Making Sense of Declining Hmong Student Enrollments at the University of California (Part I)
Tables Credit: Seng Alex Vang (Hmong American Experience)
The tables to the left show data on the application and enrollment numbers of Hmong students at the nine University of California campuses (UCs) from 2013–2018. The population of enrolled Hmong students peaked in 2014 with a total of 583 students and that number has gradually decreased to a total of 506 students in 2018. This represents a 13% decrease in the population of enrolled Hmong students. The campuses that experienced the biggest drop in Hmong student enrollment between 2014 and 2018 are Santa Cruz (from 75 down to 30) and Davis (from 193 down to 161). The rest of the other campuses had small reductions in the number of students (Berkeley, Irvine, Los Angeles, and San Diego), no changes (Riverside), or modest increases (Santa Barbara, Merced).
Drawing upon my own research regarding race/ethnicity, household income, and college cultures, I provide a couple of potential explanations centered around gender, culture, and family economic background to explain why fewer Hmong students may be attending the UCs. I want to acknowledge that factors like rising tuition and a sense of belonging at UCs are important considerations as well, but in this piece (Part I), I focus on gender, culture, and family economic background.
In a future piece (Part II), I talk about how some of barriers that Hmong students face in pursuing higher education away from home are not unique to Hmong students but also to other racial/ethnic groups from low-income and recent immigrant backgrounds. Be on the lookout for this next piece, in which I describe how the experiences of middle-class children and lower-class children shape what colleges they deem appropriate for them.
For context, a map of the UCs are included here. Of the nine undergraduate UCs, only Merced and Davis are located within a 30 minutes to an hour’s drive of major Hmong populations (Fresno and Sacramento, respectively). As a result, most UCs require Hmong students to move away from home for college.
Gender, Culture, and Family Economic Background
In my research on Hmong high school students in Fresno, California, I find that growing up in a working-class or low-income family places spatial restrictions on where students can go to college. Because of poverty and cultural expectations, students feel constrained to stay close to home, putting spatial restrictions on where they can pursue educational and occupational opportunities. This is especially true in the case of female respondents. In their discussion about obstacles to future success, students consistently brought up their family obligations as a significant barrier. The type of family obligations students feared that might deter them from achieving their goals varied according to their gender. Whereas males were concerned about fulfilling cultural obligations related to performing cultural and religious rituals, females were distressed about providing social and economic support for their families. Males primarily viewed family obligations as an obstacle in the immediate present in that the fulfillment of family obligation interfered with their schooling. Females were concerned about the impact of family obligations in the present as well as in their future. Looking forward towards their future, female subjects were apprehensive that social and economic obligations would prevent them from pursuing higher education or other opportunities outside of Fresno. Below are some quotes and analysis from female students about the barriers they face in pursing educational opportunities outside of Fresno.
These quotes represent the external (family resistance) and internal barriers (doubts, anxieties, and guilt) that stand in the way of Hmong students, particularly Hmong females, from pursuing higher education away from their family. In some instances, parents insist that their children stay home or close to home for college. Even in the absence of such explicit resistance, students develop a sense of obligation to their parents that make it difficult to imagine pursuing college away from home. These students feel a sense of guilt about leaving their families. When almost all UC are located outside of Hmong communities, attending a UC may be a difficult proposition given these barriers students have to overcome.
Unlike female respondents who are concerned about family obligations in the present and the future, most male respondents are worried about family obligations only in the immediate present. Males primarily talked about their cultural and religious obligations as time-consuming obstacles that interfere with their schoolwork and social lives. In contrast to their female counterparts, most males do not harbor any internalized guilt or anticipatory anxiety about being unable to fulfill their obligations in the future. This could be due to one of several reasons. One reason is that they plan on fulfilling these obligations later on in life when they have finished school. As a result, it is not what is in store for their future that concerns them, but rather it is making time for the rituals in the present. Another reason is that they do not anticipate these rituals or traditions to play a big part of their lives later on. A third reason is that they do not anticipate leaving home so parental resistance or a sense of guilt about leaving their family is not even a concern for them. The quotes below demonstrates some of these points about the experiences of male respondents.
Unlike their female peers, male respondents talked little about social and economic obligations and discussed primarily cultural/religious obligations. Moreover, female peers talked about their obligations as having consequences for their present and future whereas males were mostly concerned about obligations in the present. These stories add to our understanding about how gender, culture, and financial hardships can contribute to fewer Hmong students attending the UCs.
