Description: "In the wake of the US wars in Southeast Asia, the arrival of Hmong refugees reignited American anxieties about race and sexuality. Sensationalized media portrayals of child marriages, bride kidnappings, and polygamy framed Hmong communities as sexually deviant, reinforcing a racialized perception of their cultural practices. Kong Pheng Pha dismantles these narratives, revealing how legal cases, media representations, and legislative efforts have constructed Hmong Americans as hyperheterosexual and ungovernable subjects. Critically examining how Hmong Americans are positioned within racial, gendered, and sexual discourses of liberalism, Pha explores the lived experiences of queer Hmong Americans, whose existence and activism challenge mainstream and ethnonationalist constructions of subjectivity. Addressing Hmong American gender and sexual politics through feminist, queer, and social justice lenses, Pha offers a critical framework for understanding how race and sexuality intersect in shaping the lives of minoritized refugee communities in the United States and beyond"-- Provided by publisher.
Brief description: Kong Pheng Pha is assistant professor of gender and women's studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Queering the Hmong Diaspora: Racial Subjectivity and the Myth of Hyperheterosexuality (UWP, 2025).
Review Quotes:
"A rigorous and politically committed contribution to critical Hmong studies, queer of color critique, and Asian American studies. This book lays the groundwork for understanding Hmong racial, cultural, and sexual subjectivity by unraveling America's complex structure of hyperheterosexuality."
-- "Asian Ethnicity"