Kou Yang


Kou Yang was a Hmong American scholar, author, and professor at California State University, Stanislaus. He was a leading researcher in the field of Hmong diaspora studies and was one of the first Hmong to gain a doctoral degree and become a professor.

Early life and education

Kou Yang was born in Sayaboury Province, Laos, circa 1954. He was said to be 49 years old in 2006. His eighteen member family lived in a rural highland Hmong village.
His formal education began when he was sent to the lowland school Sayaboury Elementary School in the province's capital city Sayaboury, where he completed up to sixth grade. He continued at College de Sayaboury, the province's junior high school, and graduated summer of 1974. Briefly he attended Lycee de Luang Phrabang and Ecole Normal de Luang Phrabang to prepare for post-secondary education, but was unable to complete his studies when the Laotian Civil War ended in 1975.
Yang fled to a refugee camp in Thailand. In 1976 at 21 years old, he and three brothers resettled in New Orleans, Louisiana. He became a permanent US resident five years later in 1981 and petitioned for relatives to get travel visas to the US.
Although he had been studying for post-secondary education in Laos, Yang's early employment in the US was as a dishwasher. While Yang could read, write, and speak the Hmong, Lao, Thai, and French languages, he struggled to reach competency in English, which was a barrier to employment and education.
Yang relocated to Long Beach, California in 1979 and earned his associates degree from Long Beach City College in 1982. The associates degree improved his English. Once in Fresno, he earned a bachelor's degree and master's degree in social work from California State University, Fresno in 1987 and 1991 respectively. He ultimately graduated Doctor of Education from the Joint Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership at California State University, Fresno and the University of California, Davis in 1995.

Career

Kou Yang was an associate professor of Asian American studies at California State University, Stanislaus and joined the faculty fall semester 1998 as an assistant professor. He was the first Hmong person to be part of an ethnic studies department and the second Hmong faculty member at CSU. Tony Vang was the only other Hmong faculty member at CSU. At the time, Yang was the sixth Hmong person to be hired by a US university.
Dissatisfied with cuts to course offerings and delayed faculty recruitment, which was viewed as diluting the ethnic studies program, Yang was one of two ethnic studies faculty that announced in May 2013 they would resign at the end of the year. He retired from teaching December 2014. During his tenure at CSU, Yang was the Chair of the Ethnic & Gender Studies Department and became Professor Emeritus of Ethnic Studies. He was also part of the editorial review board of Journal of Southeast Asian American Education & Advancement, published by National Association for the Education & Advancement of Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese Americans.
Yang Sao Xiong, Nengher N. Vang, and Chia Youyee Vang list Kou Yang as part of the "second wave" of ethnic Hmong scholars, along with scholars such as Zha Blong Xiong and Dia Cha.

Scholarship

In his work, Kou Yang proposed a framework that divides Hmong American history into three eras: the Refugee Years, the Turning Point, and the "Hmong American period". The Refugee Years are characterized by Hmong newly arriving in the United States in 1975 and interacting with social services. The election of Choua Lee to the Saint Paul, Minnesota Public Schools Board of Education in November 1991, who took office 1992, marked the beginning of the Turning Point, where Hmong became politically active and saw a wave of "secondary migration" from their original resettlement locations to one of several hubs of concentrated Hmong population in the US, particularly Saint Paul. Yang proposed the Hmong American Period from 2000 onward, and described it as sustained political success by Hmong candidates.
Yang argued that much of the early understanding of Hmong American history was inaccurate because of works that promoted unproven theories about Hmong history. Scholars whose work he criticised for inaccuracy include Jane Hamilton-Merritt and Anne Fadiman, who wrote the bestselling book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.
Another focus of Yang's work was Hmong ancestry in China. He gained attention from Chinese academics that study Miao peoples in China for his written scholarship and research travel connecting Hmong Americans to Hmong in China, particularly his commentary on how the Belt and Road Initiative would affect the rural Hmong who occupy the borders between China, Laos, and Vietnam.

Personal life

As a Lao Hmong American, Yang favored the United States normalizing trade relations with Laos, a controversial stance among Hmong refugees, many of whom sided with the United States during the Vietnam War and Laotian Civil War.
Yang died at Kaiser Hospital in Modesto, California, on February 6, 2021. His family and news outlets reported his death as complications from COVID-19. He was buried at Turlock Memorial Park in Turlock, California, during a private service owing to COVID-19 restrictions.

Works

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