How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Neither doctor could tell how much of their inability to get through was caused by [...] defects of intelligence [...] and how much [...] by cultural barriers. (5.19)
Whoa. Sounds pretty assumption-y. Sad but true, this happens to pretty much every American who interacts with the Lee family. These folk don't know anything about Hmong culture—as far as they're concerned, the Lees could be from Pluto. They're not all bad people, though. While some are actively hostile toward the Hmong, most are simply ignorant.
Quote #2
As he pointed out to me, the Hmong acted no stranger than his next-door neighbors in Merced, a family of white fundamentalist Christians who had smashed their television set. (6.15)
Um, okay. But is that fair? Or just a different take on "strange"? When you look too closely (or from too far a remove) at any religion, or any culture for that matter, everything starts to look a little bit silly and nonsensical. To be honest, the only reason the Hmong face more scrutiny is that they're outsiders in America. When you look at it like that, the world starts to look an awful lot like a cliquey high school. Ruh roh.
Quote #3
"You and I, we can't conceive of the degree of ignorance. They're almost a Stone Age people. Hell, they never went to a doctor before." (6.32)
And you thought it couldn't get worse than a smashed TV. But nope. Meet the haters. Though their beliefs have little basis in reality, many Mercedians despise the Hmong simply because they came from a third-world country. Keep in mind that this is a doctor talking—y'know, a guy whose job it is to save Hmong lives. We're guessing he ranks low in the customer satisfaction area.
Quote #4
Within thirty seconds, I could see I was dealing with a family that bore little resemblance to the one the doctors had described. (8.9)
Anne manages to connect with the Lees simply by meeting them at their level and not going into it with a heap of assumptions. Instead of treating them like dirty foreigners, Anne treats them as a loving, passionate, and joyful family—because that's what they are. There are still plenty of cultural differences between them, but they don't get in the way.
Quote #5
"They'd only look at us and Jeannine. They saw us as smart and white, and as far as they were concerned the Lees were neither." (11.30)
Dee is smart enough to see all that nasty anti-foreigner sentiment at play. It's actually pretty amazing that the doctors were able to broadcast their racial and cultural biases without saying a word—it's no wonder the Lees don't trust the hospital.
Quote #6
"People from the Western sphere cannot understand what it was like. In the new vision of the country of Laos, there is no reason to let the Hmong live." (12.13)
How would the residents of Merced feel if they were driven from their homes under threat of death? Don't they think they'd deserve a little bit of sympathy? Despite the obvious answer (a resounding oh heck yes), many Merced natives refuse to learn why the Hmong ended up in their country, and that's what leads to the bulk of the problems between them.
Quote #7
Conquergood believed that this focus on "dirtiness" and "difficulty" was actually "an expression of Western expatriates' uneasiness when confronted with Difference, the Other." (12.35)
As we've seen, some Westerners simply hate people from the third world, just because they're different. This is especially odd when these expatriates are doctors—highly trained, highly intelligent people who have dedicated their lives to helping others. So, you'd think a little thing like compassion would factor in there somewhere. In the end, it doesn't matter how smart you are though. Even the geniusest geniuses among us can fall victim to run-of-the-mill racism and xenophobia.
Quote #8
It would be hard to imagine anything further from the vaunted American ideal of assimilation. (14.4)
Unlike the European immigrants who arrived a century earlier, the Hmong don't accept American culture. Of course, the Hmong are a naturally insular people, but it takes two to tango.
Quote #9
Once trained, however, Hmong are reported to be better workers than the average American workers. (14.60)
The sound you just heard is the Hmong-haters' bubble bursting. Though they've struggled to adapt, the Hmong have proved themselves to be hard workers and valuable members of society. Sure, there's still some ill-masked condescension in that "once trained" thing (what are they, monkeys?), but hey, better than nothing?
Quote #10
"If you can't see that your own culture has its own set of interests, emotions, and biases, how can you expect to deal successfully with someone else's culture?" (17.55)
This is the crux of the issue: neither side is willing (or able) to empathize with the other one. This is bit more understandable for the Hmong, as they've just arrived in an unfamiliar country that has no similarities to their own. Still, it would be wrong to put the blame solely on one side or the other—everyone has their own part to play in this mess.