Cultural Conflict and Adaptation (1990) examines the alienation and cultural conflicts faced at school by the children of a small group of Hmong who have settled in La Playa, California. The educational process for these children is an example of cultural conflict and adjustment patterns which may be found in many other populations in the world.

The Hmong people, with a total population of about 5 million, have a long history of statelessness and migration. About 90,000 Hmong have entered America as war refugees in the last 15 years. This study looks at the history and plight of the Hmong and the way in which such a minority fits into the American dream. More specifically the book examines the problems faced by the children of a small group of Hmong who have settled in La Playa, in East Central California. The study looks at the alienation and culture conflict faced by children in such minorities in the USA.

This volume presents the personal accounts of African American, Asian American, and Latino faculty who use 'narratives of struggles' to describe the challenges they faced in order to become bona fide members of the U.S. Academy. These narratives show how survival and success require a sophisticated knowledge of the politics of academia, insider knowledge of the requirements of legitimacy in scholarly efforts, and resourceful approach to facing dilemmas between cultural values, traditional racist practices, and academic resilience. The book also explores the empowerment process of these individuals who have created a new self without rejecting their 'enduring' self, the self strongly connected to their ethno/racial cultures and groups. Within the process of self -redefinition, this new faculty confronted racism, sexism, rejection, the clash of cultural values, and structural indifference to cultural diversity. The faculty recounts how they ultimately learned the skillful accommodation to all of these issues. It is through the analysis of survival and self-definition that women and faculty of color will establish a powerful foothold in the new academy of the twenty-first century.