How St. Kate’s Taught Me to Belong to Myself

For a long time, my world was split in two. At home, I was a traditional Hmong daughter, living within a culture that demanded a specific kind of quietness and duty. But the moment I stepped into my high school, I morphed. I became "American"—blending in, smoothing over my edges, and hiding the parts of me that didn't fit. I was bifurcated, a person living two separate lives, never quite sure how to bring them together.

That changed in 2009 when I stepped onto the campus of St. Catherine University. To many, "St. Kate’s" is a respected institution in St. Paul known for nursing and social work. To me, it became the place where my two worlds finally collided and made sense.

It started with a course every first-year student takes: The Reflective Woman. The title wasn’t just a suggestion; it was an invitation to deep, often painful, introspection. For the first time, I was encouraged to look at my cultural roots not as a burden to hide, but as a history to be researched. I began to dig into my parents' past and our people’s journey. Understanding their history helped me find empathy for their strictness—I started to see the "why" behind the prohibitions and the traditions that had previously felt like walls.

In high school, history was a single, linear track of American events. At St. Kate’s, my professors—specifically my advisor, Sharon Doherty—opened the door to a different kind of scholarship. When I wanted to write about my mother or the Hmong woman’s experience, they didn’t tell me it wasn't "academic" enough. Instead, they handed me books written by Hmong women. They validated my hunger for my own story.

But the classroom was only half the battle. Growing up in the early 2000s, the pressure to marry young was heavy. In my community at that time, pursuing higher education was still a radical act for many girls; there was a lingering fear that if you waited too long to marry, you’d become an "old maid." Being the first in my family to go to college was terrifying, but I wasn't alone. Because St. Kate’s was a hub for Hmong students in the Twin Cities, I found myself surrounded by other young women navigating the exact same tightrope.

Together, we grappled with how to be vocal and educated while remaining culturally sensitive. We were learning to advocate for ourselves at the dinner table just as much as in the lecture hall.

I remember a pivotal moment in an "Introduction to Women’s Studies" course with Sharon. I had written a paper fueled by raw frustration, essentially stating that I hated my culture because I felt it oppressed me. Sharon, a cultural anthropologist, challenged me in a way I’ll never forget. She reminded me that my feminism didn't have to look like white feminism. She encouraged me to find a way to stand up for myself that was culturally grounded—to be a Hmong feminist.

Through those four years, I learned how to "morph" in a healthy way. I learned to look at my history and decide: This is what I love and what I will carry forward. And this is the piece that no longer serves me, the piece I want to change.

By the time I graduated in 2013, I was no longer a person divided. St. Kate’s gave me the resources to build a core value system that honored both my Hmong roots and my American future. It was the place that finally allowed me to be whole.

Growing up, my understanding of my Hmong culture was defined by the kitchen and the scrap pile. I watched the women in my family—my mother, my aunts, and myself—spend days scrubbing and cooking, only to stand by as the men ate first. We took what was left. When important decisions were being made, the men sat at the table; we were excluded from the conversation entirely.

As a teenager, this bothered me deeply. By the time I got to college at St. Kate’s, I was ready to push back. I wrote a paper arguing that being a feminist meant throwing those traditions away. I wanted to challenge my culture, to strip it down, and to get rid of the things that felt like chains.

But then, my professor, Sharon, called me into her office. She told me she wasn't ready to grade my paper—not because I had failed, but because she wanted me to look deeper. She introduced me to the concept of colonialism and challenged me to see where Hmong women did have agency and power. She didn't want me to believe that being a Hmong woman meant "life just sucks."

She gave me a book on cultural anthropology that changed my perspective. I began to understand that our gender roles were rooted in the survival needs of our ancestors in Laos and Thailand. Back then, there was a clear distinction: women managed everything inside the home, while men focused on the outside. Men ate first because they had to rush out to hunt or fulfill duties.

In the U.S., that context was gone. My uncles and father weren't rushing off to hunt; they were just sitting around. The ritual no longer made sense, but understanding its origin allowed me to move from resentment to empathy. I spent the next four years learning how to advocate for change within my family and the Hmong society not through dismissal, but through compassion for my elders.

Even as I grew intellectually, my daily life was a tug-of-war between two worlds. As the oldest daughter, I was expected to be a "second mom." While my peers at school were diving into student life, many of my Hmong friends were stuck commuting because their parents wouldn't allow them to live on campus; they were needed for chores and child-rearing.

I was "privileged" enough to live on campus only because I didn't have a driver's license and we lived too far away to commute. Yet, even then, I wasn't entirely free. Every weekend, I was expected to return home to babysit while my parents attended clan functions. I vividly remember the struggle of trying to write academic papers while managing a house full of children.

Independence was a constant battle. My parents’ strictness came from a place of deep-seated fear—a "catastrophic thinking" born from their own history. They were terrified of what might happen to their daughters in a world they didn't fully trust. They would call me twice a day, every day, even at 10:00 PM: "Are you in your bed? Are you in your dorm?"

Navigating those years meant balancing the weight of my family’s expectations with the person I was becoming. I learned that evolving didn't mean leaving my culture behind; it meant understanding its past so I could help shape a more equitable future.

The "policing" didn’t stop when I moved into my dorm. Even though I was a serious student at St. Kate’s—surrounded by other women who were just as focused as I was—my mother’s voice followed me through the phone. She was terrified that independence meant "partying," a fear rooted in a deep, protective instinct to keep me safe from a world she didn't fully understand.

By my junior year, I realized that if I was ever going to truly own my life, I had to do something radical. I decided to study abroad in India.

It was a terrifying leap. My faculty and staff at St. Kate’s had watched the power struggle between my parents and me for years. They saw how my family demanded I come home every weekend, arguing that "if you’re on campus, you’re up to no good," and insisting I could do my homework just as well at the kitchen table while babysitting. I knew I needed to go somewhere where they couldn't reach me—somewhere I couldn't just take a bus home for the weekend.

For three months in India, I had no phone. There were no 10:00 PM check-ins. It was my first real taste of making my own decisions, and while it was a shock to my parents' system, it was the catalyst for all of us to grow.

My mother often says that my college experience opened her eyes just as much as it did mine. My parents never had the luxury of self-exploration; they arrived in this country and went straight to work to ensure I had the opportunities they didn't. By pushing those boundaries, I wasn't just gaining independence; I was teaching them to trust me. Today, my younger siblings have a completely different version of our parents—they are softer, more trusting, and less fearful because I did the heavy lifting of breaking those old patterns first.

Being the oldest of five, I had always been the "second mom," especially to my half-siblings who are fifteen years younger than me. My mother relied on me for everything, yet, in her own way, she was the one who made me a feminist. While my father held onto cultural warnings that an educated daughter would only find trouble, my mother was the one who pushed him to let me go. She was my silent partner in every classroom.

I eventually focused my academic research on Hmong women—their history, their contributions, and how education was shifting our roles in the U.S. I would bring my research home and share it with my mother. We would sit and talk, and she would bridge the gap between the "facts" in my textbooks and the lived reality of her life. She would point out what the academic books missed, like the vital spiritual role Hmong women play in protecting their families.

In those moments, I realized that we were learning together. I wasn't just studying Hmong women; I was honoring her. Through those four years at St. Kate’s, I didn't just find my own voice—I helped my mother find a new way to see hers.

Years later, I still keep in touch with the faculty at St. Kate’s. While the university has had to make difficult structural shifts—consolidating its Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses and closing departments like music to navigate a changing financial landscape—the core mission remains untouched. It is still a place that educates women to lead and influence, and it remains a vital anchor for Hmong women.

In a culture where sons are often preferred over daughters, St. Kate’s serves as a "safe playground" for Hmong women to find solidarity. Growing up, I was timid. I had opinions I was dying to share, but I lacked the courage to voice them within my family. St. Kate’s changed that. Through a collaborative leadership atmosphere that stretched from the dorms to the classrooms, I was nurtured until my timidness gave way to confidence.

That confidence became a tool I brought home. Because I had a safe place to practice my voice without judgment, I became a better advocate for my family. When my younger siblings struggled with mental health or school, I knew how to stand up for them. When my relatives were lost in the complexities of the healthcare system, I had the communication skills and the backbone to help them navigate it. My education wasn't just a degree; it was the building block that allowed me to contribute to my community’s survival and well-being.

St. Kate’s approach to leadership is holistic. It isn't about training you to be a manager at a company; it’s about how you want to live your life and the impact you want to make. They bookend your experience with two transformative courses. You start your first year with "The Reflective Woman," where you spend months discerning your values and digging into your identity. Then, before you graduate, you take "The Search for Social Justice."

That final course asks you to take everything you’ve learned about yourself and your major and apply it to the world. It forces you to define justice and equity for yourself and then execute a project that puts those definitions into action. For me, that journey from reflection to justice is what defined my time there. I didn’t just walk away with a diploma; I walked away as a leader who knew exactly who she was and what kind of difference she intended to make.

When I finally put my research on paper, it felt like I was releasing a part of myself. I had spent years investigating the impact of education on Hmong women, and the response was overwhelming. People reached out to interview me, asking where I had found my sources, surprised by the depths I had uncovered. It was a powerful realization: my personal struggle wasn’t just mine—it was a map for others navigating the same terrain.

My research focused on second-generation Hmong Americans—those of us born here to parents who immigrated from Laos or Thailand. Through my double major in Women’s Studies and Sociology, I began to see education as a double-edged sword. It is a tool for liberation, yes, but it can also be a tool of colonization.

I lived that tension every day. My grandparents would look at me and say, "I don’t know you anymore," because I spoke and thought differently. It was a painful irony: they wanted us to come to this country for an education, but once we attained it, that same education created a barrier. Roles were reversed. I would come home and try to talk to my elders about things I’d learned, like the importance of life insurance, and they would push back, saying, "Because you went to college, you think you’re so smart."

Navigating those family dynamics—the "role reversal" where the child becomes the one explaining the world to the parent—was at the heart of my work. I learned that while higher education brings immense positives, it also brings the heavy drawback of cultural friction.

Today, my life looks very different on the surface. I work as a program manager at an insurance firm, focusing on strategy and execution. It’s a different part of my brain than the one I used to write my thesis, but my background in social science is never far away. Culture is always morphing, and the human experience is the foundation of everything, including business.

Even though I’m no longer in a classroom, I’ve never stopped being a scholar of my own identity. I carry the lessons of St. Kate's—the confidence to lead, the empathy for my elders, and the commitment to social justice—into every strategy meeting I lead. My education didn't just give me a career; it gave me the tools to bridge the gap between where my family came from and where we are going.