Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Hmong Research Fulltext Online Resources

As part of an ongoing bibliography project, I'm keeping track of online resources for research in Hmong studies (not including the Hmong Studies Journal and other sources associated with the Hmong Resource Center.) I'll update it as necessary.

The REN, Inc. Bookshelf The Refugee Educators' Network makes available several out-of-print titles as part of their library. The variety and rarity of the titles is amazing and the quality of the scans is excellent. Many of the books are standard texts for anyone interested in Hmong studies, although some of the information is outdated. A sample of titles offered as .pdf for download (* marks outstanding titles):

A Life Apart: Viewed from the Hills, Boyes/Priban
Allons Faire le Tour du Ciel et de la Terre: Le Chamanisme des Hmong Vu dans les Textes, Mottin
English-Hmong Primary Word Book (Revised), National Center for materials and Curriculum Development
History of the Hmong, Mottin
The Hmong in the West: Observations and Reports, Downing/Olney
The Hmong in Transition, Hendricks/Downing/Deinard
Hmong Folktales, Johnson
Hmong Recipe

Kr'ua Ke (Showing the Way): A Hmong Initiation of the Dead, White [English translation of Lemoine's French transcription of the Hmong funeral ritual in L'Initation du Mort]
L'Initiation du Mort chez les Hmong, LemoineThe Meo of Xieng Khouan Province, Barney/Halpern
Minority Groups in Northern Laos: Especially the Yao, Iwata
Songs and Stories of the Chu'uan Miao, Graham

The Hmong in the West
contains three articles, significant for their contribution to the study of Hmong music in the United States, which began shortly after Hmong immigrants arrived.
"Speech Surrogate Systems of the Hmong: From Singing Voices to Talking Reeds." Amy Catlin
"Aesthetic Language in White Hmong." Brenda Johns and David Strecker
"Some Secret Languages of the Hmong." Maria Derrick-Mescua, Judith Berman, and Mary Beth Carlson.

The Hmong: An Introduction to their History and Culture (2004) A fairly up-to-date and comprehensive introduction to Hmong history, language, and culture produced by the Center for Applied Linguistics. Features multiple authors and input from Dr. Gary Yia Lee and Dr. Martha Ratliff.
Chapters are available online at (links at the top of the page): http://www.cal.org/co/hmong/index.html
The entire booklet can be downloaded as a .pdf: http://www.cal.org/co/hmong/hmong_FIN.pdf


Field Guide to Hmong Culture (2004): written by Dia Cha (PhD, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Ethnic Studies, St. Cloud State University) and produced by the Madison Children's Museum. A booklet aimed a a young audience. Those looking for a general introduction to Hmong traditions (art, folklore, history) may find this to be useful. Includes several pictures.
http://csumc.wisc.edu/cmct/HmongTour/howwedidit/HMONG_FIELD_GUIDE_WEB.pdf

The
Hmong World (1986): a fulltext pdf of this important (and out-of-print) volume. Contains oral histories, stories, and scholarly articles.
Link to the page at Yale: http://www.yale.edu/seas/VietText.htm#Hmong
Link to the pdf: http://www.yale.edu/seas/VietText.htm#Hmong

The Hmong Primer (last revised 1999): extensive collection of language learning materials via the Refugee Educator's Network (including a glossary, frequently used word list, and graded Hmong language stories.)
http://www.reninc.org/pages/hmongprimer.htm

REN also has a downloadable copy of Grandmother's Way, Grandfather's Path (Yang/Lewis) an outstanding collection of stories and songs in Hmong and English. [One of the sections does not download properly.]

Hmong Visual, Oral, and Social Design: Innovation within a Frame of the Familiar (1993) by Judy Lewis: also hosted by REN, Lewis's masters thesis



La Musique des Hmong (1976) is Eric Mareschal's groundbreaking document on Hmong music practiced in Laos. 

Linguist David Mortenson has pdf copies of several unpublished articles about (H)mong language on his academic website (scroll down for the list): http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~dmort/

Markedness of White Hmong Tones (1996) by Brian McKibben.
Available through via Internet Archive: http://web.archive.org/web/20010617131118/members.citynet.net/brianm/thesis/thesis.htm

Of course, there is always the extensive collection of articles at Gary Yia Lee's website: http://www.garyyialee.com/
and Kao-Ly Yang's trilingual website: http://www.geocities.com/kaoly_y/historyculturelanguage.html

I know there are a multitude of resources available, but hopefully these are few of the less obvious ones that people will find useful. A frequently updated list of of the Hmong related websites I find is available at: http://del.icio.us/nfposs/hmong

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you Nick for what you said here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Hmong_people. I appreciate it.

In fact, I am amazed!

Thank you for visiting my website and linking it to yours. Beautiful work of yours. I enjoy reading ...almost everything. Keep publishing, debating, ...When I feel coming out of my "tour d'ivoire", I hope to meet you in person. For now, I just need to dream in writing poems and finish my scholarly work. Research requests so much commitment and peace.