Constructing a Social Problem: Suicide, Acculturation and the Hmong by Machiline Xiong and Paul Jesilow, PhD, Hmong Studies Journal, 8: 1-43. Constructing a Social Problem: Suicide, Acculturation, and the Hmong By Machiline Xiong and Paul Jesilow, PhD University of California, Irvine Hmong Studies Journal Volume 8, 43 pages Abstract Between September 1998 and May 2001, eight Hmong teenagers took their own lives in one urban community. Newspaper accounts attempted to establish the suicides as an outgrowth of problems brought about by the Hmong immigration to the United States. In particular, the clash between the Hmong and American cultures was fingered as the cause of the suicides. Other explanations were ignored. The teenage Hmong suicides were depicted as a problem that needed addressing and identified the school district and mental health facilities as the appropriate institutions to deal with the problem. In-depth interviews were conducted with individuals either directly familiar with the events or positioned to provide the best information and overview on the issue. We conclude that the emphasis for the suicides was strongly associated with the Hmong’s status as immigrants in order to convince the Hmong that they needed to acculturate, in particular to accept and utilize mental health facilities. We illustrate that suicide can be a point of opportunity for those seeking to increase a group’s level of attachment to society. Tragic times may be moments that present opportunities for social change. Norms and values may be questioned by effected individuals. They may experience a sense of normlessness or anomie and be open to change. During such moments of opportunity, individuals and social groups will attempt to shape the social change to suit their perceived interests. Whether they are successful depends on the ability of the architects to convince the impacted groups that the proposed measures will be effective in alleviating the situation. The power of those making the claims is important in this regard. In this paper we illustrate the above matters by discussing efforts to socially construct a spate of suicides by Hmong teenagers in one urban community as an outgrowth of problems brought about by the Hmong immigration to the United States. The clash between the Hmong and American cultures was fingered by those favoring change as the cause of the suicides. Other explanations were ignored. The teenage Hmong suicides were depicted in newspaper accounts and elsewhere as a problem that needed addressing and identified the school district and mental Constructing a Social Problem: Suicide, Acculturation and the Hmong by Machiline Xiong and Paul Jesilow, PhD, Hmong Studies Journal, 8: 1-43. health facilities as the appropriate institutions to deal with the problem. We question the portrayal of the situation in this article. In-depth interviews we conducted with individuals either directly familiar with the events or positioned to provide the best information and overview on the issue caused us to conclude that the emphasis for the suicides was strongly associated with the Hmong’s status as immigrants in order to convince the Hmong that they needed to acculturate, in particular to accept and utilize mental health facilities. We illustrate that suicide among an ethnic minority can be a point of opportunity for those seeking to increase the group’s level of attachment to society. We discuss all these matters in light of what we know about social problems. We begin by discussing media coverage of the suicides. Construction of a Social Problem There is agreement that social problems (or more accurately, some might argue, the construction of social problems) involve a step or stage process (Blumer 1971; Schneider 1985; Spector and Kitsuse 1973). Private issues must first be turned into public matters. The “condition” must then be recognized by the government or other influential institutions. A response (or competing responses) can then be established (Blumer 1971; Spector and Kitsuse 1973). Members of the U.S. temperance movement during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, for example, had to convince the public that ills associated with the consumption of alcohol, such as domestic violence, were public matters. Once having succeeded in this task they could then press the government to prohibit alcohol as a means to alleviate the social problem. In constructing a social problem, groups define how it should be handled. A number of issues have been identified as important in the process, including the manner in which “claims and grievances are formed and presented, the varieties and nature of the claims and grievances, Constructing a Social Problem: Suicide, Acculturation and the Hmong by Machiline Xiong and Paul Jesilow, PhD, Hmong Studies Journal, 8: 1-43. strategies to press these claims and gain wider attention and support, the power of the group(s) making claims, and the creation of a public controversy (Schneider 1985: 209).” Joel Best, for example, developed a model designed to explain the construction of social problems as a function of the workings of a “Iron Quadrangle” consisting of the mass media, activists, government, and experts. Each sector, he argues, “has something to offer—and something to gain from—each of the others." Moreover, their combination "can produce powerful consensus regarding the importance of a new problem, its causes, and needed solutions (Best 1999:63).” The status and importance (or power, some might say) of competing groups are integral to the construction of social problems. The defining or construction of social problems is likely to occur with respect to immigrant groups because of their status (Jesilow et al. 1992; Sellin 1938) and because they are an unknown quantity to the resident population. The new arrivals are relatively powerless compared to the majority population, who lack an understanding of the immigrants’ behavior. A relationship between the immigrants’ behaviors and their beliefs is yet to be established or “framed” by the existing population. Frames are mechanisms "through which individuals may understand what happens around them, identify sources of their problems, and devise methods for addressing their grievances (Noonan 1995: 85)." Erving Goffman first described frames as a means by which individuals “locate, perceive, identify, and label occurrences within their life space and the world at large (1974: 21).” The concept of frames has helped us to understand the actions of individuals, who become involved in social movements, and to comprehend why some movements succeed, while others fail (Snow et al. 1986; Snow and Benford 1988). An immigrant characteristic can be framed as a positive attribution (for example, the current belief among the U.S. majority population that “Asian” students do well in school because their Constructing a Social Problem: Suicide, Acculturation and the Hmong by Machiline Xiong and Paul Jesilow, PhD, Hmong Studies Journal, 8: 1-43. immigrant parents push them to achieve). It can also be portrayed negatively (for example, over- emphasis on doing well in school by immigrant Asian parents means many children will inevitably fail) (Edelman 1964, 1988; Schneider and Ingram 1993). The following methodology explains the steps we took to examine the construction of the Hmong suicides as a social problem. Methodology Two sources of data were used for this case study. We reviewed print matter from mainstream media sources, as well as articles that appeared in Hmong newspapers. We also conducted twenty in-depth interviews with individuals from the California counties of San Diego, Orange, and Fresno. Research participants included mental health professionals, students, parents, school officials, and various media sources, who were interviewed during 2003, 2004 and 2005. All of the subjects were selected because they were either directly familiar with the events or were positioned to provide the best information and overview on the issue. A semi-structured interview was used with most of the subjects. Questions varied from personal experiences with acculturation to personal accounts of the activities that followed in the wake of the suicides. Each interview lasted about one hour. Subjects were allowed to answer questions as they saw fit; follow-up questions were asked when the subjects provided unclear answers. In general, the participants were receptive, honest, open-minded, and enthusiastic about the research study. There is a dilemma with the reporting of the interview data that highlights a problem that faces all who would undertake case study research. The institutional review board at our university rightly requires that we protect our human subjects by not revealing their identities. Constructing a Social Problem: Suicide, Acculturation and the Hmong by Machiline Xiong and Paul Jesilow, PhD, Hmong Studies Journal, 8: 1-43. Yet, readers may have difficulties determining the relevance of our interviews without such information. In particular, the reader may want to know who said what. Readers may believe that we are using speculation or putting words in others’ mouths. We cannot directly address these items. To reveal who said what, particularly if it is the words of key actors who are mentioned in media accounts, is to violate human subjects. Rather, we use attributions, such as "someone who knows" or “was quoted as saying.” Such attributions, however, may not satisfy all readers. It is possible that researchers will need to develop an acceptable attribution vocabulary to deal with such circumstances. Otherwise, we may see a significant decrease in case studies. Media Coverage of the Suicides Between September 1998 and May 2001, eight Hmong teenagers living in Fresno, California took their own lives. All were the children of immigrant parents; although some of the dead youngsters had been born in other countries, they were all raised in the United States. All attended schools within the Fresno Unified School District. The teens used various methods to kill themselves, including guns, hanging, drowning, and poisoning. The deaths had, for the most part, been invisible in the media, while they were occurring, and there appears to have been little concern about their occurrence outside of the immediately affected people. There was print coverage of one of the suicides during the string, but this was due to the fact that at first the incident appeared to be a homicide (Baker 2000; Krikorian 2000). The suicides, however, were known in the Hmong community. Students and parents discussed them (Ellis 2002b) and they were mentioned by the community’s Hmong radio station (Ellis 2002b; McAllister 1997; Xiong 2001; personal interviews). Constructing a Social Problem: Suicide, Acculturation and the Hmong by Machiline Xiong and Paul Jesilow, PhD, Hmong Studies Journal, 8: 1-43. There was one mention of the string of Hmong teen suicides in a short newspaper article in the local Fresno Bee newspaper during the summer of 2001. The piece, titled "Suicide -- get it out in the open," was the result, in part, of a task force that resulted from a suicide prevention forum. The reporter noted that 59 county residents had committed suicide in 2000, which was down from a high of 83 in 1998. Most of the dead were men between 20 and 40 years of age. Local suicide was the topic of the article, but the piece did note that the Fresno Unified School District had just applied for a federal grant "to deal with the aftermath of suicides and to figure out why so many Hmong teens -- eight since spring 1998 -- are killing themselves." The reporter wrote that most of the Hmong teens were successful students, a statement that was not accurate as things turned out. The article concluded that the important first step with respect to suicide is "to start talking about it -- for the sake of those who are thinking about suicide as well as those left behind when it happens (Kennedy 2001: B1)." Another year passed before the newspaper revisited the topic of Hmong teenage suicide. The “Lost in America” articles: the suicides The Sunday, August 11, 2002 edition of the Fresno Bee included a special section, entitled "Lost in America," that focused on the Hmong teen suicides. The stories, all by one author, highlighted the clash between the Hmong and American cultures as the cause of the suicides. The parents of the teenagers were depicted as strong holders of the Hmong identity. They practiced the "old ways," including arranged marriages for children as young as 12 (Ellis 2002h), the sacrifice of animals (Ellis 2002h), the use of spiritual medicine (Ellis 2002a, 2002h), and family duties ascribed at birth by gender and birth order (Ellis 2002d, 2002e, 2002g, 2002h). The Hmong children, according to the stories, wanted to practice the American ways of their peers and struggled between the identities of Hmong and Hmong-American. The suicides were Constructing a Social Problem: Suicide, Acculturation and the Hmong by Machiline Xiong and Paul Jesilow, PhD, Hmong Studies Journal, 8: 1-43. used as examples of the negative consequences of the conflict between the Hmong and American cultures. One teenager's suicide was portrayed as the result of expectations by Hmong parents, who, the author of the stories reported, "can be obsessed with wanting their children to do well in school." The reporter used the words of a parent of the dead youngster as evidence. "Some kids may isolate themselves because of trouble with school," the father was quoted as saying. The Hmong culture was to blame, according to the reporter's story. "If a child fails in school, the parents are looked on as failures as well," the author wrote. The reporter used the words of a friend of the dead teenager to make her point. Hmong teens "want to live up to their parents' expectations and make them proud, but they might not. There's a lot of expectations (Ellis 2002b: 6)." Another of the "Lost in America" articles focused on tolerant attitudes within the United States as a factor in the teenage suicides. A lesbian couple was among those who committed suicide. The brother of one of the dead girls posited that homosexuality was accepted in the United States, "but not in our culture." The mother of the same girl was reported to have told her on more than one occasion that the situation was not normal to the Hmong. The reporter concluded that the "lesbian couple committed suicide together, knowing their love would never be accepted by their families or the Hmong community, which strictly forbids homosexual relationships (Ellis 2002d: 7)." The story of a third suicide fingered the liberal culture of the United States and the reputation of the Hmong family as the cause of an unmarried, pregnant teenage girl's suicide. "The shame would have been unbearable," wrote the reporter. She added, "In the Hmong culture, the reputation of a family can be tarnished if a daughter becomes pregnant outside Constructing a Social Problem: Suicide, Acculturation and the Hmong by Machiline Xiong and Paul Jesilow, PhD, Hmong Studies Journal, 8: 1-43. marriage. Boys and girls suspected of having sex are often forced to marry by their parents." The dead girl's stepfather is quoted as blaming the American culture for the suicide. “In this country, there's a lot of freedom, and it's hard to control our kids. . . they are confused. The Hmong culture is very different. In Laos, [if you] need to discipline, [you] tie them up.” The inability of Hmong children to communicate with their parents was added to the list of factors contributing to the teenage suicides. A friend of the dead girl is quoted to make the point. "She was scared her mom would get mad . . . Hmong kids aren't really close to their parents. They're scared to talk to their parents, or they don't want to. Parents don't understand we're Hmong- American. They don't understand what we're going through (Ellis 2002e: 8)." The inability of Hmong children to communicate with their parents was painted in the "Lost in America" articles as the result of the conflict between the parents’ immersion in the Hmong culture compared to their children's understanding of the world, which had been greatly affected by their lives in America. The reporter again used the words of a dead teen's best friend to make the point. "Most parents don't understand. Now we're in the U.S., and we need to do things the American way. It makes it hard for teen-agers (Ellis 2002h).” The reporter was able to break her reliance on the testimony of friends of the dead teenagers by turning to a story of a Hmong girl, who was having trouble with her parents and in school, but who had not taken her own life. The method allowed the reporter to explore the issues of communication between child and parent in the first person. The girl, who was the subject of the story, was said to have "contemplated suicide." The troubled teenager, according to the story, "cut her arms with a razor blade and tried to jump out of a moving car. One day at school, she took an overdose of pain pills (Ellis 2002g: 9)." The reporter wrote that the girl “wants to be a regular American teen-ager, but she is Hmong, set apart by ancient traditions, and Constructing a Social Problem: Suicide, Acculturation and the Hmong by Machiline Xiong and Paul Jesilow, PhD, Hmong Studies Journal, 8: 1-43. the responsibilities and high expectations Hmong parents place on their children.” The girl’s parents were reported to have difficulty dealing with the girl’s problems, “because they grew up in rural Laos.” The author concludes that Hmong teenagers “struggle on a daily basis to balance their life in America with their culture (Ellis 2002g: 9).” The “Lost in America” articles: the solution The August 11, 2002 newspaper articles echoed a theme that had appeared in an earlier grant proposal by the Fresno Unified School district to the United States Department of Education. The district had obtained $300,000 and was at the time of the "Lost in America" articles in the process of implementing a suicide-prevention program for Hmong students. According to the Fresno Bee, the grant was "intended to address a variety of issues affecting Hmong students and their families, including academics and dropout rates (Ellis 2002a: 12)." The school district’s prevention program’s stated focus was on bridging the gap between Hmong parents and their children. "No matter where we go, the bottom-line concern is the parents don't know how to help the kids and the kids don't know how to ask their parents for help because of the huge difference in culture," an individual intricately involved with the program was quoted as saying in one of the “Lost in America” articles. The childhood experiences of the parents, who “were raised in Laos, where there was no dating, only marriage at an early age,” and where “life was consumed with farming and surviving," did not prepare them, the expert noted, to help their children with the problems they daily encounter. This, according to the expert, who was an advisor to the district’s program, had left the Hmong teenagers in a particularly vulnerable position. “It's a really tough time of trying to figure out who they are, how to become an adult. For Hmong kids in particular, what makes it harder is they're in homes Constructing a Social Problem: Suicide, Acculturation and the Hmong by Machiline Xiong and Paul Jesilow, PhD, Hmong Studies Journal, 8: 1-43. where their parents don't have similar growing-up experiences, so they don't have anybody to talk to (Ellis 2002a: 12).” Hmong leaders and agencies, in the “Lost in America” articles, were painted as unable to deal with the suicides because suicide in the Hmong culture “should only be dealt with among family members, many Hmong believe suicide is the result of a curse on the family, or ancestors, and is best left alone. Hmong are more likely to seek shamans . . .for psychological problems than mental health professionals. They believe seeing a psychiatrist is an indication of mental illness (Ellis 2002a: 12 ).” The reporter quoted the director of Fresno Unified's Parent Engagement Center as noting that the Hmong community did not take any action concerning the suicides. She also quoted the director of a community organization that assisted refugees as choosing "to let Fresno Unified tackle the issue (Ellis 2002a: 12)." Supposedly, the director "didn't want to duplicate what they were doing." The reporter, however, portrayed the Hmong- associated agency as ineffective. The director, she wrote, "is now unhappy with Fresno Unified's approach, although he has not asked to meet with program coordinators to learn about the program (Ellis 2002a: 12)." The implication was that the director was unwilling to act on the matter, but was willing to complain. The “Lost in America” articles portrayed the Hmong as an "underserved population (Ellis 2002a:12 )." The Fresno County's Department of Social Services, according to the reporter, was "aware of the teen suicide problem," but that there was "no money to address the issue (Ellis 2002a: 12)." A lack of Hmong personnel was highlighted in the special newspaper section as a hindrance to the successful implementation of programs for the immigrant community. The school district, for example, was said to have "acted as swiftly as it could, given the lack of money and Hmong applicants to run the program (Ellis 2002a: 12 )." Mental health agencies, in