Everybody has had to start over, learning a new language and culture, Lao said. Hmong come to the United States not knowing how business is conducted. Work for a paycheck to get money for basic needs like shelter, food and clothes is a foreign concept, Lao said. Older Hmong worry now that the younger Hmong will stray from centuries of tradition, Lao said. Hmong observe their new year during the Thanksgiving holiday, a time when young girls traditionally may meet their future husbands, Lor said.
Most Hmong parents have strict rules about dating.
Marriages have to be approved by fathers, and some families see teen-age daughters married to men years older. But young Hmong may resist that. There are a few Hmong children coming through schools in Mount Airy, for instance, who are putting off marriage in hopes of going to college like their American peers, Mai Lor said. Roger Lotchin, a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that the generation gap is a common development among immigrant groups. It doesn't mean that the younger generation deserts their ethnic group, but they live an increasingly American style of life, Lotchin said.