People

Refugees are more vulnerable than most Americans to experience family disruptions and secondary changes without adequate resources and necessary support. My research and community-engagement efforts aim to understand how families, especially Hmong and other Southeast Asian refugee families, adjust to these changes and disruptions. The following selected works highlight my engagement efforts and how they advance knowledge and scholarship in my area of inquiry, particularly on refugee/immigrant child adjustment issues in the contexts of family, school, and community.   

Hmong Children’s Longitudinal Study 

Since 2000, more than eight charter schools that focus on Hmong language and culture have been authorized in Minnesota, enrolling over 7,000 Asian, mostly (90.47%) Hmong, students (Minnesota Department of Education, n.d.). To continue to examine the achievement gap, I partnered with five Hmong-focused charter schools in Minnesota. Since 2019, we raised over $44,500 from community members to support this work. We collected three waves of data involving 218 students who took the survey in all three years and interviewed 39 parents about their experiences. The results produced four peer-reviewed articles (Xiong et al., 2025; Xiong, Her, & Yunizar, 2023; Xiong, Her, Yunizar, & Mao, 2023; Xiong, Braughton, et al., 2022; Xiong, Nickodem, St. Charles, et al., 2019), two peer-reviewed book chapters (Xiong, Her, & Lee, 2021; Timmons, Xiong, et al., 2020), nine peer-reviewed presentations, 16 local community meetings and events, including three speeches for three political campaigns (Senator Foung Hawj, School Board Marny Xiong, and Senator Susan Pha). It also resulted in one testimony to the St. Paul Public School Board of Education (Xiong, 2018) and multiple radio shows and TV interviews (see CV).       

Highly Successful Families   

Research on the achievement gap has been well documented in the literature (Barton, 2003; Olmedo, 2003; Ramirez & Carpenter, 2005). However, most studies tend to focus on K-12 and undergraduate students, parents of low-income backgrounds, and unrelated family members across families. Only a few studies investigate the life histories, family dynamics, and social capital of highly successful immigrant families, especially Hmong and other Southeast Asian families. Highly successful immigrant families refer to those who have multiple college graduated family members and/or multiple family members who are employed in high-paying professions. Interview data from family members are currently being collected.  

Hmong RPA (Romanized Popular Alphabet) Writing System Project  

Language loss is a real concern in the Hmong community. McLit: Marathon County Literacy Council, Inc. (2020) predicted that by the end of the twenty-first century, the Hmong language will completely disappear. As such, since 2000 there have been a handful of Hmong-centric charter schools authorized to teach Hmong language and culture as part of their curriculum (Xiong et al., 2025). However, little has been done to bring the community together to reform and adopt a unified and standardized Latin alphabet form of the Hmong RPA writing system to preserve the Hmong language. In 2024, I collaborated with MN Zej Zog, along with five educational leaders, to engage the community to reform the Hmong RPA writing system and adopt a standardized scope and sequence Hmong language curriculum for educators. The project generated over $500,000 grants from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund at the Department of Administration in Minnesota and had involved over 400 people in the engagement process. (Watch coverage from Hmoob Twin Cities News on YouTube). We are currently collecting data and will analyze them for publication consideration and further engagement with the larger community to adopt a unified and standardized Latin alphabet form of the Hmong RPA writing system for Hmong educators across the country.