Young Activists and Managing Survival

Upon reading the past few essays such as “Managing Survival” by Linda Trinh Vo and “Scarred, yet Undefeated” by Sucheng Chan, and seeing the documentary “Eating Welfare”, I have found myself continually questioning the psychological state of the children of these refugees and activists. My thoughts regarding the children is not to ignore their parents’, or more specifically their mother’s, mental and physical hardships, but to look deeper into the hardships children faced that may have been similar or different to the adult experience. In “Scarred, yet Undefeated”, there was a brief story of a girl who escaped with her siblings to Thailand that related some difficulties that arouse during their escape. Assuming they, and others, made it to Thailand safely, did they all settle down into centers or camps? Or, because they were without parents, were they possibly adopted? And if they did go to a camp, and assuming they survived the cruel treatment from the guards, sickness, and hunger, how did the children grow mentally throughout the rest of their lives? Did they suffer from their traumas like many Cambodian women did and was it possibly worse because their minds were younger? In “Managing Survival”, women’s contributions to the household income, along with their work at home such as child-caring is brought to light. I wondered about what their children were doing either at home, or at school, and what they thought about their parents. Also, if a family was struggling to make ends meet, and thus, for example, unable to give their children food for lunch at school, would the children receive food from other students, or resort to trying to find their own food through other methods?

Watching “Eating Welfare”, reminded me of my Asian American Mentor Program (AAMP) training at Pomona from the past summer when we went into Los Angeles, and toured the old Chinatown with some young activists as our tour guides. My co-mentors and I were all extremely impressed with the students, but like the documentary said, who else is going to be doing the work? Although the students were working with adults and other supporters, it was amazing to see how much the students cared about their community. “Eating Welfare” prompted me to question how much of a choice those activists in L.A. had a choice in creating change in their community if they wanted to see it. It also reminded me of a conversation between the AAMP mentors and the L.A. activists where we asked them what their parents thought about their children’s work. We were told that their parents didn’t really understand what they were doing, or why they were doing it. After a brief pause, several of the students said, with strong and amused, yet sad looks, that their parents thought they were doing drugs or getting into mischief after school. When asked about how they found the organization they were currently a part of, they said that they had heard about the organization through their schools, and joined from their own desires to create a better place for their families and themselves.