SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ After Elk Grove Mayor Steve Ly was accused of attempting to use the clan system to silence online criticism against him, he took issue with media characterizations of the clan system, comparing it to a "Native American peace circle."
But on social media and in interviews with The Sacramento Bee, several Hmong women said that, in practice, the clan system can be a toxic, patriarchal hierarchy that quashes female perspectives by continuing to populate the positions of power within the clans with older men.
"It's led by men, it's in favor of men, and to this day, it still is," said Yia Vue, a Central Valley-based Hmong American writer.
The Hmong community consists of 18 clans, with each person's clan identifiable by their last name. It's, in theory, a neutral tool, several Hmong Americans said, a system only meant to resolve conflicts, uphold traditions and provide mutual aid for Hmong folks.
The idea, several California Hmong Americans said, is that Hmong folks can turn to their family members when they need help with anything from organizing a wedding to mediating personal conflicts. Elders in the clans can also help to uphold and pass down Hmong traditions such as funeral and marriage rituals.
"A lot of the decisions they would make would be for the collective good, the clan or the community," said Seng Vang, a Hmong American lecturer who teaches Asian American studies at California State University, Stanislaus, and writing at the University of California, Merced.
The system worked especially well when more Hmong people were living in remote mountainous villages of Laos, Thailand, and China, Vang said. Then, she said, the clan system was beneficial to help Hmong communities avoid infighting or protect villages from outsiders, especially given how geographically isolated these communities often were.
Since the Hmong first came to the U.S. as refugees in the 1980s, the influence of the clan system has waned. For second-and third-generation Hmong Americans, the clan system is seen as an outdated resource unequipped to deal with issues like mental health, domestic violence or exploring LGBTQ identities. Language and cultural barriers also limit how much influence older, more traditional Hmong elders can exercise over younger Hmong Americans.
"This kind of organization, it only works if people listen to them," Vang said.
And it ignores the whole truth to point fingers at misogyny in Hmong communities without acknowledging it persists in America as well. All Americans face the problems, several Hmong Americans emphasized, and these problems persist in the Hmong community in part because of social structures in the country.
"Patriarchy has historically influenced not only the Hmong community but the American culture as well," said Shery Yang, the California state Capitol's first Hmong chief of staff. "We just got to this realization a little bit later than others _ but we've gotten here after only about 45 years in the United States."
