Modern Jungles Education Materials

Objectives

Enduring Understanding

Because of their allegiance to the United States during the Secret War in Laos, many Hmong became targets of ethnic persecution by the new regime. Arriving as refugees to the United States, they embraced their new opportunities including education, employment, and freedom, but they also encountered poverty, racism, stereotyping, language barriers, cultural misunderstanding, and other challenges as they worked to assimilate into their new homes while maintaining strong ties to their culture and traditions.

Essential Questions

• How are the experiences of past and present immigrants and refugees similar? How are they different?
• In what ways do immigrant and refugee populations exercise agency in their decisions on assimilation into a new culture? 
• How do dominant cultures within societies react to the changes that immigration brings and vice versa for minority and new cultures?
• What safeguards are there for protecting minority rights, and how are these enforced or ignored by the dominant culture?

Students will:

• Demonstrate understanding of the differences and similarities between refugees and immigrants.
• Compare and contrast how different cultural groups assimilate into the dominant culture and how the dominant culture resists, adapts and/or becomes inclusive of the group.
• Analyze primary and secondary source documents and personal experiences/observations to draw conclusions on democratic safeguards for minority rights and opinions. 
• Use historical events and their impacts to make connections with the present.
• Reflect on their personal journey and the impact it has on their interpretation of events, and how the reflection has informed and advanced their cultural competency and proficiency moving forward.