Changing Lives of Refugee Hmong Women

Donnelly's work is based on years of work among Hmong immigrants in Seattle, and covers women's lives in terms of economic role and family role and position. Through analysis of two needlework cooperatives' history (and dissolution), and through the analysis of several marriage ceremonies (and stories of the subsequent marriages' success or failure), Donnelly shows how women's actions are grounded in Hmong cultural values and options, even as they make use of the cultural options and interpretations of American society. While traditional Hmong society could be characterized as male-centered-marriage negotiations, for example, were arranged by the male elders of the clans involved, even if the young men had taken the initiative to find their brides-the transplanting of thousands of Hmong to the U.S. has led to the development of more egalitarian and romantic notions of marriage, and to the possibility of greater assertiveness on the part of Hmong women. Yet Donnelly is able to point to folktales in which women do act assertively, so a model for this kind of behavior is available within the Hmong tradition. All cultures contain such seeming contradictions, Donnelly asserts, and indeed, the presence of alternative models of behavior within a traditional culture gives that culture "resiliency that may let that culture survive even traumatic shifts of circumstance." (191) Thus, even with changing circumstances, language, economic opportunities, education, and religion, Hmong culture contains within it the possibility of continued Hmong cultural identity in the U.S. This is an excellent example of enlightening and sensitive ethnography.