“You should write my story someday,” my mother would often say, a wistful smile playing on her lips. For years, I nodded politely, filing away her request in the back of my mind alongside other well-intentioned but seemingly impossible tasks. After all, what did I, a second-generation Hmong American, really know about her life before me, before coming to America?
My mother is not the kind to sit me down and tell me these stories outright. Instead, her past emerged in fragments — a comment while stirring a pot of soup, a memory shared during a long drive to the grocery store, and a quiet reflection as she watched me edit her papers. These moments, scattered throughout my childhood and adolescence, were like pieces of a puzzle I had not realized I was supposed to be assembling.
It was not until I was older that I began to truly listen, to piece together the mosaic of her life. As I did, I felt a sudden overwhelming urge to understand the woman who had sacrificed so much for me.
Growing up as a Hmong American daughter is to live in a world of constant negotiation — between past and present, tradition and modernity, family expectations and personal aspirations. It’s a balancing act that many of us perform daily, often without realizing the weight we carry.
The cultural expectations placed on Hmong women are multifaceted and often overwhelming. We are expected to be a dutiful daughter, supportive wife, nurturing mother, and respectful nyab (daughters-in-law). The Hmong proverb “Cuaj lub hli tsis cuag ib lub hnub, Cuaj leej ntxhais zoo tsis cuag ib leej tub” (Nine moons can’t compare to one sun, nine daughters can’t compare to one son) has always struck me as a painful reminder of the gender inequality ingrained in our culture.
As the eldest and only daughter in my family, the burden of expectations has always been heavy. I’ve felt the pressure to be the existing proof that my parents are not failures, as my mother consistently reminded me. “You…
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