Hmong minority in Eureka: a study of adjustment to life in the United States

Data from forty HMong refugees living in Eureka, California area suggest that the 1980 refugee resettlement program assigned to them by the Office of Refugee Resettlement was ineffective. The Refugee Act of 1980 formalised and supplemented the Southeast Asian refugee resettlement system that existed at that time. It was based primarily on the cultural and situational concerns of the South Vietnamese refugees who emerged at the end of the American involvement in Vietnam in 1975. Information gleaned from this research indicates that the older HMong adults became particularly disoriented when they tried to adjust to life in America. This study will show that the failure of the older HMong population to adapt to the host culture's lifestyle is the result of inadequate assimilation approach.