If you find yourself in Jenny Yang鈥檚 third-grade classroom at Vang Pao Elementary in southeast Fresno, you鈥檒l hear students recite the Pledge of Allegiance in the mornings in the Hmong language.
When Yang grabs her acoustic and slips the guitar strap over her shoulders, you鈥檒l hear the students sing 鈥淭his Land Is Your Land,鈥� alternating between the English lyrics and a Hmong translation鈥攁ll before a receptive audience of Hmong dolls in traditional clothing smiling down from the shelves.
Her classroom is one that鈥檚 home to Fresno Unified School District鈥檚 Hmong Dual Language Immersion program.
It鈥檚 one of only a handful of similar learning opportunities in public school districts nationwide. The program uses the dual immersion method, meaning students receive instruction for part of each day in English and part in Hmong.
鈥淭hey embrace their American culture, and they see the importance of the Hmong culture as well,鈥� Yang said of her students. 鈥淰ersus me when I was growing up 鈥� there weren鈥檛 a lot of teachers that looked like me, that really embraced my culture.鈥�
After launching in 2018 in response to demands from Fresno鈥檚 Hmong community鈥�, behind the Hmong population in Minnesota鈥檚 Twin Cities鈥攖he program is already showing social-emotional and academic benefits.
鈥淓ven though 50% of the time you鈥檙e learning Hmong, you鈥檙e not missing out on any of the English at all,鈥� Vang Pao Principal Yua Lee told The Bee鈥檚 Education Lab. 鈥淎s a matter of fact, it鈥檚 been enhancing the achievement of our students in English.鈥�
This is no exception to what many researchers have concluded about dual immersion programs: on standardized assessments in English Language Arts.
What distinguishes Fresno Unified鈥檚 program, however, is its placement in neighborhood schools鈥攗nlike some DLI programs that are choice schools and can become difficult to access, including for the families who asked for them in the first place.
How did we get here?
A Hmong dual immersion program like Fresno Unified鈥檚 wasn鈥檛 always possible.
About 25 years ago,, restricting bilingual education in public K-12 settings, especially for English learners.
Then in 2016, voters passed another measure, Proposition 58, which largely overturned Prop 227鈥檚 restrictions on bilingual education and paved the way for the expansion of dual immersion at schools across the state.
In Fresno Unified, the push for more robust Hmong language instruction came from the district鈥檚 Hmong families, the program鈥檚 manager Doua Vu told the Ed Lab.
These conversations date back to 2015 when the district was revising and seeking feedback from parents on how language instruction was going.
鈥淚n some of those community meetings,鈥� Vu said, 鈥減arents actually in the Hmong community expressed that they saw that their students are losing the (Hmong) language and not being able to communicate with the elders anymore.鈥�
This is a crisis the Hmong American community faces beyond Fresno. The language only developed a written form in the Roman alphabet and hasn鈥檛 commonly been taught in American schools.
Fresno Unified piloted Hmong dual immersion courses in summer school and after-school programs in 2017. Then, the first cohort of 55 students hit the ground running in the 2018-19 school year.
The program more than quadrupled in size to 257 students last year. There are cohorts in preschool through fifth grade at Vang Pao. The district also expanded the program to Balderas Elementary in Fresno Unified鈥檚 Sunnyside region in 2020.
Some dual immersion programs鈥攐ften for more commonly spoken languages鈥攕trive to enroll half native English speakers and half native speakers of the other target language. That ratio differs for Fresno Unified鈥檚 Hmong program, where about 90% of students learn Hmong as a second language while 10% are native Hmong speakers.
This helps students like Michael Her maintain the language of his family.
鈥淚f there wasn鈥檛 a Hmong dual immersion program,鈥� the 10-year-old fifth-grader in the program said, 鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 be learning any Hmong.鈥�
Opportunities for students to study and refine the language available at all seven of the district鈥檚 comprehensive high schools and two middle schools, Gaston and Terronez.
A day in the life of dual immersion students
Students in the program at Vang Pao and Balderas start the day with science and social studies classes in Hmong. Then, for the second half of the day, they study language arts and math using English.
The daily switch between languages can be especially challenging going from Hmong to English, said fifth grade teacher Kristina Yang. The Hmong language has fewer words than English. It also has more words with multiple meanings.
Kristina Yang enforces the strict divide between 鈥淗mong time鈥� and 鈥淓nglish time鈥� using the 鈥渃lass cash鈥� she distributes at the beginning of the year. Students pay a fine if they use English during Hmong time or vice versa. At the end of the school year, they can use however much class cash they鈥檝e held onto during a class auction.
Still, Kristina Yang鈥檚 students have also found ways to bend the rules鈥攁s any fifth-grader dutifully would.
鈥淭hey鈥檝e convinced me that if somebody says an English word, if they translate it into Hmong, that there should be no fine,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o they鈥檝e been keeping each other accountable. And they鈥檝e been trying to help each other translate so that their friends don鈥檛 have to give up the class cash.鈥�
In addition to teaching literacy in the Hmong language, the curriculum weaves in lessons about Hmong culture and history.
When kindergartners in the program learn about the plant life cycle and harvest, for example, teachers will also talk about the rice harvest in Laos, Vu said.
And when fifth-graders make crafts, they stitch their own 鈥渇lower cloth,鈥� called a paj ntaub鈥攁 traditional form of textile art.
District leaders said they鈥檝e watched the program foster a greater sense of pride in Hmong culture through these parallel efforts of language instruction and lessons in Hmong history.
鈥淏efore, typically you wait until the cultural holidays for kids to wear their Hmong attire,鈥� Vu said, 鈥渂ut when the program first launched, kids were wearing their Hmong outfit to school on a regular school day.鈥�
Kristina Yang has two of her own children enrolled in the program. She said she鈥檚 seen them become a 鈥渂ridge鈥� between their grandparents and other members of her family who have lost the Hmong language.
鈥淭hey鈥檝e been teaching their older cousins the simple (words),鈥� she said. 鈥溾�橦ello,鈥� 鈥榖ye,鈥� or 鈥榯hank you,鈥� 鈥榥o thank you,鈥� (and) 鈥業鈥檓 full.鈥� It鈥檚 really nice to see that. And my daughters just get so proud when they get to be the person who has to translate.鈥�
Would you be my, could you be my neighborhood dual immersion school?
Vicky Xiong-Lor is a Hmong language consultant who has worked with programs like Fresno Unified in California and Minnesota and Wisconsin for almost 20 years.
She told the Ed Lab that the attitude toward bilingual education changed over that period, mostly for the better.
But she鈥檚 still worried about who鈥檚 able to access dual immersion programs.
Xiong-Lor said it鈥檚 often been her white, affluent colleagues who can transfer their children to dual immersion schools.
鈥淗owever, the Hmong families or other ethnic families, who wanted these programs, were not able to,鈥� she said. Instead, they end up on waiting lists for programs offered at their own neighborhood schools.
The programs Xiong-Lor works with in Minnesota are also mainly at charter schools.
Vu acknowledged that this had historically been a problem with Fresno Unified鈥檚 Spanish dual immersion schools, particularly when that program launched almost 20 years ago.
鈥淏efore we started adding more Spanish programs, they were all at choice schools, meaning that anybody can come, you know, if someone鈥檚 parents provide their own transportation,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut I think after a while, we realized that some neighborhood kids couldn鈥檛 get into the program because the interest was so high that they had to go into a lottery system.鈥�
鈥淣ow,鈥� she added, 鈥渁 lot of our DI (dual immersion) programs are (at) neighborhood schools, meaning that it鈥檚 just for those kids.鈥�
That includes the Hmong program at Vang Pao and Balderas. Students who live in the neighborhood surrounding either school have a streamlined path to enrolling in the program.
Meanwhile, students from other parts of the city must submit a transfer request form before entering into a lottery system for any available slots.
Most students enrolled in the program are Hmong, program leaders said.
But there are also a handful of students from different language backgrounds learning Hmong through the program too, such as 10-year-old Alexa Vera.
The fourth-grader at Vang Pao, who also speaks Spanish, told the Ed Lab she鈥檚 the only member of her family to speak Hmong. She鈥檚 becoming trilingual through the program.
Lee, Vang Pao鈥檚 principal, said she hopes to build the program鈥檚 capacity in the coming years to reach other parts of Fresno.
鈥淚 know there are still many kids and many parents across the district,鈥� she said, 鈥渢hat would love to be able to have this program near where they live.鈥�
Benefits of dual immersion
Studies have suggested a range of . That includes anything from improving students鈥� empathy to fighting off dementia later in life.
One of the most consistent findings demonstrates that dual immersion students score better than others on English language reading assessments.
A found that was true of both native English speakers and English learners who participated in dual immersion.
As for whether this is reflected in Fresno Unified鈥檚 data, the program at Vang Pao has only four years鈥� worth so far鈥攚ith at least two of those years upended by the pandemic and abrupt transition to distance learning. Balderas鈥� program has even fewer years of data to look at.
But initial results show promise.
Vang Pao students have outperformed the district as a whole on the English Language Arts category of the state鈥檚 Smarter Balanced assessments since 2016, before the program launched.
But the margin between Vang Pao鈥檚 performance and Fresno Unified has grown every year since the program鈥檚 launch.
In the 2017-18 school year, for example, 38.5% of Vang Pao students met or exceeded state ELA standards versus Fresno Unified鈥檚 36.8%鈥攇iving the students at Vang Pao an edge of about 1.7%.
Then, in the program鈥檚 first year, that edge got bigger: 41.5% of Vang Pao students met or exceeded ELA standards to FUSD鈥檚 38.3%, an over 3% difference.
Even in the wake of the pandemic, that margin has continued to grow.
In 2021-22, 36.1% of Vang Pao鈥檚 students met or exceeded the ELA standard while 32.2% of students districtwide, giving Vang Pao students an almost 4% advantage.
What鈥檚 next?
Still, even the existing data fails to give a complete picture of how the Hmong Dual Immersion program impacts students.
On the one hand, these are the results for the entire school鈥攏ot just the students at Vang Pao who are enrolled in the program.
On the other hand, these assessments only measure students鈥� proficiency in one of the two languages they鈥檙e learning.
That鈥檚 another problem: There is no accepted standard to measure Hmong literacy.
Fresno Unified developed its own Hmong benchmark assessment to assess students鈥� progress three times a year, according to district leaders. In the meantime, they hope to work with other districts on a standard.
鈥淲e鈥檙e partnering up with other Hmong colleagues across the nation that also have DLI programs to see if we can streamline our assessments,鈥� Vu said, 鈥渟o that way, it鈥檚 kind of like a common test that we can all use.鈥�
Xiong-Lor鈥檚 also helping lead nationwide efforts on that front.
鈥淏etween California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin,鈥� she said, 鈥渨e鈥檙e collaborating to work on these standards so that we can measure students across the board.鈥�
Still, not all the impacts of the programs can be pinned down by metrics. Like the joy of seeing your culture celebrated in school or learning about a new culture, Lee said.
鈥淵ou can see that in the excitement of the kids wanting to be a part of the Hmong dance or wanting to go to Hmong New Year,鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 measure that.鈥�
