Get Herald RSSEntertaining the Salomon 101 audience with instructions to "deface his face" on the event pamphlet and think of Southeast Asian winners of their favorite Bravo reality shows to consider Southeast Asian stereotypes, keynote speaker Lam Ho '01 spoke Monday on "Defiance: The Struggle for Self-Definition" at the Southeast Asian Heritage Week Opening Convocation.
Ho's speech focused on the role defiance plays in overcoming obstacles. Economic and social problems that plague the Southeast Asian community can only be solved if Southeast Asians seek to embrace their heritage and deny the "myth of the model minority," which portrays Asians - particularly immigrants - as obedient and silent, Ho said. Southeast Asians must defy friends, family and cultural values in order to push beyond the roadblocks that hold them back.
"We must remember the history of struggle in summoning our collective voice," said Ho, who was on the Third World Center staff while a Brown student. "We should speak loudly of the circumstances and experiences of how we and our families came to the United States."
Members of the Southeast Asian community in the United States faces extreme poverty, lack of educational opportunities and violence. Domestic violence is common, but the rate of reporting incidents is very low compared to the national average, Ho said. Sexism, racism, classism and homophobia are also common within the community.
Even though he now works to help abused women, Ho cited the shame he faces knowing that he did not help his mother when she was being abused by his father. He also mentioned the experiences of Lisa Ok, who spoke at the convocation earlier in the evening.
Ok, a 16-year-old Cambodian-American high school senior and youth coordinator of the Providence Youth Student Movement, was the convocation's Youth Activist Speaker. She shared her experiences as a child growing up in "the hood" in the south side of Providence and the deterioration of her family as her parents became involved in gambling and drugs.
Ok, who has testified before the Providence Public School District and organized other meetings to speak about her work with the Youth Student Movement, told The Herald that her experience at the convocation was "breathtaking, because I spoke from the heart."
"I hope Brown University, an Ivy League School, reaches out more because I am not the only one with potential," Ok said.
Ho, who is in his final year at Harvard Law School, said the legal system occasionally fails in providing social justice, and he said his goal after graduating law school is to found institutions that cause systematic change in poverty-related issues, through support and resources in addition to legal aid. These centers, which will particularly be aimed at helping poor children and their families, cannot be called organizations because they must be "connected to the community and entrenched in the lives of the people (they are) helping," Ho said. "They must be through the community, not for the community."
Ho recounted his first loss in two years of providing legal aid to underprivileged people. A women who had been abused was working toward certification as a nursing assistant. A judged ruled Monday morning that her alimony will now be reduced, forcing her to get a minimum-wage job and discontinue her education
Catherine Nguyen '11, the daughter of Vietnamese refugees, was the convocation's Freshman Expectations speaker. She discussed her experience as a member of the Asian majority in her hometown of Monterey Park, Calif.
"I didn't know if I could talk about discrimination. ... Everyone looked like me," Nguyen said. "I realized that I wanted to get in touch and learn about (the South East Asian community) while at Brown."
Kathleen "K" Zafra '08, the evening's Senior Reflections speaker, was the only Filipino and Asian-American student at her high school. Filipino Alliance and the Third World community were central to her college experience, she said. Beginning with her participation in the Third World Transition Program, she "learned the true beauty in harmony and diversity." In her spoken word performance, she described the Southeast Asian community at Brown as her family, support and fuel.
"It's the people you'll remember (after college)," Zafra said.
Among the week's other events, "Journey From the Fall," a film about a Vietnamese family's struggle as refugees after the fall of Saigon, will be shown and followed with a discussion in Salomon 001 Nov. 7 from 7 to 9 p.m. The following day, Minnesotan artist Cy Thao's collection of paintings detailing the history of the Hmong people will be shown in List Art 120 from 7 to 9 p.m. Legends of the SEA, the annual performance event that showcases the diversity of Southeast Asia through song, dance and folklore, will take place in Salomon 101 on Nov. 10 from 7-9 PM.
Additional event information can be found on the TWC Web site.
