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Story originally printed in the Winona Daily News or online at www.winonadailynews.com

Published - Thursday, September 27, 2007

Census data shows gains for immigrants in Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- It's been three decades since Minnesota saw the first big wave of international refugees, and a new U.S. Census Bureau report found that different immigrant groups are at different stages of progress.

The Hmong, the first to arrive in large numbers, are showing great gains. Poverty is plunging, welfare assistance is a fraction of what it once was, and incomes are rising.

But age-old cultural norms are still in effect. The census data showed a significant gap between rates of education of boys and girls, with more boys graduating from high school. Many Hmong young people still marry young, and have large families.

Africans, the most recent to arrive and most poverty-stricken, are already showing early signs of progress. They are swarming into institutions of higher education, laying the groundwork for an economic surge of their own in the years to come.

Of the 25,000 Africans enrolled in Minnesota schools, half are pursuing college or graduate degrees - a vastly higher number than those of any other immigrant group.

The success of Hmong immigrants offers hope for others in the years to come, said one immigration expert.

"The poverty of recent African immigrants reflects the fact that many entered as refugees fleeing war-torn countries and came with almost nothing," said Katherine Fennelly of the University of Minnesota. "However, the Hmong represent a dramatic success story that demonstrates the possibility of upward mobility in the U.S., even for people who came with low levels of schooling and literacy three decades ago."

At the same time, Minnesota's also seeing a surge in immigrants from Asian nations like India. Thanks in part to that, an immigrant in Minnesota is more likely to have an advanced degree than whites - in one of the nation's most-educated states.

Hmong leaders said they weren't surprised at the community's strides, though some said the pace of change has shocked even them. All the figures for Hmong are national at this point, but the Twin Cities is far and away the dominant center of Hmong life in the United States.

While there's been a general sense that things were going in the right direction, "to see these kinds of numbers if impressive," said Yuephen Xiong, who opened the first Hmong bookstore in St. Paul in the mid-1990s.

There's a sense that Hmong traditions have propelled the community.

"We highly value education because we know that education is the way out of poverty," said Lee Pao Xiong, director of the Center for Hmong Studies at Concordia University in St. Paul. "That was hammered into our heads by our parents."

There was concern, however, about the Hmong gender gap in education. While the rate of high-school degrees among adults rose from 11 percent in 1990 to 60 percent today, that figure is the midpoint between a 70 percent rate for males and 50 percent for females.

"Girls are still marrying young and leaving school," said the St. Paul's Hmong Cultural Center's Mark Pfeifer, a leading national researcher. "I think some kids are just choosing American freedom, and doing what they want to do right now" - freeing themselves from parents and settling for low-wage jobs.

Perhaps because of that, Pfeifer said, the poverty rate among the Hmong, at 27 percent, is still higher than that of Minnesota immigrants in general, at 18 percent.

Positively, Pfeifer said, a subset of Hmong girls is excelling in school.

"There seem to be a couple of different tracks out there, and one leads to college, where girls if anything seem to be dominating boys," Pfeifer said.

Progress in the Hmong community may stem in part from a desire for independence that has produced many entrepreneurs and small-business owners.

Pakou Hang, 31, a Yale University graduate who was born in a refugee camp in Laos, said, "Throughout our history we have always been a minority and have always had to be innovative, had to be entrepreneurial in order to survive. When everyone in your community is striving to start a business or get an education, that becomes the norm."