Little girls born and raised in America get to hear tales of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White. They are given the hope that one day they will also meet a prince so charming he will save the day. Only if that were true, being born Hmong and raised in America, there were different stories. Most of them were romantic, but of course there always was a twist. If not tigers were involved, then some sort of magic. It might not even be the type of magic you think it is.
For me, I had to read about Cinderella and Snow White, to know of them. If my sisters and I wanted to hear stories, my mother would tell us about how a Hmong girl went to her white friends’ house. Instead of them playing, the Caucasian family would cut the Hmong girl up and feed her parts to their dog. My mother was always trying to scare us into not going over to friend’s house. They wanted us to be friends with only Hmong’s. When my mother wasn’t trying to scare us, she was busy trying to get us ready to be perfect brides. At the age of 7 she had me doing the dishes, because they believed that practice makes perfect.