Writing From These Roots : Literacy in a Hmong-American Community

**Outstanding Book Award, Conference on College Composition and Communication** "We are only beginning to recognize the global forces that have long shaped literacy in the United States. What we need now is a book that demonstrates how to theorize U.S. literacy with regard to globalization’s complex legacy. __Writing from These Roots__ satisfies this need, and then some. Duffy’s careful representation of Hmong literacy narratives is a remarkable accomplishment in its own right, not least for the respect he shows the women and men whose stories enable him to delineate personal, cultural, and national pathways to literacy. In also documenting Hmong people’s transnational pathway to literacy in the United States, Duffy expertly details the rhetorical means by which literacy can make legible the self-fashioning of distinct identities against a historical backdrop bleached by generations of assimilationist public policy and racist discourse. Duffy’s insistence that we think rhetorically about literacy is a call that will resonate in literacy scholarship for years to come." —Peter Mortensen, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign "__Writing from These Roots__ is without doubt a major, original, and important work. Fittingly, for a book that conceptualizes its topics and themes globally and comparatively, it will attract an international audience." —Harvey J. Graff, The Ohio State University "This is a fascinating and important study that is rich in theoretical insight about literacy and has an informed and detailed account of the Hmong experience in Laos and the United States." —Franklin Ng, California State University, Fresno __Writing from These Roots__ documents the historical development of literacy in a Midwestern American community of Laotian Hmong, a people who came to the United States as refugees from the Vietnam War and whose language had no widely accepted written form until one created by missionary-linguists was adopted in the late twentieth century by Hmong in Laos and, later, the U.S. and other Western nations. As such, the Hmong have often been described as "preliterates," "nonliterates," or members of an "oral culture." Although such terms are problematic, it is nevertheless true that the majority of Hmong did not read or write in any language when they arrived in the U.S. For this reason, the Hmong provide a unique opportunity to study the forces that influence the development of reading and writing abilities in cultures in which writing is not widespread and to do so within the context of the political, economic, religious, military, and migratory upheavals classified broadly as "globalization."

In the early 1800s thousands of American and European traders arrived in Hawai‘i to lay in supplies for the long trip east or to take on Hawaiian sandalwood, which commanded a high price in China. In response, Russia expanded its trading outposts as far as western Kaua‘i and together with Kaua‘i chiefs began planning the construction of Fort Elisabeth in Waimea in 1816. A year later, the structure was abandoned by the Russians, but, as Peter Mills argues convincingly, a long and significant history of the fort remains to be told, even after its Russian one had ended. Seeking to redress the imbalance that exists between the colonized and the colonizers in Pacific historiography, Mills examines the fort and its place in the history of Kaua‘i under paramount chief Kaumuali‘i and in relation to the expanding kingdom of Kamehameha and his successors. His work exposes how Hawaiians have been ignored in their own history and challenges commonly held assumptions such as Kamehameha's unification of the Islands in 1810 and the victimization of Kaumuali‘i by representatives of the Russian-American Company.

Using hundreds of firsthand accounts in combination with field archaeology, Mills shows that the fort was originally built and used by Hawaiians as a heiau (ritual temple). After the Russians' departure, Hawaiians continued to use the fort but in ways that reflected an ongoing transformation of cultural values provoked by contact with outsiders and the development of multiethnic communities in Waimea and other port settlements throughout the Hawaiian chain.

This book overturns many popular myths and perceptions about the fort at Waimea and about European and Hawaiian interaction in the first half of the nineteenth century while delving into some of the central issues in historical anthropology, colonialism, and the development of global networks.

Contents Acknowledgment Notes on Language, Orthography, and Transcription Introduction Chapter 1. Lost Books and Broken Promises: The Hmong People in China and Laos Chapter 2. Rumors, Ropes, and Redemptions: Hmong Writing Systems in China and Laos Chapter 3. Never to Hold a Pencil: The Problem with “Preliteracy” Chapter 4. Other Gods and Countries: Hmong Literacy Development in Laos Chapter 5. Writing Hmong Americans: Reading and Writing in the United States Chapter 6. Hmong Americans Rewriting: Testimony, Gender, and Civic Life Conclusion Appendixes Notes References Index About the Author