The key role of language in preserving immigrant groups’ cultures and traditions was on display earlier this week in a discussion that combined a Norwegian perspective with insights into Hmong culture and its transition into an American context.
The program led off the “Conversations about Immigrant Identity” series marking the 150th anniversary this year of Waldemar Ager’s birth. It provided Hmong perspectives on assimilation into American society that echoed some of Ager’s thoughts about the Norwegian experience a century earlier, particularly the importance of preserving the immigrant group’s language.
Monday evening program to explore loss of cultural identities as immigrant groups become “Americanized”
A REPORT ON THIS EVENT WILL BE PUBLISHED SOON
The loss of minority groups’ cultural identities during their assimilation into American society will be the focus of a program at 7 p.m. next Monday (Feb. 11) at Eau Claire’s L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library.
The program, “On the Way to the Melting Pot—Then and Now: Waldemar Ager and Hmong History and Culture,” will offer perspectives originating a century apart and half a world from each other. .
Growing Hispanic/Latinx population here brings need for increased cross-cultural understanding
Luis Solis is an Eau Claire resident and a first-generation college student who immigrated from Mexico with his family 18 years ago.
He is studying at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and, in the past year, has changed his major from finance to social work. The change came, he said, because a social work degree would prepare him to help those in need, especially immigrants like himself and others in the growing local Hispanic/Latinx community.
To read more about the impact of that growing community, click on the headline.
Culture Core event on Saturday to explore assimilation pressures on cultural identity
The tension between maintaining a group’s cultural identity and becoming part of the larger United States society will be the focus of the 27th annual Culture Core event on Saturday (April 15) at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. The program, “Siv Peb Lub Suab: Deconstructing the Dominant Narrative,” is scheduled to run from noon to […]