Acknowledgments

Many people helped to produce this profile. The principal writers were Bo Thao, Executive Director of Hmong National Development, Inc., in Washington, D.C.; Dr. Kou Yang, Chair of Ethnic and Gender Studies and an associate professor of Asian American Studies at California State University, Stanislaus; Dr. John Duffy, an associate professor of English at Notre Dame who has published articles on Hmong literacy development in Laos and the United States; Dr. Roger Harmon, a cultural anthropologist with many years of experience working in refugee education and resettlement; and Donald Ranard, a writer, editor, and educator with a long background in refugee affairs. Paul Herr, a Mong Leng speaker who also knows Hmong Der, prepared the section “Common Words, Phrases, and Sayings,” and Peter Yang, Director of the Wausau (Wisconsin) Area Hmong Mutual Assistance Association compiled the set of Hmong Der and Mong Leng words, illustrating the Hmong tones, that appears on p. 44.

Drafts of the manuscript were reviewed for accuracy, balance, and tone by both academic specialists and service providers working in refugee resettlement. In particular, we would like to thank Dr. Gary Yia Lee, a visiting fellow in anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia, and a leading authority on the Hmong, and Dr. Martha Ratliff, an associate professor of linguistics at Wayne State University, specializing in the Hmong language. In addition to their thorough and thoughtful review of the manuscript, they patiently answered our many questions about Hmong culture and language. Dr. Lee also contributed text to the section “Life in Laos.”

Among the many other people who read drafts of the manuscript, we would like to thank Marta Brenden and Lisa Campbell, Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), Department of Health and Human Services; Heather Colvin, Office of Global Health Affairs, Department of Health and Human Services; Dr. Christina Eira, a lecturer and Hmong language specialist at the University of Adelaide, Australia; Captain John Tuskan, Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA); Fue Heu, Hmong-American Partnership; Long Vue, Wisconsin Community Program Association; Colleen Mahar-Piersma, U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB); Miriam Burt and Craig Packard, Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL); Margaret Burkhardt, Program Officer in the Admissions Office at the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration; and the members of the Cultural Orientation Work Group. For their assistance throughout the development of the profile, our special thanks go to Kelly Gauger, Program Officer in the Admissions Office at the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, and to KaYing Yang, who coordinates the Cultural Orientation Program for Hmong refugees at Wat Tham Krabok for the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

We would also like to acknowledge the valuable contributions of Jane Bloom, Consultant to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, who not only carefully reviewed the section on U.S. resettlement but provided additional text to it as well.

Finally, we would like to thank the Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration, U.S. Department of State, whose support made this profile possible.

Sanja Bebic, Director, Cultural Orientation Resource Center
Donald A. Ranard, Editor

The Cultural Orientation Project--http://www.culturalorientation.net, for more information contact sanja@cal.org
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