investing in houses

I had a really interesting conversation with someone yesterday about investing in houses.

We were walking down the streets in Columbia Heights, where there are dozens of for sale signs, and were talking about the old group house I used to live in.

The man that owned the house owned several houses in Washington, DC's Northwest quadrant. From 1810, he used to make well over 3 grand a month from the rent. Sheer profit because the homes were paid for. Sheer profit because he inherited the houses and didn't even have to shell out the money to buy them in the first place. I guess his family started buying and investing in homes all over Mt. Pleasant back in the days . . and this guy just inherited them. He probably makes over 10 grand just from renting them out.

When I think about this, it makes me feel a little sick. Maybe it's because I am a bit naive (or that I have too much faith in humanity) . . but I assumed that this kind of profit making on the backs of working class people who can't afford to buy a home themselves and must rent . . would also make others feel sick.

I was little taken aback when my friend told me that it was genius. She felt investing in home is such a smart tactic . . and that she had been thinking about doing it herself. She said that while she would probably never have a job that would allow her to come up with a down payment for a home where she would want to live . . she could probably come up with a down payment for a home in a neighborhood that she could rent out. She would rent out the home in the other neighborhood . . and then when the market goes up, she would sell it and use the profit for the down payment on a home where she would actually want to live.

While I guess she thought this makes absolute sense (and hey, maybe it does), I was taken aback. I think I was taken aback for two reasons.

First, amid the housing crisis . . I wondered by ANYONE would do that. I shared stories of my relatives who purchased a home, then rented it out, then purchased a larger home . . and just lived for free because the rent from one home used to cover the mortage of both homes. She said that was really smart. I said that they were being greedy . . and while they were my family, housing foreclosures were apart of karma.

Second, I was also taken aback because my friend who I was walking with identifies as being liberal and progressive. She even goes as far as to call her self a hippie. How could someone who identifies with being progressive even think about make profit on the backs of working class people who (whether it is because of preference or not) have to rent.

Maybe I'm just making assumptions that most people, if given the opportunity, would buy a house to make their home rather than rent it. Maybe I'm just being naive again or maybe I just don't really understand what this is really about.

After her logic on how to invest in houses, I said, "I don't know if I agree with that," and went on to bring up my perspective. "So, you're saying that you want to make money by renting out a house to people who can't afford houses? Probably a young family that if given the opportunity to buy a house at a good deal . . would probably buy it . . except investors come in first to grab the hot deals and they are forced to just rent because investors want to make a buck?"

Maybe it's just very Buddhist of me . . but I think that if you're not going to live in a house and actually make it your home . . you should probably let someone who does intend to live there and make it their home buy the house themselves. Maybe it's just very Southeast Asian of me because back in Laos and China, you can't just claim land without occupying it and renting it to someone else. If you claim land and leave it vacant, you lose the land to someone who does have some use to it. Maybe it's very indigenous of me to think that land can't be bought, sold, and rented unless you need it or unless you want to cultivate it . . because everyone needs a land . . everyone needs a home and who are you to come in and try to rent land or a home to someone else when you already have adequate space for yourself? Maybe it's very refugee-like or working class of me to think too seriously of homes because my parents bought our five bedroom house in san diego for $110,000 in 1986 . . when they were making $3.25 an hour. Maybe it just freaks me out to think that if people in the mid-80s were going around investing in affordable homes in new and not so nice areas . . my life growing up would have been completely different and my family probably would have been thrown on my streets in highschool.

I've seen entire neighborhoods of newly developed and affordable houses be bought by investors. Temecula, California. My relatives were guilty of such doing. When people who actually want to live there come in, the price has already skyrocketed because of these investors . . and they're forced to rent from the investors who already took the good deals.

My friend went on to talk about her mother. Maybe she sensed that I was feeling really offended and wanted to remind me of her modest upbringing. She talked about how her mother has no savings and is actually in a lot of debt. Investing in a house would not only help her save enough money to buy a home for herself . . but it would also help her help her mom get out of debt.

This comment made me think. How dare she try to bring up the hardships her mom has gone through (and is currently going through) to justify such actions? Maybe her mom is stuggling . . but how does that justify taking advantage of other people who are also probably struggling?

To preface this . . I guess I should share that over my friendship with this person . . she's shared with me a lot of stories about her mother. How she was definitely an unconventional mother who didn't cook and moved around a lot and never really had a stable job. With that in mind, I think this conversation also brought up a lot of personal questions I've had over the years regarding people who are struggling because of institutional injustices . . and people who (dare I say) are struggling because of an inability to get their shit together.

I guess that makes me sound very conservative. Or at least it sounds like something my brother or sister would say about those on unemployment, youth who are at risk, or folks who need help through governmental assistance programs.

Maybe it's my own pull your self up by your bootstraps mentality after seeing my parents, who barely speak english and have never made more than $10 an hour -- raise three children who went to college.

Maybe I am moderate in some ways. Or maybe I am conservative in other ways. However, how could someone who claims to be progressive and wants to study urban planning feel good about making a profit in this manner?

How can someone who says she values "community" think it's a good idea to invest in houses by buying them then renting them out?

When we got to our destination, I guess it was obvious I was a little sick and I didn't want to talk about it anymore. I guess this was somewhat of a reality check. Welcome to Washington, DC . . the land of single issues and where progressive in one issue . . doesn't necessarily mean progressive on all issues.

washington dc's quadrants

today i went on a wild adventure to seek my reproductive rights.

ha.  okay, i'm being dramatic.  i just went on a mission to washington dc's planned parenthood in northeast.

so i guess this story starts off before today.  it starts off two weeks ago when i made my women's annual appointment.  she had a 6 to 8 week waiting period . . which meant i wouldn't be able to get my new prescription for birth control until then.  that poses a problem . . seeing that i dont just take the little suckers for "fun."

i called planned parenthood in northeast (which is like a few blocks from work) but of course, they wouldn't be able to see me until the end of december.  that would be too late.

so i called planned parenthood in northeast.  i thought, hey can't be that bad.  i've been to northeast to grab furniture.  it's metro/bus accessible.  worst comes to worst, i get to see more of the district.

&& seeing the district is what i did.

my adventure today not only helped me claim my reproductive rights as a womyn . . but it also confirmed my thoughts on dc's deep segregation issues.  

as i rode the 68 bus from my house south towards downtown . . most of my fellow passengers were blacks and latinos.  as i got closer to the "newly revitalized" u street corridor . . most of my fellow passengers got lighter.  all of these passengers got off somewhere between  dupont and gallery place.  very typical.

then i hopped onto bus to head east.  next thing you know, i was the only non-african american on the bus.  i felt like i was on a bus heading to work at banteay srei again . . and that really comforted me.

maybe it's because sarah jo keeps makign comments about how many abandoned houses are in our neighborhood.  or that women keep talking about not walking around late at night . . but i've been feeling TOO comfortable in dc lately.  or that i've come to live amongst people who just really LIKE being TOO comfortable.  maybe too comfortable is good.  too comfortable could also be too safe.  could also be too happy.

i guess i should recognize my privilege in being able to ride buses all around town, feel safe in my own home, etc . . but i dont know if i want to wake up one day feeling overly sensitive about my surroundings . . or feeling less grounded in the "real" world.

"Progress"

"I hope that one day the minority will be in power and not do what they were taught to do."

today i was waiting for the bus with one of my new friends and we had an interesting conversation.

we were talking about progress in the southeast asian community.

the conversation started because she's cambodian and she grew up in minnesota.  i asked how it was like growing up there and how the cambodian community was out there.  she mentioned that it got dramatically larger and i asked where were most folks coming from.

she said california.

as someone who grew up in california and experienced many people who were forced to leave because of dwindling opportunities, i said, yeah.  that does happen.  especially after companies close and folks realize california is just so expensive.

however, she expressed that while that may be the case, she thought it was better.  she felt that it was good that people could actually move and that when they did move, it allowed they to progress.  

she thought that while having big communities in one place was good in some ways . . she thought that sometimes communities also hold people down or back.  she cited lowell . . where cambodian folks stayed even though staying meant they stayed poor.

i responded that i guess it depended on what you meant by progress.

she defined progress as job opportunities, educational attainment, independence from social welfare programs . .

at that point, i realized that we looked at progress and community development from different perspectives.  all the things she listed . . i felt were things that her american teachers taught her meant progress.  all the things that she mentioned was progress . . were all western definitions of progress.

maybe i'm a bit biased . . but to me . . progress is the low-income communities i grew up in.  where we used to be able to fill up an entire temple with just tai lue folks.  where our samakom threw huge new years parties.  where my mother used to dress up for new years and dance with dozens of other mothers.  where my dad had friends and family to watch football with on sunday afternoons.  where i had a cousin living on every block within a ten block radius . .

thats how i remember growing up poor was like.

now, according to her standards . . i guess we've progressed.  my parents own a home.  malisa, james, and i all graduated from universities.  i make probably twice as much money an hour than my mom and dad would ever make.  my rent is more than the mortgage my parents paid for our entire house.  i shop for groceries at whole foods.  

but then again . . my grandma goes to temple with about a handful of other older women.  san diego's lue samakom doesn't have new years parties anymore . . heck, we barely have a board of directors.  my mom no longer has girlfriends to dance with . . much less stay on her feet for longer than 30 minutes at a time.  my dad eats all his meals alone.  and the kids i grew up are spread out into 4 other states.

i guess we're progressed.

but heck, if this is "progress" . . it sure is lonely.

back in washington, dc

(i've been really bad at this whole blogging thing . . i used to blame that on the whole no internet thing . . but now i guess i can't blame anything but myself).

i arrive in dc on saturday, again.  packed, again.  5 hour plane ride, again.

however, the day and half before i left san diego was absolutely wonderful wonderful.

allen, cammille and i went to Morse High School's homecoming game.  The first Morse night time game I've ever been to.  Mrs. B says they've been having one a season.  You see, in the early 90s, there used to be a lot of drive bys at our football games and the neighborhood used to complain about the lights . . so we used to only have day time games.  

the game was fun.  it was almost like i was at some la jolla or torrey pines football game.  it was at night, there was a band (we didn't have that either back then), the seats were packed.

Also, it was really nice to see that our cheer squad was still completely women of color.

after the game, allen, pam, and darlene came over for spring rolls, beer, strawberry shortcake, and politically incorrect champagne.  we got stuffed and drunk all at the same time.  it was good times . . 

next day went to the temple with mama.  saw my grandparents.  grandpa wished me luck and while he was typing my wrists . . i cried like a baby.

it breaks my heart to think that he won't be with us for very long . . and here i go to the other side of the country again.

elections

i got into what almost seemed like a full blown argument with my sister today about the campaign.

it all started when the Obama campaign from Colorado called me to check in with me about my travel and housing plans.  Since I was staying with my sister, they asked if I would have access to a car.  In turn, I asked my sister if she would let me borrow her car to get around the city.

she went on to tell me how she didn't support my endeavors and that she wouldn't let me borrow her car and reaffirmed that she wasn't going to house any strange liberal obama supporter either.

hmm.  i guess this was a wake up call in many ways.

1. In regards to politics, my sister was a lot more conservative than I thought she was.  Because she is not a citizen, she's never really had to decide who and what to vote for.  We've always agreed on womyn's issues and always disagreed on immigration issues . . but she's never blatantly told me that she will not support me and endeavors.
2. In regards to lifestyle, my sister is relatively close-minded.  Since my siblings lived at home through out college, the idea of housing strangers, sleeping wherever it's free, etc. is weird for them.  Even though her housemate is queer, she works for a non-profit, and she attempts to be green . . i think this is more about convenience than about preference.

i guess it's a good thing i'm moving.  my siblings has proven to continuously scapegoat me, ridicule my politics and lifestyle, and discount my accomplishments and reasoning.

what a shame.  they seem to think that their college degrees and higher incomes make them any less the children of refugees than i am.

maybe my parents should have just stayed in laos.  i wonder how well my siblings would have been at raising water buffalo and growing rice.

family and community

i've been feeling sick this past weekend . . so i finished Dreams From My Father in just a few days.

it made me think about a lot of things.  

. . it made me regret not keeping a journal while i was in china and laos.

. . it made me scared at the idea of moving back to dc.

. . it made me excited to go to colorado to work on the campaign.

other than finishing the book, i would say i had a really good week with my parents and family in general.  in all honestly, it's been a while.

i guess the good week all started on tuesday when i went to temple with my mom and my grandma.  i hadn't been to the temple for something like this for over four years (since I went to college), which is sad seeing that i was raised by probably the most religious man in san diego's tai lue community and probably learned how to make paper flowers and candles for the temple before i properly learned how to talk.

it was nice.  we got there at around 8am and waited for everyone else to trickle in; except that never happened.  you see, san diego's tai lue community has dissipated into just a few homes.  some of our relatives from temecula came down . . which helped, but before we used to pack the vihan.  things didn't get crowded until about 11am when the lao community started to arrive.

while the morning was nice, it was also sad to see that the community i wanted to come home to was practically all gone.

regardless, it was still nice.  my grandma made fun of the way my skirt kept falling apart everytime i sat down (i still have not mastered the whole fold over skirt thing -- when i was a kid, my mom used to just sew in buttons so it would stay put).  my other grandmas kept giving me food and candy because they were scared i was hungry.  the hussle and bussle of trying to tuk-baht.  seeing my poor grandpa falling asleep in the corner on the other side of the room.  trying to massage my grandma's legs . . which at the age of 74 can't just sit for hours without stretching anymore.

this week was what i imagined being home would be like.  unfortunately, this wasn't the same i've been having the past month and a half . . and unfortunately, i may be leaving again relatively soon.

jobs

I was searching for jobs today and I found this Advocates position that had a really interesting Skills and Requirements.

"Recovering ex-offender preferred."

There are so few opportunities for recovering ex-offenders.  This kind of gives me hope that there is room for change and progress for people in our society.

bedtime stories.

one thing i really love about my partner is that he tells me bedtime stories at night before i go to sleep.

this one was really cute because he texted it to me.

Once upon a time there was this squirrel that took a nap cause he waited for someone to get back to him because he sent some nuts but never heard back from the other person.  So he wakes up from his nap and sends some more nuts out just to see if his partner got to them, but still no answer.  So finally, he sends out the last set of nuts along with a note saying, "i miss you and i hope you feel comfortable and are able to get some rest till you reach your destination.  I hope to hear from you again someday.  -love, mr. lonely squirrel."

Glimpse back into my past life.

i wrote a blog about my last day in dc and my first day back in san diego . . but it was saved on razzy and she has since gone crazy on me.

anyway.  today something really beautiful happened.

i've been back at home for over a week now and this week it has finally started to sink in that i was in fact, here.  in san diego.  sleeping in the same pepto bismol room.  with all my high school photos on the wall.  with my father dropping me off and picking me where i wanted to go.

For some reason, I was sent a facebook message about the immigration rally in sacramento.  Finally, a glimpse back into my past life.  I assumed it was from CHIRLA, since they work with RWG.  But I was all sad when my attempts to try to connect my high school friends to this great opportunity to meet organizers and be apart of social change were shot down.  

Because of time.  

Because of money.

Because of apathy.

I gave up on the idea.

However, while I was trying to set up a coffee to catch up with a friend who i met at the students of color conference, i found out that he was also planning on going to the immigration rally.  I told him about the money issue.

• Him: Oh, it's all free.  All you have to pay for is food.  Unless you want to freegan.
• Me: wtf is freegan?
• Him: You know, dig through the trash for food people throw away . .
• Me: you mean . . DUMPSTER DIVE?
• Him: Yeah, that.

MUAH-HAHAHA.

That was great.  I need to hang out with the people he hangs out with.

(re)grouping to (re)leave.

since my last blog, a lot has happened.
mainly, i relearned what it meant to have a clashing of cultures.

ever since i got back from being abroad, i tried really hard to be good to my family.

understanding.
considerate.
cognizant of my parents struggles.

i went through my last year of college working with youth who didn't quite understand the rice farming villages or the sewage filled cities that there was a reason why their parents acted the way they did.

that they weren't crazy.
that they've been through a lot.
that as their children, we needed to try to understand where they were coming from.

i thought i had already worked through the riff between san diego and sipsonpana.

between 1st generation and 2nd generation.
between daughter and father.
between lue and lue-american.

however, i guess sometimes the too good to be true riff that i have somehow believed i'd built and looked forward to nurturing in san diego was just that. too good to be true.

my dad always told me that his kids were like birds. when their wings get strong, they fly away. but me, the youngest daughter was a little different. even though my wings were as strong, i always remembered to fly home because i lived abroad.

i knew the most about what it was like for them to flee three different countries and two different conflicts. i read it in books. i listened to stories; both in the states and in china, laos, and thailand. i asked questions. i asked too many questions. i asked all the questions no one else wanted to ask.

i validated their stories.
i asked about it.
i jotted it down in my little notebooks.
i wrote papers about it.
i got their stories published.
i validated their stories.

but instead of being proud of my little bridge, they smashed it. they wanted to bring it down. they wanted me to be american by going to an elite university.
they wanted me to be american by going back to see family left in Southeast Asian and telling them that, yes, we all assimilated and did "well."
they wanted me to be american by studying to go to law school.

but, they wanted me to be lue by coming home. they wanted me to come home so they can watch and monitor that i wasn't TOO american. that i wasn't galloping around the world or the country embarssing them.

my mom told me that yes, coming home meant that everything was free. free food. free rent. free utilities. but what does all that free stuff mean if i would not have freedom?

coming "home"

re-reading some of my old blog posts has really reaffirmed my decision to move back home this fall.

i know someday (probably when my student loans start to mail in their bills) I will look back and be like, "damn, you gave up that salary to move back to san diego?"

i'm excited though.

i'm excited to move back to san diego and develop some real hobbies. not just reading where i would only read the things i needed to for class . . because there really wasn't anytime for anything else. not just jogging . . because i know i haven't done that seriously since first year of college. not just swimming . . because thats what i did in thailand . . and there aren't exactly any nice natural bodies of water around the berkeley area.

i'm excited to learn how to cook and sew with my grandma; to garden on the weekends with my grandparents; to play with my big fat puppy thats over ten years old now and has no front teeth . . and most importantly, to re-learn how to live and give back to the community that i grew up in.

YEE!

reinspired

i've been feeling really drained and horrible about work lately . . but today. today was different.

honors reception

today in my honors class . . we were talking about our honors reception.

we all concluded that it was going to be a hella awkward night with all of our parents just standing around not really knowing what to say to each other.

my parents are coming.

it's going to be great. i can't wait to introduce them to all my classmate's bougie parents and show them . . yes. my mama and papa were refugees, barely speak english, and probably work two times as much to make half the amount of money . . but they raised me and made it possible for me to go to college and write a 60 page paper about their journey and our struggle.

school.

i think i need to withdraw from school.

but i can't.
i have like five weeks left.
i'm on the degree list.
my parents have their plane tickets to come up.
my financial aid told me they won't pay for my college anymore.

home and pick me ups.

I've been feeling really shitty for the past few months so I decided that I'm going home next weekend. I just bought my flight. It's perfect. I'll be home for new years. Can't wait to go to temple with my grandparents and parents then go to the park for some good ass papaya salad and sticky rice.

On another note. Our check in question at SASComm was:

"When you're feeling really down or sad, what do you think of to cheer you up?"

The sad thing was that I couldn't think of anything that automatically cheers me up. The normal things people think of . . just make me feel even sadder. When I think of my family . . it makes me sad because I don't get to spend time with them. When I think school . . it makes me sad because I'm doing so poorly in it. When I think about organizing in the Southeast Asian community . . it makes me sad because, well, I don't know.

I answered by saying that instead of thinking of something, I do things that make me happy. Like call my grandma or call my sister. Go somewhere. etc. While I guess that came off as relatively proactive . . which is good. It also means that I'm incredibly dependent on other people to make me happy. This is great, except sometimes those people who really cheer me up or make me happy aren't always there. Everyone's got their own stuff to do . .

love & marriage

Knowing that receiving countries considered families a better bet than single men, he planned to marry one of the young Vietnamese women in the camp. Although there was no romantic interest between them, it seemed a fair arrangement to both the propective bride as well as her groom. By marrying Ngoc, the young woman would take him out of the 'single male' category, the one immigration officers like least. In return, while sharing her bunk, Ngoc would protect his bride from abuse and possible rape, constant threats to unattached women.

From: Beiser, Morton. 1999. Strangers at the Gate: The ‘Boat People’s’ First Ten Years in Canada. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press. 29.

I wonder if the reason why I've never been fully committed in a relationship is the result of having parents who got married not out of love but out of necessity. Just like how we often talk about being activists by circumstance, my parents became life partners by circumstance.

I grew up in a home that did no emphasize love or compassion in a selfish "I love you and can't live without you because I would feel empty" kind of way. I grew up in a home that emphasized love and compassion in a "I love you and how you contribute to my life as well as the lives of others around you" kind of way.

I grew up not seeing my parents express any kind of passionate love for one another . . and perhaps that is why I don't necessarily express (or maybe even believe) in any kind of passionate "I can't live without you" love for anyone else.

Just like how my parents did not necessarily marry one another out of own individual passionate love but out of a need to keep the small Lue community together, I wonder if the partner I choose to spend the rest of my life with will also be for something bigger, greater, and more important than my own passionate love for the person as an individual . . but for the passionate love I have for my people and my community and my love for who that person is in the greater scheme of things.

or maybe. Maybe I'm just hella self-centered and not willing to give my self up to anyone in that kind of way. Maybe I'm not optimistic enough and too realistic to believe in love at first sight and believing that loving someone is something you learn to do by enjoying their best qualities and learning to live and love their not so great qualities.

the slump of things.

after coming back from UCLA.. i hella just knocked out for like 12 hours.

although i found law fellows really helpful and was really empowered and inspired . . almost immediately after i got back to berkeley, i fell back into my slump of things.

i don't really know whats going on really. i think sometimes i feel unsupported. and then other times i feel like people don't know where i'm coming from or don't understand what i'm going through. and then further more, sometimes i'm feeling all of that at once.

it's pretty selfish of me to be so ME centered. i know people got hella shit going on and that it's unfair for me to hope that folks would step in and really help me out. i don't even know what i need help on. i'm just really ready to be done with all of this.

thesis

so i've just figured.

it should be hard for me to write this stupid thesis . .
because i've already written 9 other papers on SEA refugees.

identity & shame

the formation of my identity didn't really occur until i attended SASC-SI.

before then, i was ashamed that my parents had to work 12 hours a day - 7 days a week. i was ashamed my mom and dad didn't speak english. i was ashamed of being buddhist. i was ashamed that i couldn't have friends over at my house. i was ashamed i always had to wear hand me downs.

i was ashamed my parents were refugees from laos.

since the summer of 2003, i have been on a continuous journey to convert all the shame of the first 17 years of my life into pride and into hope.

however, conversations that i've heard recently have somewhat overturned this by telling me that this is invalid. that this is exclusive. that this is wrong.

who am i to say who belongs to a community and who doesn't.

well, when you grew up feeling constantly inadequate, inferior, and never belonging to any community . . i think this is the one time i want to comfortably say, "no, my family and i earned this. This is OUR time to shine." or it was supposed to be.

This was supposed to be the first and only time that my grandmother will look around and not feel crappy for working in a sweatshop in her fifties and sixties. this was supposed to be the first time my parents could say, "yes, we worked in an electronics factory for $3.25/hour and barely speak english . . but put all three of our children through college." this was supposed to be the first time i could show my brother and sister that i grew up to be a mentor to other students just the say they mentored me while growing up.

this was supposed to be.

but it's not going to be.

community

what does the word "community" mean?

what does it mean to be apart of a community?

what does it mean to work, sweat, and sacrifice for a community?

. . only to feel completely excluded from this community six years later.

"Counseling & Psychological Services"

Ever wonder why the mental health sections of clinics or hospitals are always so detached from the rest of building?

I do, all the time.

Seriously. It's like in the tang center, the "Counseling & Psychological Services" department is on the THIRD floor on the way south side; the farthest place possible from the entrance of the aesthetically beautiful teal and brown building. Putting such a sensitive department in such a remote place is problematic in so many ways.

For example, for people with appointments at Counseling and Psychological Services, they have the chance to walk past the other clinics and think about how "normal" they are and how NOT normal you are. To me, this just seems counterproductive.

Also, maybe this is a wacked out assumption, but most people who have appointments in that clinic may not even want to be there much less understand why they're there. Putting the clinic in the farthest place just further reinforces their notion to not go at all.

However, I guess it could be worst. I mean, at least there isn't a completely separate building like an asylum.

twLF & Mental Health

The rally today was really amazing. Often times I feel as if people of color movements are seen as a black, brown, and red struggle.

It was nice to see the inclusion of yellow. particularly, southeast asians.

On a side note. Do you think it's possible that mental health issues like anxiety and depression amongst students of color could be partially caused by the hostile campus environment?

It's gotta be depressing to grow up with a bunch of people of color only to come to campus and realize you're different from all these privileged ass people.

a link between academia and our community?

while i sit here and read articles upon articles about the resettlement of Southeast Asian refugees in different parts of the world . . i can't help but wonder . . how will reading all these articles make anything better for our people?

how is this relevant to making actual change in our communities?

southeast asian intercollegiate summit

i'm still recuperating from a weekend of making my vision into reality and haven't really been able to jump back into the "real" reality as of yet both because i'm ridiculously sick and also because i feel i should reflect.

while the hope of the summit was to highlight the similarities of programing or projects that students were doing at each of their campuses, i guess the summit also helped to bring to the surface the differences in types of student organizing. i only hope that being exposed to a very political, progressive, and action oriented type of organizing, some of the students and organizations will go back to share this type of organizing.

however, all in all, i would call the event a success. not because of our differences in organizations. not because of our differences in our ethnicities. not because of our differences in the type of institution we attend. because regardless of whether the participant attended a private school, research institution, or professional institution . . everyone had love for their people and ultimately, OUR people and OUR struggle.

that all on its own is a success.


the fear that i have is that one day, southeast asian youth will replace the pride for the struggles of our parents and grandparents with shame. when that happens, i don't know who is going to ever be able to advocate for my mom who barely speaks english, my grandma who doesn't understand the concept of inflation, and my grandfather who still thinks he needs to work and make money at the age of 75.

because essentially, "if not you, then who?"