv txhiaj and create their own.
The purpose of this lesson is to highlight culture, specifically the language, that is not commonly known within the Cambodian diaspora. Students will learn more and understand what Khmer language is, where it comes from, its evolution to what it is today.
