| Meet the Hmong Studies Internet Resource Center Editor - Mark E. Pfeifer, PhD (Updated June 2012) |
Thank you for visiting my site - the Hmong Studies Internet Resource Center. Here
is some information about myself. Please feel free to contact me with your
questions and comments. My contact info is below.
Educational Background
I am a native of Madison, WI. I hold a B.A. in Urban Affairs from Marquette
University in Milwaukee. My undergraduate experiences at Marquette awakened
my interest in Urban issues and Social Justice concerns.
I became interested in the adaptation of Southeast Asian-origin immigrants and
refugees while working on my MA degree in Urban Studies at Temple University in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. My MA thesis looked at Vietnamese institutions,
businesses, and residential settlement in the Argyle Street neighborhood of
Chicago, Illinois as well as several Philadelphia neighborhoods including South
Philadelphia, Kensington, Olney, Logan, West Philadelphia, Mount Moriah, and
Upper Darby. At the time of my MA research I also began tutoring Vietnamese
immigrant adults as a volunteer for an ESL program run at a Vietnamese Catholic
Church in South Philadelphia. This engaging experience further sharpened my
interest in Vietnamese American culture and the adaptation of Vietnamese people
to life in North America.
A few years later I moved on to Canada to pursue a PhD in Geography at the
University of Toronto. For my PhD dissertation, I broadly studied Vietnamese
adaptation and the development of Vietnamese ethnic institutions in the Toronto
metropolitan area and Southern Ontario. During my time in Canada, I lived for 2
years with a Vietnamese family in the Downsview section of Toronto. I also
became very active tutoring Vietnamese youth who belonged to a Vietnamese
Catholic congregation. These terrific experiences informed my writing and analysis
in many ways.
I subsequently earned a second Master's degree, this time in Library Science from
the University of North Texas as I became involved in Librarianship.
Engagement in the Community
From 2000-2006 I was proud to serve as the Director of the Hmong Resource
Center Library at the Hmong Cultural Center located in St. Paul, MN. In this
position, endowed with extremely limited financial resources, I was gifted to be
able to build an institution which is now the largest centralized collection of
Hmong-related academic materials in the United States. For the past 10 years, I
have been the grantwriter for the Hmong Cultural Center and have helped the
center obtain numerous grants from Minnesota foundations as well as 3 grants
from the National Endowment for the Arts. I helped the Hmong Cultural Center set
up an ESL program to serve Hmong refugees arriving from Wat Tham Krabok in
Thailand between 2004-2006.
While at Hmong Cultural Center, I took a special interest in Human Rights and
Social Justice as well as Cultural Sensitivity issues. I helped the center's library
develop collections of articles going back 25 years related to race relations issues
and discrimination encountered by Hmong populations in the United States as well
as Human Rights concerns Hmong populations have encountered as a minority
group in Laos, Thailand, China and Vietnam. In recent years, I have served as an
advocate to federal and state lawmakers to try to ensure that elderly and disabled
Hmong refugees with medical waivers have access to culturally appropriate
classes taught in the Hmong language to help them earn U.S. citizenship.
In 2004, I helped the Hmong Cultural Center develop its successful Building
Bridges program of "Hmong 101" trainings about Hmong culture and history for
professionals and community members. Thousands of persons including many
health care workers, teachers and criminal justice system employees have
attended these trainings in Minnesota over the past several years. With an NEA
grant and local Arts funding support, I helped the Cultural Center develop the
Learn about Hmong website featuring videos and information about the Hmong
Cultural Arts. I still actively assist the Hmong Cultural Center as a grantwriter and
advisor to the organization's staff and board.
While residing in Saint Paul, I was also very involved in the Hmong community in
additional ways. From 2004-2006, I served as Co-Chair of the Hmong Resource
Fair. In 2006, I served on the local Minneapolis organizing committee of Hmong
National Development's annual Hmong National Conference.
Scholarly Interests and Accomplishments/Teaching
My current research interests are centered upon Hmong, Vietnamese, Cambodian,
and Lao demography, socioeconomic incorporation and institution-building in North
America. An example of a recent article I have published on this topic may be
viewed in the Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement.
Since 2003, I have served as editor of the Hmong Studies Journal, a peer
reviewed, scholarly research journal and have helped the journal develop content
sharing relationships with major scholarly database aggregators including EBSCO,
ProQuest, Gale/Cengage, H.W. Wilson and Asia Studies Full-Text. Since 2000, I
have been editor of a Hmong Studies newsletter and have been a bibliographer of
Hmong Studies research for several years.
In 2004, in partnership with Hmong National Development and several scholars, I
organized and produced the Hmong 2000 Census Publication which was probably
the most comprehensive assessment of Hmong demographics and census data
that has ever been made available.
Scarecrow/Rowman Littlefield published my Hmong Studies bibliography titled
Annotated Bibliography of Hmong-Related Works 1996-2006 in the Fall of 2007.
In 2009, I co-edited with Dr. Nicholas Tapp, A Hmao (Hua Miao) Songs, Stories
and Legends from China, a compilation of Ah Hmao (Hua Miao) folk songs and
folk stories published by Lincom. I am currently working on editing a
comprehensive scholarly anthology of articles related to Hmong Americans for the
University of Hawaii Press.
I have also built a Vietnamese-Studies related website which includes census data,
extensive bibliographies, and an online research library and academic journal.
I also currently serve on the editorial boards of the Journal of Southeast Asian
American Education and Advancement and the Journal of Lao Studies.
I currently serve as a Lecturer in Anthropology for the State University of New
York Institute of Technology in Utica, NY.
Librarianship
From July 2006 through October 2011, I was employed as an Academic Librarian
at Texas A and M University in Corpus Christi, Texas, a growing university of
10,000 students in the Gulf Coast region of South Texas. In this position, I work as
a Reference and Instruction Librarian, teach information literacy classes to
students (undergraduate and graduate students in various disciplines), coordinate
the library's database and resource guides and serve as a liaison to the Education
(Teacher Education, Educational Administration, Kinesiology, Athletic Training,
Counseling, Curriculum and Instruction and Special Education) Geography,
Geology, and GIS programs. I am also active in Librarianship as a Reviewer of
Ethnic Studies, Geography and Urban Studies books for CHOICE magazine and
for Multicultural Review. Both CHOICE and Multicultural Review are affiliated with
the American Library Association. At Texas A and M University, Corpus Christi I
have previously served on the University's Faculty Senate. In February 2011, I
passed my 5 year review (system of tenure review for librarians) and was
awarded continuing appointment as a professional librarian at the university. View
a webpage devoted to my work as an Academic Librarian at Texas A and M
University, Corpus Christi here.
View Mark's Curriculum Vitae
View Mark's Vita from Texas A and M University, Corpus Christi (July 2010)
View some newspaper articles (old and more recent) about Mark's work
View Some of Mark's Research Publications
View 10 years of issues of Mark's Hmong Studies Research Newsletter
Visit the Hmong Cultural Center Website
Visit Mark's Hmong Studies Site (including the Hmong Studies Journal)
Visit the LearnaboutHmong Website of which Mark is the Editor
Visit the WWW Hmong Homepage of which Mark is the Editor
Visit Mark's Vietnamese Studies Website
View Mark's Hmong Studies Research Message Board
Visit the Hmong Studies Journal's Facebook Page
Visit the Hmong Studies Journal's Twitter Page
Mark E. Pfeifer, PhD
editor@hmongstudies.org
pfeifem@sunyit.edu
is some information about myself. Please feel free to contact me with your
questions and comments. My contact info is below.
Educational Background
I am a native of Madison, WI. I hold a B.A. in Urban Affairs from Marquette
University in Milwaukee. My undergraduate experiences at Marquette awakened
my interest in Urban issues and Social Justice concerns.
I became interested in the adaptation of Southeast Asian-origin immigrants and
refugees while working on my MA degree in Urban Studies at Temple University in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. My MA thesis looked at Vietnamese institutions,
businesses, and residential settlement in the Argyle Street neighborhood of
Chicago, Illinois as well as several Philadelphia neighborhoods including South
Philadelphia, Kensington, Olney, Logan, West Philadelphia, Mount Moriah, and
Upper Darby. At the time of my MA research I also began tutoring Vietnamese
immigrant adults as a volunteer for an ESL program run at a Vietnamese Catholic
Church in South Philadelphia. This engaging experience further sharpened my
interest in Vietnamese American culture and the adaptation of Vietnamese people
to life in North America.
A few years later I moved on to Canada to pursue a PhD in Geography at the
University of Toronto. For my PhD dissertation, I broadly studied Vietnamese
adaptation and the development of Vietnamese ethnic institutions in the Toronto
metropolitan area and Southern Ontario. During my time in Canada, I lived for 2
years with a Vietnamese family in the Downsview section of Toronto. I also
became very active tutoring Vietnamese youth who belonged to a Vietnamese
Catholic congregation. These terrific experiences informed my writing and analysis
in many ways.
I subsequently earned a second Master's degree, this time in Library Science from
the University of North Texas as I became involved in Librarianship.
Engagement in the Community
From 2000-2006 I was proud to serve as the Director of the Hmong Resource
Center Library at the Hmong Cultural Center located in St. Paul, MN. In this
position, endowed with extremely limited financial resources, I was gifted to be
able to build an institution which is now the largest centralized collection of
Hmong-related academic materials in the United States. For the past 10 years, I
have been the grantwriter for the Hmong Cultural Center and have helped the
center obtain numerous grants from Minnesota foundations as well as 3 grants
from the National Endowment for the Arts. I helped the Hmong Cultural Center set
up an ESL program to serve Hmong refugees arriving from Wat Tham Krabok in
Thailand between 2004-2006.
While at Hmong Cultural Center, I took a special interest in Human Rights and
Social Justice as well as Cultural Sensitivity issues. I helped the center's library
develop collections of articles going back 25 years related to race relations issues
and discrimination encountered by Hmong populations in the United States as well
as Human Rights concerns Hmong populations have encountered as a minority
group in Laos, Thailand, China and Vietnam. In recent years, I have served as an
advocate to federal and state lawmakers to try to ensure that elderly and disabled
Hmong refugees with medical waivers have access to culturally appropriate
classes taught in the Hmong language to help them earn U.S. citizenship.
In 2004, I helped the Hmong Cultural Center develop its successful Building
Bridges program of "Hmong 101" trainings about Hmong culture and history for
professionals and community members. Thousands of persons including many
health care workers, teachers and criminal justice system employees have
attended these trainings in Minnesota over the past several years. With an NEA
grant and local Arts funding support, I helped the Cultural Center develop the
Learn about Hmong website featuring videos and information about the Hmong
Cultural Arts. I still actively assist the Hmong Cultural Center as a grantwriter and
advisor to the organization's staff and board.
While residing in Saint Paul, I was also very involved in the Hmong community in
additional ways. From 2004-2006, I served as Co-Chair of the Hmong Resource
Fair. In 2006, I served on the local Minneapolis organizing committee of Hmong
National Development's annual Hmong National Conference.
Scholarly Interests and Accomplishments/Teaching
My current research interests are centered upon Hmong, Vietnamese, Cambodian,
and Lao demography, socioeconomic incorporation and institution-building in North
America. An example of a recent article I have published on this topic may be
viewed in the Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement.
Since 2003, I have served as editor of the Hmong Studies Journal, a peer
reviewed, scholarly research journal and have helped the journal develop content
sharing relationships with major scholarly database aggregators including EBSCO,
ProQuest, Gale/Cengage, H.W. Wilson and Asia Studies Full-Text. Since 2000, I
have been editor of a Hmong Studies newsletter and have been a bibliographer of
Hmong Studies research for several years.
In 2004, in partnership with Hmong National Development and several scholars, I
organized and produced the Hmong 2000 Census Publication which was probably
the most comprehensive assessment of Hmong demographics and census data
that has ever been made available.
Scarecrow/Rowman Littlefield published my Hmong Studies bibliography titled
Annotated Bibliography of Hmong-Related Works 1996-2006 in the Fall of 2007.
In 2009, I co-edited with Dr. Nicholas Tapp, A Hmao (Hua Miao) Songs, Stories
and Legends from China, a compilation of Ah Hmao (Hua Miao) folk songs and
folk stories published by Lincom. I am currently working on editing a
comprehensive scholarly anthology of articles related to Hmong Americans for the
University of Hawaii Press.
I have also built a Vietnamese-Studies related website which includes census data,
extensive bibliographies, and an online research library and academic journal.
I also currently serve on the editorial boards of the Journal of Southeast Asian
American Education and Advancement and the Journal of Lao Studies.
I currently serve as a Lecturer in Anthropology for the State University of New
York Institute of Technology in Utica, NY.
Librarianship
From July 2006 through October 2011, I was employed as an Academic Librarian
at Texas A and M University in Corpus Christi, Texas, a growing university of
10,000 students in the Gulf Coast region of South Texas. In this position, I work as
a Reference and Instruction Librarian, teach information literacy classes to
students (undergraduate and graduate students in various disciplines), coordinate
the library's database and resource guides and serve as a liaison to the Education
(Teacher Education, Educational Administration, Kinesiology, Athletic Training,
Counseling, Curriculum and Instruction and Special Education) Geography,
Geology, and GIS programs. I am also active in Librarianship as a Reviewer of
Ethnic Studies, Geography and Urban Studies books for CHOICE magazine and
for Multicultural Review. Both CHOICE and Multicultural Review are affiliated with
the American Library Association. At Texas A and M University, Corpus Christi I
have previously served on the University's Faculty Senate. In February 2011, I
passed my 5 year review (system of tenure review for librarians) and was
awarded continuing appointment as a professional librarian at the university. View
a webpage devoted to my work as an Academic Librarian at Texas A and M
University, Corpus Christi here.
View Mark's Curriculum Vitae
View Mark's Vita from Texas A and M University, Corpus Christi (July 2010)
View some newspaper articles (old and more recent) about Mark's work
View Some of Mark's Research Publications
View 10 years of issues of Mark's Hmong Studies Research Newsletter
Visit the Hmong Cultural Center Website
Visit Mark's Hmong Studies Site (including the Hmong Studies Journal)
Visit the LearnaboutHmong Website of which Mark is the Editor
Visit the WWW Hmong Homepage of which Mark is the Editor
Visit Mark's Vietnamese Studies Website
View Mark's Hmong Studies Research Message Board
Visit the Hmong Studies Journal's Facebook Page
Visit the Hmong Studies Journal's Twitter Page
Mark E. Pfeifer, PhD
editor@hmongstudies.org
pfeifem@sunyit.edu
