Students will describe and reflect on reasons Vietnamese refugees moved to America, or their local communities, through a multimedia analysis and explore their own family history with an interview and creating a medium of choice.
After reading the story “Dia’s Story Cloth,” students will be able to describe how Dia’s life was affected or changed by the Secret War in Laos, locate Southeast Asia on a map, and explain why Hmong people moved to Southeast Asia and came to America.
Students will trace a Hmong individual’s recollection of her family's migration story to the United States from Laos and intersecting identities as a daughter, refugee, American, storyteller, and cultural historian. The complicated history of war and displacement is able to be seen and discussed with students using the powerful cultural artifacts of the Hmong story cloths.
Students will trace the character Mai’s family story in the “The Whispering Cloth” and understand how the Secret War contributed to the Hmong diaspora and affected what their concept of home is. This will allow students to create a story cloth to narrate their own family story of when the family moved to the local community and how and why they made the trip.
In this lesson, students will take what they have learned about biographies and about the life of General Vang Pao to write a biography of their own on a historical figure/influential person of their choice.
Students will learn and discover characteristic traits that a hero can have. Students will examine Choua Thao, a Hmong nurse during the Vietnam War, as an example of a Hmong hero to explore other possible traits of a woman hero.
Students will be able to understand the importance of intergenerational storytelling by listening and discussing with an elder family or community member. Students will explain and describe their own migration and/or daily life story as a way to practice narrating their own stories.
Students will be able to explore the traditional Hmong musical instruments and understand the purpose of each instrument. Students will be able to make musical instruments from common everyday materials.
Students will be able to understand the importance of intergenerational storytelling by listening and discussing with an elder family/community member. Students will analyze the significance of different family structure’s impact on historical understanding by comparing and contrasting traditional Hmong family structures with their own.
