A Righteous Hmong
03/10/2005
A+
|
a-
Print Friendly and PDF

This just in—Hmong are uninterested in assimilation. Listen to Blong Yang, a Hmong lawyer residing in Minnesota, discuss his people:

"For many Hmong, culture trumps everything else, including the law... Hmong culture is so strong that few will defy it. It is so rigid that it forces people to comply, even when noncompliance would save them from criminal sanctions."

Commendably, Blong Yang then goes on to say the powerful clan leaders must stop excusing prosecutable crimes that are cultural norms among Hmong. Among those are statutory rape, slavery (politely called a "bride price"), marriage by capture (aka kidnapping), polygamy, bribery, animal sacrifice, and opium use.

Counselor Yang concludes, "It's time for us to clean our house before someone else does it for us."

Translation: The American justice system still ignores Hmong criminality, but might—MIGHT—eventually prosecute crimes committed by immigrants as energetically as it does those committed by citizens.

Print Friendly and PDF