‘It’s a constant push and pull’: Conceptualizing youth and place among young Hmong American women in Minnesota

Many studies on Hmong American youth represent what Eve Tuck (2009) describes as damage-centered research. Damage-centered research focuses on the problems and deficits of a community rather than the complexities, contradictions, and desires. This study centers Hmong knowledge, values, and traditional ways of inquiry, and challenges and broadens the current portrayals of young Hmong American women. Eight young Hmong American women from Minnesota participated in this qualitative study. They shared the complexities, contradictions, and desires of their lived experiences and sense of place as youth, Hmong, and women. This study highlights the ways in which young Hmong American women resist, maintain, and transform cultural practices, expectations, and traditions.