TheBanyanTree: The Deer Hunter

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Minnesota has a large and possibly the largest population of Hmong people in
the United States.  Hmongs were agricultural mountain people living in
Cambodia and Laos.  They didn’t have a written language until the 1950s.
Hmongs helped us during the Vietnam War.  Fearing retribution from the Khmer
Rouge, the Hmong war veterans faced many dangers as they found their way to
Thailand and other SE Asian nations and from there, began immigrating to the
United States in the 1970s and 80s.  The last Hmong refugee camp in Thailand
has begun to close and the final wave of Hmong immigrants began coming to St
Paul, MN this past summer.

Minnesota has welcomed Hmongs.  Many churches set up sponsorships.  And as
families moved to Minnesota, they beckoned other family members, and they
came, too.  Many Hmongs started off on welfare, but quickly learned English,
went to colleges and technical schools, started their own businesses, and
began integrating within the community.  Yes, there are some Hmongs who are
still on welfare and have a very difficult time with the culture here, but
every population has people they will always have to take care of and the
Hmongs are no different.

Hmongs work hard at keeping their culture alive.  Family clans get together
often.  Hmongs gather at funerals, markets, and this weekend is their Hmong
New Year, which will bring 50,000 or more Hmong together for a three day
festival in St Paul.

But there are differences.  Some Hmongs sacrifice animals.  It’s not unusual
for me to see my neighbors chasing around chickens in their yard.  Some
Hmong males take multiple wives.  Some Hmong clans try to marry off their
children while they’re still in their early teens.  They have three day
funerals which can only be on weekends when family members can attend, so
the two Hmong funeral homes have a large backlog.  They have HUGE family
gatherings, which are annoying to their neighbors, as the street gets
clogged up with hundreds of cars.

However, like a lot of Minnesotans, Hmongs enjoy hunting and fishing.  The
Department of Natural Resources has made an effort to recruit Hmongs for
conversation officers to help explain the rules and regulations of hunting
and fishing in Minnesota.

But Minnesotans are a funny people.  On the outside, we’re welcoming,
charitable, and always willing to help, but there is a dark side to us which
distrusts people with dark skin, dark hair, and a last name that isn’t
Scandinavian.  And there are certain things white Minnesotans hold close to
their hearts, like hockey, golf, and fishing and hunting.  In some
Minnesotans’ minds, people with dark skins are not allowed to do these
activities.

Hmongs have always lived off the land and hunting and fishing come as
naturally to them as those activities come to white Minnesotans.  Fishing
trips and deer hunting expeditions have become a focus of bonding for Hmongs
just as they have been for white hunters.

But some people don’t want to share and other people don’t understand the
rules.  And then they clash.  Some Hmongs have wandered onto private
property to hunt and some whites have responded by harassing and scaring
them.

And so last Sunday a Hmong deer hunter from St Paul wandered onto private
property and climbed into a deer stand in northeastern Wisconsin.  The white
people saw him and asked him to leave.  He started to leave and then . . .
the whites say he began to shoot them without provocation.  And he says they
whites surrounded him on their ATVs and shot at him.  Whatever the real
story, the deer hunter shot eight people and killed six.

>From what I can gather reading the various accounts from the newspaper and
seeing reports on TV, I would bet the deer hunter was harassed.  Why else
would he begin to shoot people?  But to shoot eight people?  Obviously,
something in him snapped, and he let the years of frustrations, prejudice,
and culture clashes transform into his rifle and let it all fly.  It’s not
an excuse, and he should be locked up for life, but why couldn’t those
people let him leave the property without trying to scare him?  Why are
whites so threatened by dark skinned people?

I think that’s why so few black people in Minnesota go hunting.  I think
there’s a real fear in their community that they will be picked off and shot
just like the deer.  “I’m so sorry, Officer, I didn’t see that dark man in
an orange vest standing by the tree.  It was just an accident.”  Yeah,
right.

White Minnesotans fight with the Indians in court constantly about hunting
and fishing rights, although we are the people who took away those rights in
the first place.  Now, we’re trying to take away the one big source of
revenue Indians have and that’s their casinos.  Share with us, we plead.
Have we ever shared with them?

“It’s not a racial thing,” the whites in Wisconsin are saying.  But why
would the deer hunter’s family have to be removed from their home in
protective police custody?  Why are the white deer hunters staking out the
jail in order to catch a glimpse of the Hmong deer hunter?  Why was the
local sheriff taken off the case?  Why are Hmong people canceling hunting
trips?  Why would the actions of one person condemn a whole culture?  It is
racial, very racial.

America’s strength is the melting pot.  The bringing together of many
cultures forms a wonderful country with riches beyond anything on earth.
Yet the cultures, the ones out of the mainstream, pay a price for their
freedoms.  Think of our treatment of Native Americans, blacks, the Germans
during World War I, the Japanese during World War II, and the Iraqis in
prison and now the shooting of unarmed Iraqis in their mosques.  What’s
wrong with us?  Why do so many of us who say we are Christians and try to
follow the very loving and peaceful teachings of Christ so intolerant and
hateful towards other people?

All peoples share fundamental values.  We need to respect and understand
those values to get along.  Wasn’t that why Bush was re-elected?  Values?

The whites will go shopping this weekend.  The Hmongs will gather for their
New Year.  But we’ll be tiptoeing around each other, leery and unsure.  The
deer hunter is in jail.  The families of the men and woman he shot will
mourn forever.  The rounds that were fired last weekend exposed our dark and
we’ll never be the same.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

http://www.polarispublications.com
Be a star!

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be
careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude.
~E.P. Powell