Sib Hlub Sib Pab as Cultural Capital: Community Cultural Wealth, Radical Love, and a HMoob Language Teacher’s Determination

Abstract

This theoretical article examines a form of cultural capital, sib hlub sib pab as capital, that emerged out of my dissertation research with HMoob American teachers. Drawing on the structure of Yosso’s (2005) theory of community cultural wealth (CCW) and literature on radical love (Freire, 1970; hooks, 2003, 2006), this article outlines an alternative form of cultural capital: sib hlub sib pab as capital, which encompasses an obligation to community and relationality rooted in radical love. Although this is a primarily theoretical article, I provide an excerpt from an interview with a HMoob language teacher and her struggles with building curriculum in isolation and with few resources, as well as her determination to develop curriculum for future generations of teachers and students of HMoob language that counter logics of property. I conclude by focusing on sib hlub sib pab as capital as an emergent idea that retains critical connections to HMoob ways of knowing in this world.