History of the Hmong in Merced, California
[1] As of 1997 Merced has fourteen Hmong clans; they are the Cheng, Fang, Hang, Her, Kong, Kue, Lee, Lor, Moua, Thao, Vang, Vue, Xiong, and Yang.
Because of the manner of the Hmong using Merced as the location of the subclan gatherings, Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, said, "Sometimes I felt that the other cities of the Central Valley—Fresno, Visalia, Porterville, Modesto, Stockton, Sacramento, Marysville, Yuba City—were mere suburbs of Merced.
The Hmong fled to refugee camps in Thailand, then relocated to other parts of the world such as the United States,[4] France, and Australia.
Moua's brother, a resident of Southern California, told him that the Central Valley had good weather and a variety of ethnic groups.
Through the Hmong community social network, Moua learned that General Vang Pao planned to buy a fruit ranch near Merced.
[10] Crystal told a reporter for the Merced Sun-Star, in the words of Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, that it was "extraordinary" for the Hmong language to have a presence in Merced when, fifteen years prior to Crystal's statements, the language had an almost negligible presence in the entire Western world.
When the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act was passed in 1996, some Hmong left Merced and settled in Minnesota, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.
[16] Because of unemployment, many Hmong left Merced between 2006 and 2008; some went to Alaska to work in industries, such as crabbing and fishing, that did not require a lot of English language knowledge.
Moua said that because Merced-area companies are not aggressively courting the Southeast Asian refugee market sufficiently, millions of dollars left the Merced community each year.
[17] As of 1997 the Merced Chamber of Commerce distributed a tourist brochure showcasing a Hmong woman holding vegetables.
[20] The radio station KBIF 900 AM, located in Fresno, California and serving Merced, airs programming oriented towards Hmong people.
[24] Miriam E. Warner and Marilyn Mochel, the authors of "The Hmong and the Health Care Delivery System in Merced," stated in 1998 that "Provider and facility insensitivity to the linguistic needs of the Southeast Asian patients sends a loud negative message about accessing health care to the ethnic communities in Merced County.
[25] The 1997 book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman chronicled the care of Lia Lee, a Hmong child in Merced's health system.
[26] The book also prompted the hospital (then Sutter Merced Medical Center) to increase efforts to reach out to the Hmong community.
[23] By 2011 MATCH put out a survey to check the levels of health insurance within the Hmong community in Merced.
[10] The public school systems in Merced also found difficulty in funding English as a second language (ESL) programs for their new students.
[31] The new Hmong students arriving in the Merced public school systems had varying levels of achievement, and many did not know written languages.
Many of the new students to Merced public schools had inner ear infections, which led to degrees of deafness, requiring the district to enroll them in special education classes.
Ann Simpson, the assistant principal at Merced High North, said that many of the Hmong students valued education and had almost perfect school attendance.
The district used a grant for homeless students to fund various backpacks filled with school supplies to give to the new refugees.
The MCSD district established a separate school so that the Hmong refugees could receive intensive English education.
[15] In August 2004 the MCSD opened the Newcomer Language Academy, a special school for the newly arrived Hmong immigrants.
[38] By October 1982, as a result of the sudden appearances and increases in the Hmong population, several Merced, California area officials expressed surprise, and the Merced County Board of Supervisors held a meeting on assessing the social service needs of the new Hmong population.
Fred Wack, the chairperson of the board, said "The problem isn't the refugees, per se, but the money and costs that follow.
"[39] Cullen said that while other ethnic groups trickled into Merced over a long period of time, the Hmong came "in one big rush" and were "a jolt to the system," "inevitably" causing "more of a reaction.
"[39] While recalling an event that Dang Moua told her, Fadiman said that on some occasions racism is a factor in the reception to the Hmong.
[40] The former mayor of Merced, Marvin Wells, told a Chamber of Commerce luncheon that the "Vietnam refugees" were "a problem" for California.
[3] When the Hmong first arrived, according to Anne Fadiman, the local newspaper, the Merced Sun-Star, "treated the newcomers like exotic guests.
