Hmong Oral History Project : Documenting the Work Experiences of Hmong Refugees

Abstract

A team of Hmong students interviewed Hmong elders to record their stories about their early years in the U.S., with a focus on the elders’ labor‐market experiences. It was difficult for many Hmong refugees to find jobs after they arrived in the U.S., so their economic progress was slow, on average. These interviews provided examples of the challenges refugees encountered, the tradeoffs they faced between work and family, and their gradual progress over time. In the interviews in this project, Hmong elders shared the stories behind the statistical data. We are not aware of any previous scholarly work that has paired econometric analysis of refugees’ labor market experiences with qualitative data from interviews about work histories.