Asian American Justice Center Youth Network

Linh Chuong’s Family Migration Story

My parents are strong. My father was one of many South Vietnamese military men detained in ““re-education camps” (trai hoc tap cai tao). My father, now a jolly pot-bellied man who spends his time strolling twice daily in the park, playing with his grandkids, and composing caustic Vietnamese poems for my entertainment, tells me he was 95 pounds with most of his teeth rotted from malnutrition, hard labor, indefinite detention, no health care, and minimal housing in remote locations—in what he calls torture prisons. My mother was pregnant when he was taken and raised my brother in post-war Vietnam. She doesn’t talk about it, but I imagine it could not have been any easier for her than him.  

After three and a half years, he was released, but my family’s economic prospects, educational attainment, and freedom in Vietnam were denied permanently. My father was denied access to most occupations and closely monitored by the government through routine check ups and reportings of his daily activities. My father and mother ate yams in congee and did odd jobs for years. They eventually saved enough for farmland and then had a comfortable income after a decade of labor. However there were no prospects for us, their children. Although my father paid a small fortune to hire tutors and send my siblings to school, we were still barred from college, from even the hope of white-collar work.  

So my family tried to flee three times. We failed three times. It was not until the United States invited our family to come to the United States through the Orderly Departure Program (ODP) of 1988, or more commonly called the H.O. (Humanitarian Operation) program, that we successfully left for America. 

Certainly, life in the United States started out a little bumpy. When I was growing up in the States, my father worked three jobs. My mother sewed clothes for a garment factory for at least 12 hours a day on top of cooking, cleaning and clothing her five children. I guess it is apt that they call us “resident aliens,” because that’s what we felt as students, as a family learning English as our third language (after Vietnamese and Cantonese), and as Yao Chinese ethnic minorities in Vietnam and then the United States. But my father says we have freedom of speech, thought, and movement: freedoms essential to humanity.  

This is why I fight for comprehensive immigration reform. “Immigration” conveys for me a sense of my parents’ dueling emotions and the strength of their will to live and prosper. Their dislocation, their desperation and urgency in leaving their homeland, their heartache and all their hopes for their children’s future is part of my conception of our immigrant/refugee identity. They help me recognize that the decision to immigrate is difficult and costly; immigrants do not need to be re-victimized. They need a little American hospitality, built on a desire to protect freedom and a love for others.

Leona Thao’s Family Migration Story

Leona’s story is part of our APA Heritage Month series of featuring a family migration story a day for the month of May! Find this feature at http://www.facebook.com/aajcyouth.

Camden Lee’s Family Migration Story

My family first came over during the Chinese Exclusion Era. My great grandfather was able come over during this exclusionary time because he was in the exempt class. As a student, he was able come to the US. He was also able to bring over my great grandmother and his two nephews. My family was able to support themselves because my great grandfather was the general manager of a restaurant in Washington, DC.

Camden’s story is part of our APA Heritage Month series of featuring a family migration story a day for the month of May! Find this feature at http://www.facebook.com/aajcyouth.

Chetana Musapeta’s Family Migration Story

I was born and raised in Hyderabad, India until I was eight years old when my parents decided to move to America in search of a better job opportunity and a better life. My dad’s brother was already in America and said he could help sponsor my dad to come live in America but the problem was he could only help ONE person not an entire family. It was a really tough decision on my dad but in the end he agreed to take up the offer of my uncle and go to America and try to sponsor us after he was settled there. So my dad applied for a visa and after the 9th time he finally got approved and left for America in 1999 and it took him an entire year to get a sponsorship for us to come here. My family went an entire year without being able to see my dad and he worked night and day to get a sponsorship for us. Finally a year later we were approved and I, my mom, and my two brothers came here in April of 2000. They didn’t stop there- they kept pushing until we received a green card and then our citizenship, so that we would not be at a disadvantage in America. I can never repay my parents for what they have done, they have sacrificed so much so me and my brothers can have a better life.

Chetana’s story is part of our APA Heritage Month series of featuring a family migration story a day for the month of May! Find this feature at http://www.facebook.com/aajcyouth.

Nhi Tran’s Family Migration Story

My name is Nhi Tran and I am Vietnamese-American. Viet Tran is my father and Mary Tran is my mother. Here are their stories:

My father is the middle child of seven children, and was the first to come to America in 1982. Because his poor family could only send one child at the time, my father had to make the long trip to Thailand in a boat full of strangers. He spent three days and two nights in the tiny boat without much food. Luckily, an oil rig was spotted on the way and the workers were able to provide cookies, dry food, and water to everyone on the boat. The day they all arrived on shore, it was my father’s 21^st birthday. He stayed in the wilderness of Thailand for four months before being transported to the Philippines. In the Philippines, he stayed for one year in a refugee camp learning English and the American customs, i.e. the holidays of the year, pajamas don’t count as work clothes, equality, and shirts are required outside of the home. My father entered the United States in February 1982. He remembers everything being so white. It felt very cold and soft. Never having seen snow before, he wanted to go outside. About 5-10 minutes outside, he ran back inside. My father wore a jacket for the rest of the winter. He stayed home learning English from TV because he wasn’t able to work or go to school (it was too late to enroll anywhere). One of his friends taught him to drive, and got his licenses soon after. In August, he started at Donnelly College in Kansas City, Kansas. He learned ESL there for one year, and then went straight to work.

My mother came to the United States in 1984 by airplane. She had come with her family and others in a refugee camp. The oldest son arrived in America in 1975 when sponsors weren’t required yet. Now he would be sponsoring his whole family. Eleven children and two adults make 13. Because the family was so superstitious, a doll was added to the family to make 14 altogether. The family landed in the Kansas City Airport at 11:45 PM. My mother remembers her first meal in the United States: Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was love. ‘This is what Americans eat all the time? How lucky!’ she thought. The oldest brother enrolled everyone at the closest high school where they learned ESL. He was the only person who could drive, so the schedule revolved around his work schedule. The small family sedan had to hold nine people, including the driver (not the safest idea, but you work with what you got). The oldest went to work at 6AM so everyone going to school had to wake up at that same time. He talked to the principal to open the doors early for them to wait until school started. Every day my mother and her siblings waited in the lobby until 9AM for school and then waited for another five hours after before going home. At home the girls would make dinner for the family, and then everyone would go to work in a mailroom from 9PM to 2AM. Everyone went home to sleep for a couple of hours and the whole day began again. This was the routine for the next six months until it allowed them to buy another car. This second car would be able to let them drive themselves to school. My mother and her family quit the mailroom to find a job with more reasonable hours. They found it at a printing company working from 3 to midnight. They did this all through their ESL schooling. Everyone went to college after. During this whole time, the family lived in a three bedroom house (five boys in one room and seven girls in another room).

In 1989, my parents met through mutual friends. They had a short-lived marriage, which ended with my mother moving to Oklahoma.

Rosanna Cash once said, “The key to change is to let go of fear.” Leaving what is familiar, whether with family or alone, is nothing short of frightening. My parents had to have a lot of courage, strength, and willpower to face the unknown, and I know they would do it all again for me and my sister. They are truly an inspiration, and I could never ask for more from any two individuals.

Nhi’s story is part of our APA Heritage Month series of featuring a family migration story a day for the month of May! Find this feature at http://www.facebook.com/aajcyouth.

Gee-Wey Yue’s Family Migration Story

My grandparents left from China separately to go to Taiwan, where they arrived with little to nothing. Both my maternal and paternal grandparents met and married in Taiwan.

My biological paternal grandfather was a soldier in Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist army and was killed in an ambush while defending the retreat from Mao Zedong’s forces. My paternal grandmother and my father, who was one year of age at the time, made it on to a boat that took them to Taiwan. She did not want my father to be brought up into a life of hardship and almost threw him overboard, but others managed to talk her out of it. She settled in southern Taiwan and remarried to the man I know as my paternal grandfather.

My maternal grandfather was a courier for the army had to leave his wife and children behind in China. He became one of the first professors at a university in northern Taiwan. My maternal grandmother came to Taiwan with next to nothing. She severed ties with her family and gave up the family’s wealth after a dispute with her father. My grandfather remarried to my grandmother.

My mother and father were raised on opposite ends of Taiwan and came separately to the United States in the ’70s for their master’s degrees. They both attended Auburn University, a school that was offering many scholarships to international students at the time. My parents met as students and got married before even my grandparents had met one another.

My father worked really hard to get a job here in the United States so that he could become a citizen. He even kept a suit in the lab so that anytime someone mentioned an opportunity for a job, he could be presentable. My sister, brother, and I were all born as US citizens and are indebted to our grandparents and parents for their hardships.

Gee-Wey’s story is part of our APA Heritage Month series of featuring a family migration story a day for the month of May! Find this feature at http://www.facebook.com/aajcyouth.

When you were in elementary, middle, or high school, did you learn about the Japanese internment?  If so, how long did your teacher go over it?  How many lines was it granted in your history book?  

After talking to countless fellow Asian Pacific Americans, it seems that our knowledge of history leans more disproportionately towards the glorious conquest of the Americas by Europeans, rather than the histories of those APAs who came before us.  We know very well the story of Christopher Columbus discovering America, the first Thanksgiving between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Native Americans, and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Unfortunately, we are less familiar with the stories of the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, Angel Island, and the Delano Grape Strike. The stories of immigrants, people of color, and indigenous populations is often hidden or forgotten in the grand narrative of the United States. And this is a problem because, according to an old Tagalog saying, “A person who does not remember where he/she came from will never reach his/her destination.”

The reality is that Asian Pacific Americans and other marginalized peoples must understand the importance of their stories. Understanding the past is important in being able to contextualize their current experiences. Since much of our histories have been forgotten or erased, there is a great need to rebuild the narrative. We need to remake the American narrative by weaving our own diverse experiences into the fabric. The Asian Pacific American activist narrative project, “Spark!” started as a way to assert the importance of the APA narrative and to remake the American fabric. The project asks Asian Pacific American leaders to narrate stories of how they became active in their communities. Telling our stories and listening to them is an important act of self-empowerment. Sharing your story is also an important tool in reaching out to others with similar experiences, and finding commonalities. Once you find a common thread with other individuals, you can create a community. If you find a common struggle, you can organize around it. The possibilities as a result of collecting and sharing stories are endless.

To become part of the new grand narrative, simply submit your story to kimberly.sarabia@gmail.com, and check out current Spark! Submissions at aajcyouth.tumblr.com

Growing up as a Pakistani American, I saw The United States as a place to be one of a kind, full of diverse people and diverse lifestyles. It was not until September 11, 2011 that I become more aware of my distinction from society.  Only in fourth grade, I didn’t know much about what was happening and as a consequence such matters like stereotypes and discrimination didn’t faze me.  As I started growing up, I realized that I must become more aware of the issues present and help in any way I can to resolve them. I joined the Asian Honor Society and grew more in tune with Asian American issues as a whole. Of course, they encompassed those of South Asians as well, which I could relate to more.  It was not until college that I started becoming an activist in the Asian American community.

Originally, I had only planned to join the Pakistani Student Association, but fate led me to join the Korean Undergraduate Student Association at the University of Florida and become more involved in the Asian American Student Union and the Asian American community in general.  My mindset before college was to focus on issues that specifically pertained to me, but as I got more involved I begun to see the greater picture. After ECAASU 2011, I pitched a Campus Action Plan to have a more united Asian American base that included more South Asians.  Being united as Asian Americans appealed to me greatly and I worked for that by showing my representation at different events and organizations. Also this year, I am a co-director for Asian Kaleidoscope Month’s talent show at the University of Florida, external vice president of the Korean Undergraduate Association, and Advocacy Coordinator on ECAASU’s National Board.  I hope to further my efforts in the years to come and be a worthy activist in the APIA community locally and abroad.

I got involved in Asian American advocacy through involvement in a youth organization in my hometown called the Asian American Youth Spectrum, or AAYS for short. This small, home-grown organization was a youth group that met on Saturday mornings (I still remember the meetings were painfully early from 9:30am to 11:00am) that discussed our lives, our common experiences, and our trials and tribulations as Asian Americans. At the time, our discussions inevitably centered around things like college admissions and anime, but, in due course, the conversations deepened as we intentionally started talking about hot button issues: interracial dating, affirmative action, and the like.

Soon, AAYS members felt the need to share our work, and we decided to fundraise to print a publication—the Asian American Youth Spectrum Magazine. We were successful!

After about 3 publications, our director at the time, Tony Wu, offered to drive a couple of us up to Cornell University—his alma mater—to attend ECAASU, the East Coast Asian American Student Union conference. This was in 2008, when I was still a junior in high school. The rest of the students were all college-aged, and, for that reason alone at the time, I thought it was a cool and unique experience. To be entirely honest, I don’t remember a single fact, speaker, or presenter from that weekend. I was a wide-eyed, overwhelmed high school student. All I remember feeling was a sense of urgency and excitement. Thousands of students came from all over the nation to partake in a weekend of workshops—delving into issues that we had only scratched the surface of during our Saturday morning meetings. People flew from all over the country just to talk about these issues. I was astonished. (Being only 16 at the time, I didn’t yet know about the afterparty. My advisor made sure of it.)

Returning home, I remember feeling invigorated and empowered by the vision and drive of the people I had just met. Quickly, we turned that enthusiasm and energy into action and advocacy, and we worked harder than we had ever worked in our entire lives to put together a community-based leadership workshop, our own three-week mini-ECAASU of sorts in March of that year. We talked about simple things: the glass ceiling, Asians in the media, stereotypes we all experience in high school… these were simple topics, but they were topics that resonated with so many though were so often swept under the rug.

To this day, organizing that mini-conference was one of the most meaningful and empowering experiences I’ve ever had. It gave me the opportunity to share my experiences and to learn from the shared experiences of others. It was a testament to the power of perseverance.   If a few 16-year-olds could come together and organize a conference to convince 50 students to get up early on a Saturday morning (an almost impossible feat for sure), challenge them to think about their lives in a new way, and empower them to change their preconceived notions about race, what else could be possible? The possibilities seemed limitless. And they were.

The following spring, I interned with Asian & Pacific Islander American Vote (or APIAVote), which sparked my interest further in Asian American issues and broadened my understanding of what it meant to be APIA. It also introduced me to a family of APA organizations, like the OCA and the Asian American Justice Center—organizations that continue to anchor me in the work that I do.

On a whim, I decided to apply to the National Board. It’s been three years, and after serving as the Civil Rights Chair, then the National Vice Chair, I am now serving as the National Chair and the Conference Board Co-Chair for the Duke 2012 conference.  I’ve attended every conference (and afterparty!) since, and am always amazed by the sheer mass and wealth of experience and combined knowledge at the conference each year.

I don’t know what the future will hold, but if it’s been as eventful and unexpected as the past few years, I’m sure that the journey doesn’t stop here.  For aspiring activists out there, take a risk. Take that first step and you never know what you might find.

*Derek is a member of the Asian American Justice Center Youth Advisory Council and is currently spearheading ECAASU 2012.

Bryant Cabrera’s Story

Bryant Cabrera is currently a student at Stanford University and a member of Anakbayan Silicon Valley.

*Filmed at the 2011 Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance Biennial Convention in Oakland, CA.