| Perhaps it harkens back to the history of the Hmong in Southeast Asia where they have survived despite not having a country and always besieged by others living in close proximity to them. In spite of the odds, the Hmong have survived and have now succeeded in the United States. The family of KaShia Moua, who graduated this spring from the UW-Madison Law School, was one of the first 100 Hmong families to arrive in the U.S. after the fall of Saigon caused the U.S. allies to flee Laos and seek asylum in Thailand. Moua';s father, mother and two older brothers were plopped down in Eau Claire, Wis., the only Hmong family for miles. Moua was born after her family settled in Eau Claire. After graduating from Eau Claire public schools, Moua attended Carlton College, a small liberal arts college in Minnesota where she majored in sociology and anthropology and had a concentration of courses in education. Moua graduated with the feeling she would come back to the halls of academia, but took a break from formal education with an Echoing Green Foundation fellowship. "They give out 20-30 fellowships per year internationally," Moua said during an interview with The Capital City Hues shortly before she graduated from law school. "Their whole premise is to fund agents of social change. You had to start something out from scratch and it had to be a program that would be sustainable forever and it was going to make long-term changes in society. It had to be something that didn't exist." Moua started up a school-based program in St. Paul, Minn. called Hmong Women's Circle that started out serving Hmong girls, but ended up working with Hmong boys as well. The program worked with students to develop their understanding of the role education plays in their lives and careers they may aspire to and taught them some of the skills like developing a resume; to get there. A two-year commitment turned into a five-year stint for Moua. When she felt the program would go on without her, she traveled back to Carleton College to talk to one of her professors about her future plans. Moua thought she would pursue a degree in education. The meeting with her advisor proved her wrong. "He and I had a conversation about when you try to make social change, how do you place yourself in a position where you can have a seat at the table to make those big decisions," Moua said. "I explained to him that one frustrating thing about doing non-profit and direct service work is you feel you are always that annoying voice knocking at the door, pounding and pleading to get in. It's really frustrating. As I was talking -- about 10 minutes into our conversation -- he stopped me and said "KaShia, you need to go to law school." It was the first time in my life -- I was 27 years old -- that anyone ever said 'You should go to law school.' I was like 'What? You didn't hear what I was just saying.' I then saw it as a means to get to where I wanted to go as a tool that would open up a lot of doors. I thought it was my ticket in and it's going to give me seat at the table and then people are going to have to listen. I thought whether or not I wanted to be a lawyer, the truth is, in our society and a lot of societies in the world, it is a prestigious thing. And if that is what I needed to get my foot in the door, I was willing to do it." Everyone in Moua's world was shocked. "My students, my friends and family were all saying 'What, you're going to law school?'" Moua recalled. "For some people, it just makes sense. For years, people are grooming them to go to law school. I was one where people were saying 'Are you kidding me?' People tried to talk me out of it and asked me if I knew what kind of people lawyers were. Everyone was shocked including me." Moua settled on the University of Wisconsin Law School. Reflecting back, she feels it was a pretty good learning experience both inside and outside the classroom. While it was an opportunity to get an excellent grounding in the law, she also learned a lot about life through her interactions with her peers. "I would say my classmates have continued to surprise me over the years in good and bad ways," Moua said. "A lot of my classmates were still, even though they're from Wisconsin, saying 'What are you, Hmong? I might have heard of you. Don't you guys live in Milwaukee?' You get all that stuff and at first, you go 'Man, this is what I'm going to deal with?' But then you have these upswings. I've had some of the most profound conversations with the small-town Wisconsin classmates who have never left. That has been very valuable. I think it is eye-opening both ways. But then again, it goes up and down and then you have other incidents or things that come up." And while the UW Law School is probably the most diverse college on campus, Moua feels it still has a ways to go before it is truly diverse. "A lot of the students who come here who are not Caucasian are from California, Texas, New York and Chicago and they are coming from communities where they aren't used to being a minority actually. Then you have a lot of students who come here who are from the smaller parts of rural Wisconsin who are not used to having a minority group. It's just an interesting clash because you all get put into the same building and spend all of your time together and are in these classes together trying to engage in dialogue. That's been really challenging. And I think all in our school would agree -- staff, faculty and students -- that we have a lot of learning to do. We're not quite there to being this great school that is a haven of diversity because you have it, but then what do you do with it and how do you deal with it and how do you take advantage of that." With her experience and education, Moua could have probably entered one of the more lucrative aspects of the law, but decided to take a job as a public defender in Racine because of, in large part, her commitment to social change. "I'll defend all indigent citizens of this state, obviously no one who can afford the service," Moua said. "They asked me during the interviews 'Why public defender?' I said 'Why not?' I had been doing it my whole life. I feel I've had to play this role for my family and my community members who have zero resources, who have no money, who have no voice in the justice system. The only difference now is I have this JD after my name and I can practice it legitimately. I feel I've been doing this work any way. So it made a lot of sense to me that if I'm going to be a lawyer, I wanted to go somewhere where I would be comfortable and I would believe in the type of work I was doing. That's why I never had that thought of doing corporate law. I respect people who do it. But it just wasn't something that was appealing to me." Moua doesn't look at this as a stepping stone to a career in electoral politics. She was the campaign manager for Minnesota State Senator Mee Moua, the first Hmong elected to office in the U.S., according to Moua. While she enjoyed the experience, she decided it wasn't for her. So for now, Moua will be content with waging the good legal fight for the indigent of Wisconsin and waging policy battles in the halls of government. In five years, there's no telling where Moua will be for her commitment -- and law degree -- will probably take her to the arena of policy decisions in Wisconsin and beyond. |
| Graduation at the University of Wisconsin Law School A commitment to change By Jonathan Gramling Part 2 of 2 |
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