Immigrant groups on the way up

Three decades after the first big wave of refugees flooded into Minnesota, the state's major immigrant groups are following different paths, the U.S. Census Bureau reports today.

The Hmong, among the first to arrive, are beginning to make rapid progress. Poverty is plunging, welfare assistance is a fraction of what it was, and income is rising.

But age-old cultural norms still hold many back: There's 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 on the march, the government finds. Rather than settling into factory jobs, they are swarming into institutions of higher education, promising an economic surge in the years to come.

Of the 25,000 Africans in Minnesota schools, fully half are pursuing college or graduate degrees, making their numbers in that area vastly higher than those of any other immigrant group.

The experience of the one group offers hope for the other in the years to come, said one leading expert on immigration.

"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, a surge in immigrants from Asian nations such as India is bringing Minnesota some of the nation's most highly educated and affluent immigrant groups. Thanks in part to them, an immigrant in Minnesota is more likely to have an advanced degree than whites in one of the nation's most-educated states.

More than ever, experts agree, the overall averages for groups whom Minnesotans have long thought of as "black" or "Asian" are less meaningful because there is so much diversity within those groups.

'Time for a better life'

Hmong leaders said they were not surprised that the community has made such strides, though the speed of change surprised them.

"We had a general sense that we were moving in [the right] direction," said Yuephen Xiong, who opened the first Hmong bookstore in the world in St. Paul in the mid-1990s. "To see these kinds of numbers is impressive."

Like many others, he believes 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."

Experts said they are troubled, however, by the Hmong gender gap when it comes to education. Although the rate of high-school degrees among adults has shot from 11 percent in 1990 to 60 percent today, that average is the midpoint between a 70 percent rate for males and 50 percent for females.

'Choosing American freedom'

"Girls are still marrying young and leaving school," said Mark Pfeifer of St. Paul's Hmong Cultural Center, 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.

That could be one reason why poverty rates among the Hmong -- 27 percent -- are still much higher than those of Minnesota immigrants in general (18 percent). Partly because large households are pooling funds, however, household income among the Hmong is nearing parity with Americans in general, having risen from less than half in 1990 to 91 percent today.

At the same time, he 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," moving more easily into professional slots, he said.

The Hmong figures are all national at this point. But the Twin Cities is far and away the dominant center of Hmong life, and experts say there is little difference on many key indicators between Minnesota and the nation for Hmong.

The latest figures for other immigrant groups surprised experts less. Fennelly did say she found a 44 percent rate of home ownership among Latino immigrants in Minnesota to be a notable achievement, "especially considering their modest incomes." Hispanic households have a median income -- half of them higher, half lower -- of just $36,000 a year, better only than Africans ($32,000).

Hmong progress stems in large part from a desire for independence that has produced may entrepreneurs and small-business owners.

"We Hmong do not like to depend on others," said Toua Xiong, an entrepreneur who three years ago started International Marketplace, one of the largest Hmong-owned business in the state. "So we work extra hard. Being on welfare is just a temporary setback."

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."

Lu Hang, a vice president for commercial banking at Western Bank in St. Paul, said one measure of success has been the number of Hmong immigrants moving to bigger homes in the suburbs. "A lot of people are moving to the suburbs because they've increased their purchasing power," said Hang, who moved to the United States from Laos in 1976 at age 9.

Competing on education

Friendly rivalries exist between clans, some said

"We're here in America, and we've been given a great opportunity," Lu Hang said. "In our culture there's a competitiveness. If one person in one clan sees that someone in another sends their kids to Harvard, M.I.T., West Point, then they say, 'I can do it' or 'I can have my kids do it.' I think that's good."

He said the key to future success will be if the next generation can keep some traditions even as they become more American than Hmong.

"You look at these numbers and they're great, but we shouldn't pat ourselves on the back too fast," he said. "With the younger, second generation of Hmong-Americans, they kind of have a tendency to relax."

dapeterson@startribune.com • 612-673-4440 hme@startribune.com • 612-673-4280