Most can't read or write any language, and they've never connected intellectually or emotionally with the everyday lives of children growing up in America. Each of these five is bright and intellectually capable, but none has developed an appreciation for learning, interests in student life or the discipline to succeed with academics. Several others in the Class of 2000 aren't exploring their options, either, but for them it's a more conscious avoidance. For these five Hmong, choice is a cultural enigma. They're neither dreamers nor realists.
None is driven to be or to do anything specific.
Ask what makes them unique, and each seems puzzled with the question. They come up with nothing. They have little sense of who they are as individuals or their places in the world. Boys floating without focus Va Yang has just come home from school, removed his shoes and plunked himself on the couch. It's a cool, sunny afternoon, but you'd never know it from inside the Yangs' apartment, just a door down from the Mouas in the McDonough complex, along an Interstate 35E frontage road in St. Paul's North End.