The Wisconsin Hmong Resettlement Taskforce: An Ethnographic Analysis of Public Policy as a Cultural Process and Product

This thesis focuses on the Governor of Wisconsin’s Hmong Resettlement Taskforce that was charged in 2004 with making policy recommendations for the State about a large resettlement of Hmong refugees. Through participant-observation, interviews, and document analysis, the process of policy formation by the Taskforce is examined. This empirical, ethnographic study depicts this taskforce as a group of cultural agents and its work as a cultural process. Findings in this thesis center on the taskforce report and the constraints on the narrative that limited possible recommendations