Microaggressions and Hmong American Students

Abstract

This research identifies how anti-immigrant sentiment and racism, which have historically been reflected and transmitted through nativist language policies and school curriculum, affect second-linguistic-generation Hmong Americans—not via overtly xenophobic and discriminatory acts but via subtle yet hurtful racial microaggressions. Interviews with 19 Hmong American college students from diverse regions in California show that participants experienced the following racial microaggressions: Objectification and Assumed Inadequacy. Such microlevel experiences, as shaped and structured by macrolevel processes, ultimately affected Hmong Americans’ views on Hmong cultural communication practices and heritage language.