This talk examines the critical narratives of refugee migration and community formation from a Hmong epistemological perspective. By analyzing Hmong women’s narratives against U.S. redacted archival records that erase Hmong and Laos history during the U.S. “secret war,” the talk explores the politics of knowledge formation which has generated a historiography about the Hmong refugee as a masculinized refugee soldier and a distinct U.S. ally. Taking a feminist refugee approach, Dr. Vang’s talk will show how Hmong women’s narratives rechronicle the history of war through the patterns of displacement and migration rather than military operations, which does not succumb to either of the veteran or “good” refugee representations. Hmong women’s narratives’ rechronicling of history foregrounds refugees as knowing subjects whose social production can help us understand the processes of war and militarism, gender and migration, and knowledge formation.

Bio:
Ma Vang is an Assistant Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Merced. Her interdisciplinary research on Hmong refugees and the “secret war” advances a refugee critique of secrets, history, and knowledge production. Her book manuscript, History on the Run: Secrets and Hmong Refugee Epistemologies, examines how secrecy structures both official knowledge and refugee epistemologies about war and migration. She is the co-editor of Claiming Place: On the Agency of Hmong Women(2016), and her writings have been published in positions: asia critiqueand MELUS. She has received several awards including the Ford Dissertation Fellowship, the UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, and the UC Multicampus Research grant. She is a founding member of the Critical Refugee Studies Collective and co-editor of the Collective’s website. She is also actively engaged with community organizations such as the Hmongstory 40 Project and the Southeast Asian American Professionals Association.

There will also be a Graduate Student Workshop in the morning from 11:30am-1pm. Please contact Jasmine An <anjasmin@umich.edu> for information.