The Centrality of Ethnic Community and the Military Service Master Frame in Hmong Americans’ Protest Events and Cycles of Protest, 1980-2010

• Main Author: Yang Sao Xiong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hmong Studies Journal 2016-12-01
• Series: Hmong Studies Journal
• Subjects: protest; community formation; framing; immigrant political incorporation; Hmong Americans; Southeast Asian refugees
• Online Access: http://hmongstudies.org/YSXiongHSJ17.pdf
• ISSN: 1091-1774; 1091-1774

Protest is one political strategy by which marginalized groups can try to effect social change in society. As an ethnic group with a unique historical relationship with the United States government, Hmong former refugees have regularly engaged in protests in response to perceived political threats, political opportunities, or both. Using cataloged English-language newspapers, this study examines the characteristics, forms and collective action frames of 84 Hmong American-led protest events in the United States between 1980 and 2010. The evidence indicates that Hmong American protests emerged in the 1990s, coinciding with their formation of socioeconomically mobile ethnic communities, and continued to increase in frequency throughout the 2000s particularly in places with substantial concentrations of Hmong. Although most Hmong protest events involved demonstrations, these events varied greatly in terms of their targets and issues. During the past 30-35 years, Hmong American cycles of protest have produced three master frames: the refugee protection frame, the military service frame, and the civil rights frame. I argue that the military service frame represents one of the most enduring and, to date, most potent collective action frames in Hmong Americans’ modern repertoire of contention. Immigrant groups’ increasingly developed communities and their strategic use of collective action frames could have significant implications for their political incorporation in the United States.