Looks Like the Hmong Have Finally Made It
A few years ago, I read a moving book called The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. It was about an immigrant Hmong family with an epileptic young daughter. The book was about the family mistaking as natural medicine, the rocket fuel derivatives prescribed for their daughter. Wacky immigrants! Reading the book, I wondered when, if ever, the Hmong would "get" the American Way. But today just might be that day. You see, today, a Hmong immigrant named Chai Vang was charged with gunning down six Wisconsin hunters. Apparently, Mr. Vang was exercising his Second Amendment right to carry a semi-automatic assault rifle, by way of "going postal" on some fellow hunters of his. What could be more American than going hunting with a semi-automatic assault rifle? And "going postal" is as "Made in America" as is Las Vegas. Bet you anything, back in the Old Country, ain't no Hmong was going hunting with a semi-automatic assault rifle, and going postal was unheard of. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that a Hmong will have to turn up in the news as a serial murderer before we can definitively confirm that the Hmong have truly made it in America. I mean, going postal can be merely about one singular day, and most anybody can have one really bad day. But producing a serial murderer seems to require a dysfunctional family of the sort that only post-modern America can produce. So yeah, I see your point. But c'mon, ya gotta give the Hmong at least "foot in the American door" status for this one.
[posted: 11/29/04]