Us Ordinary People

A Land of Grieving Mothers

2011-10-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

Nyunt Than holding a Burma Pro Democracy flag to be flown at the City of Berkeley's Annual Burma Day Flag raising Ceremony

Nyunt Than, the current head of the Burmese American Democratic Alliance (a non-profit organization in the Bay Area that works on democracy and human rights issues in Burma) is a Burmese leader whose activism going back to his days as a student during the 1988 pro-democracy uprisings. At the time, Nyunt Than* had just graduated from Rangoon Institute of Technology when the military regime shot and killed three student protestors from behind. “This act exposed the regime for what it was” he explained. “Now annually we commemorate that day, March 13, as Burma Human Rights day.”

“The protests in 1988 were initially led by students, but soon spread across the country as civilians, from children to housewives and doctors, joined in to rise up against the military dictatorship that had been running the country into the ground since 1962”. Despite having a broken leg due to a recent car accident, Nyunt Than took to the streets in resistance. The protests ended up leaving thousands dead as the regime brutally suppressed the movement. After the uprising ended, there were immediate crackdowns and arrests of students. Many students escaped towards the Burmese border into countries like Thailand. Nyunt Than stayed behind, however, due to his disability and a desire to finish up his graduate degree.

commemorating the 1988 pro democracy uprisings in Burma

During this uprising, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel laureate and the daughter of the founder of Burmese Independence, Aung San, became a prominent opposition leader for democracy, creating the National League for Democracy party. In 1990, the military-backed Burmese regime lost the national election to Aung San Suu Kyi (or ASSK for short) and her democratic party. “During that election, I went back to my village and that’s where I witnessed how much people were hoping for change. Everybody came out and voted for her; they thought there was going to be real change. The next day, the radio announced the winners and I thought," Nyunt says with a sardonic laugh, “what can these people [the regime] do now? I thought that things were going to be different, but I was wrong. The next day they [the regime] outright denied Aung Saan Suu Kyi power, which eventually led to her arrest, and many student leaders got arrested again and again.” It was then that the Burmese regime overthrew the results of the general election and arrested ASSK, placing her under house arrest and jailing other democratic leaders who had won seats in the parliament. Some of whom would later died in prison.

Upon finishing his masters degree in 1991, Nyunt Than was quick to leave Burma. “The regime lies, they kill and will do anything to keep themselves in power, I intensely disagreed about what is going on in Burma, that’s why I decide that I will never work for this regime, as soon as I finished my education I left towards Singapore and lived there for 4 years. Activism in Singapore was very difficult because they are close to the Burmese regime”. After four years, Nyunt was able to migrate to the United States. Once in the US, Nyunt felt that he was could work to help his home country. He became involved in protest activities and soon helped found BADA and became the Secretary of the organization.

The oppression increased after Nyunt Than left. “The world was on edge when the regime brutally cracked down on the 2007 peaceful protests by Buddhist monks. In May of 2008, a massive cyclone Nargis hit lower delta area of Burma and killed nearly 200,000. With bodies scattered all over the region and millions of survivors looking for land, food and water to survive, the regime, instead of helping the people, moved forces within the country to come to the polls and approve a sham constitution."

Holding up a 2001 photo of himself protesting in the book "Free Burma", the protest was against Unocal Corporation's partnership with the Burmese regime

When it comes to the protests that Nyunt Than works to organize, he has some strong points to address about economics and corporate interests in Burma. “If you look at why the dictatorship is still in power since it began rule in 1962, neighboring countries are very much responsible for this, especially China, India and ASEAN countries especially Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia. Though the US has sanctions and the UN is driving pressure, these countries still work with the regime to exploit our natural resources to cut prices. For China, Burma becomes a geographically strategic partner for them, because China sees Burma as their back door to the Indian Ocean. In times of war they want to make sure that all oil transport from the Indian Ocean can reach China; they want to use Burma as a back gate. Burma is also rich in natural resources and China is looking for resources throughout the world and Burma is right next door.”

Nyunt Than continues,“[In Burma, people struggle to live hand to month daily and have nothing much to eat due to the scarcity of food. They don’t even have enough electricity for their basic needs in the cities. Burma is exporting the largest amount of natural gas in the region to power factories in neighboring countries. The regime gets millions of dollars while the people struggle. There is gas pipeline to Thailand and one of its operators is California’s Chevron corporation. China is building a huge gas pipe line from Burma to China’s Yunnan Province. We are currently in the mists of protests against the Chinese dam on our the vital Irrawaddy River* to produce electricity for China. Burma is about the size of Texas and half of it used to be covered by forests. Now forests are no longer there and a few years back the country faced the severest drought seen in Burma's history due to the lack of trees."

Besides issues of poverty and lack of education, Burma is also notorious for endemic human trafficking and widespread use of child soldiers. Human Rights Watch has released multiple reports and one of the reports, “My Gun Was As Tall As Me”, addresses the child soldier problem in Burma. Nyunt Than adds, “Sometimes they go out and kidnap the child and sell them to the army. The army is notorious because soldiers constantly flee [their posts]. They need manpower and impressionable young people will shoot whatever they are asked to shoot.”

Regarding issues of trafficking and exploitation of migrants, Nyunt Than recalls a story of a 20 year old girl from the ethnic Mon minority that he met in 2007. She was a refugee who crossed over the border to Thailand looking for work. After finding a job at a fishery, she was captured one night and raped by seven Thai men. She was then taken to a house where “girls are kept naked so they will not run away.” When she was transferred to another house, however, an old lady gave her clothes and she jumped out the window and eventually escaped. He recalled her telling him, “'I never thought something like this would happen to me.' This is just one story; there are many abuse stories about immigrants who try to cross over the border,” he said.

When asked about the future of Burma, Nyunt Than responded that some elements of the regime are realizing they are hurting the country and that they are hurting the population. The regime leaders want the country to be perceived as a “modern Burma” but their policies and oppressive actions are not furthering the goals of a modern democratic nation. The regime is slowly realizing that they must engage with opposition forces like Aung Sang Su Kyi’s party.

“Burma is a land of grieving mothers,” Nyunt Than said. “So many of us who got involved hurt our parents because students left to the border to flee and could not come back due to the regime. Many of us left our parents behind. Even many of our parents died behind. Even I had to fly to Bangkok in 2007 to meet my mother for the last time and a few years later she died. I was fortunate even to have the chance to meet her."

When addressing the current situation in the country, Nyunt Than lamented that “the young generation has no education and no skills to help themselves or help their country, which is a real loss. How do you recover from lost generations?” He mentioned that one reason why he is working hard as an activist for a democratic Burma is due to his memories of having freedom as a college student, and that many of the people who are now young have no such thing as university lives. “Their university lives are gone, it doesn’t exist and that’s what makes me feel so bad about this new generation.”

Nyunt Than's own children were born and raised in this country, but he makes sure to instill some Burmese cultural values and traditions within his family. All three of his children join him in Burmese protests and events. “They are activists. I bring them wherever I can. They grow up seeing things that I do.” He also makes sure that his children learn Burmese, and they are known for their poetry recitations at local activist events.

Currently the struggle continues for the nation of Burma. Many activists live in exile or are currently imprisoned. It is estimate that there are currently 2,200 Burmese political prisoners in the country. Recently the Burmese government released 120 of them. Maybe this is the modern engagement that Nyunt Than mentioned, but it is far from enough. The country is impoverished with low life spans, low education, and issues regarding child soldiers and human trafficking. Yet activists like Nyunt Than fight on, just as they have since 1988. It has been over 20 years, but Nyunt Than still looks to the horizon towards change. Though the situation is challenging, he and many other activists like him, hold dear a strong hope for a democratic future for Burma.

*In Burmese culture, names are used in full, so he will be addressed by his full name for this article

*Update on the construction of the dam: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/world/asia/myanmar-suspends-construction-of-controversial-dam.html?_r=1, http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22271

Edited by Tom Hyre and Nyunt Than

The Teacher from Thailand

2011-05-06T11:38:00.000-07:00

Pam posing with lilies in her front yard

(All quotes are direct from the original conversation).
I was introduced to Pam while working on a video documenting project with CHAA (Community Health for Asian Americans). I was immediately drawn to Pam’s vibrant and warm personality. CHAA chose Pam to give the organization insight into the Thai community in the Bay Area. While filming, I learned about Pam’s personal journey from Thailand to America.

The Interview

Pam’s name in Thailand was Punchakarn. She is from the Khao Wong District, Kalasin Province in northeastern Thailand. Both of her parents were teachers, and Pam herself was a public school teacher in Thailand for 17 years before leaving that job to teach for two years at the school her family established and ran. Pam was very passionate when she spoke of her school, which is a private school for students but also provides free education for those coming from poor families. She told me how her school also provides support for students who have been rejected by other institutions. She recalled one student who had been performing poorly at his former school and had behavioral problems. When his parents moved him to Pam’s school, he improved and received good grades. He is now ranked first in the school. “He got all grade A in every subject and his reading is compared to a 6 grader right now. So I am very proud of our school,” Pam said with a smile on her face.

Visiting Pam at her home

Unfortunately, her school fell into debt due to economic difficulties in Thailand. The government cut its budget, so the school soon faced money troubles. Because of this, Pam decided to come to the US to earn more income for the school. To her, the United States provided the opportunity to make enough money to pay off the debts sooner, and she felt that she could use her English skills to accomplish this.

When Pam first came to America, she was undocumented and came to Los Angeles, where she worked at a Thai restaurant. Pam recalls, “Working in a Thai restaurant was very hard because I had to work 12-14 hours continuously with no break. I worked from 10:30 in the morning until 11:30 at night. I almost died the first week because I felt so exhausted. I went back to the place where I lived and just slept. I didn’t want to eat at all for many days. I felt very bad both physically and mentally. I almost gave up many times but I didn’t. I had to encourage myself so that I could keep working. I told myself that no Pam, you can not give up because you have some big goals to accomplish. I tried to keep moving forward, but it was very very tough”.

Outside of her apartment

During her time in L.A., Pam faced what she considered to be the most difficult time in her life. She was let go from the Thai restaurant due to slow business. She had no money for rent or food. Pam recalls, “I got to the point where I only had 50 cents left in my pocket. 50 cents! Maybe it was time to go back home because I didn’t see a future here. However I tried to think about how I could survive. Therefore I decided to borrow five dollars from my housemate and bought a day pass ticket." She explained, “In L.A. with a day pass, you can get unlimited rides on any bus or subway all day long until midnight. I got on the bus to try to find a job for the day so that I could have some money to survive. Fortunately I found a restaurant job for the day. They said, 'today our head chef was sick so we need you.’ That day I worked as an assistant chef with the owner, and got paid 70 dollars. I used some of it to buy food and then saved some of it for the bus fare so that I could have an opportunity to find more work.” Pam recalled another time when she was very sick for four days. This was during the time of the Songkram Thai festival in L.A. Despite her illness, Pam forced herself to attend the festival, where she fatefully met her future employer, who paid for her plane ticket from L.A. to Oakland to have her work as a translator on a publishing project.

Working in the Bay Area was a great experience for Pam. Working for her new boss “was very convenient and a big relief because I didn’t have to pay any rent. My boss provided 3 meals a day everyday. Even on weekends when I didn’t work, I still got meals. Moreover my employer and her husband took us, me and my friend, another girl who worked on the same project, to visit many places in the Bay Area. For example they took us to the Napa Valley and to San Francisco. We took many pictures including pictures of the golden gate bridge. So my life sort of flipped, like you flipped your hand. At that time I was really happy because I had money to send back home and I lived a better life, too.”

Pam currently provides freelance Thai translation and language lessons. She currently volunteers to help other Thai immigrants in the Bay Area and has been volunteering at a local elementary school as a teacher’s assistant. She has also gotten married, and is now a green card holder, putting to rest many of her old anxieties related to jobs and immigration.

Though her life is in a better place now, Pam has not forgotten the challenges she faced. She recalls when she and another undocumented friend wouldn’t dare cross the street when there was a red light due to the fear of being caught by the police and deported. “We lived with fear all the time period. We saw no future. However my friend and I still had a small hope that we could live a better life. Therefore we kept moving forward and worked hard. Nowadays besides my friend and I, there are many Thai people who live here with fear but they cannot tell their stories. We kind of understand each other about how hard it is to live illegally.”

Pam added, “Many Thai people came here because of financial issues. We didn’t come here because of a war in Thailand. We came here to try to find jobs so that we could earn more money. We had to live a very hard life but we couldn’t complain. Thai people have special problems because they are undocumented. Burmese, Khmer, Karen, Bhutanese and many other Asian people have better immigration status because they are refugees. For Thais it’s harder because they are economic refugees and they don’t automatically get a social security number. They have two problems: they cannot work here legally, and they cannot get good jobs because they cannot speak English. They might get paid $ 65 a day for 12 hours of hard work.”

After all of the struggles she has faced, Pam feels a personal need to use her skills to help others in her community. “I want to help the Thai people and explain that they should not be afraid to ask for help. I want to tell them that many organizations can help them with no risk of them being deported.”

“I often volunteer as a Thai interpreter and I feel much better about myself now. I want to help spread information about these helpful resources. I really want them to know that there are many organizations that can help them even though they are undocumented."

Though she may not be an elementary school teacher anymore, Pam is teaching many people around her by reaching out to people within her community about resources that may help them in their own struggles. From struggling to pay rent as an undocumented person to starting her own translation business, I hope that people can look at Pam’s journey and be inspired by her hard work, dedication and belief in making a better life for herself, a sentiment shared by many who come to this country.

To visit Pam's website and have access to her Thai translation and language classes, go to

www.weekendthaitranslation.com.

Edited by Tom Hyre

Bebe's Story

2011-03-15T04:01:00.001-07:00

I've been interested in learning more about the Karen people from Burma ever since my adopted parents, Michael Shafer and Evelind Schecter, established a nonprofit called Warm Heart Worldwide ( http://www.warmheartworldwide.org/ ) that works primarily with Karen people in Northern Thailand. The Karen (pronounced kah-REN) are a minority group that has faced and continues to face intense political oppression from the Burmese military governmen t, causing many of them to escape to the Thai/Burma border as refugees. The border has thousands of Karen who populate several different camps along the border.

Listening to a church sermon in Karen

Bebe is a young Karen woman whom I met in Oakland. After we met, she invited me to her church to learn more about the Karen community here. As Bebe took me through the halls of the church and introduced me to her family, I was a bit overwhelmed by how warm and open the people were around me. More than anything, however, I was interested in hearing Bebe's story. I finally got the chance during lunch, where I had awesome Burmese and Thai food (for me one of the best parts of intercultural connecting is definitely the food!).

Bebe talking to her mother and grandmother

Bebe began by telling me about how her father first came to Thailand from Burma by accident. At sixteen years old, he and some friends crossed the border, then were not allowed back in. He left his old life behind without his family having any clue about his whereabouts. Later, he and Bebe's mother met at the Thai/Burma border and Bebe was subsequently born in the Mae La refugee camp in Thailand. The Mae La camp was set up by the United Nations and is the largest refugee camp in Thailand, with over 45,000 Burmese refugees. Bebe explained how in the camp, families received food every fifteen days, and would get donated clothes, mostly from Japan.

Karen girls waiting to go into church

When it came to housing, Bebe recalled how, unlike America where “you can live forever,” they had to build a house every year because the homes were made out of bamboo that had to be replaced due to damage caused by heavy rains. Bebe would climb on her house along with her mother to help rebuild.

Walking down the hall of the Burmese Baptist Church

She also explained that the UN didn't provide income for the refugees; they were just given food and a place to live. As a result, her parents worked in the fields to make money. Since there weren't many jobs available outside the camp, people often worked in the fields planting vegetables. Generally though, there weren't really jobs available on the outside, so most young people would work inside the camps after graduating high school.

Origami crane folded by Bebe

Bebe said that many young people would also marry early because they don't know what else to do. Bebe did attend school while in the camp; there were about 22 schools in her camp alone. The schools are not connected with the UN, though. Different schools had different sponsors and different connections.

After hearing about her experiences in Mae La, I asked her if life was generally okay, since they did have many of the basic amenities. “No it's not" she said "I’m telling you the truth, you don’t want to live like that. At night you just want to sleep and you want to go to school, if you walk one hour and a half or two hours you get to the border and the Burmese soldiers would shoot over. The camp was in a valley, and the soldiers would climb up in the mountains and shoot down.” She described how shells would get thrown in, and that one of her uncles got struck with shrapnel near his hip. One of her friends, who was thirteen at the time, also got hit and was unable to go to school for a very long time. "A lot of people have been hurt, some have no legs, hands, eyes, most Karen people you see are hurt like that," she said. The soldiers would also come into the camps, and sometimes burn down homes. "They came into the camp when they know that there are no people to fight them." Bebe recalled an incident when she was 5 or 6, where she was worshiping inside a church with many others while soldiers were walking through the camp. Everyone was quiet as the parishioners prayed, and the soldiers thought that no one was in the church due to the silence. I asked her if the UN did anything about soldiers coming into the camp or if there was any security. She said that when Thai soldiers in the area heard the gunshots, they would go to the hills and leave the people alone. "Camp is just Camp, there isn’t security, there is a fence and that’s it," she told me.

Bebe immigrated to the United States along with her father and two brothers in 2007. Her mother had to come separately with Bebe's grandmother, who had been ill. When immigrating to other nations, refugees often have to satisfy strict criteria. These include things like health, or if someone is truthfully telling their story in order to leave the country. Bebe's older sister also arrived separately since she was over 21, which is the legal age limit to file for refugee status on your own.

When Bebe came to the United States with her father and brothers, her family first received assistance from the Burmese Mission Baptist Church, the same church where I was interviewing her. She told me how they helped her and her family with clothes, and how they also got support from the IRC (International Rescue Committee). When she started school, she didn't speak English. Luckily, she was enrolled in an international school in Oakland that had the resources to work with immigrant students by providing English language learning and translation.

Today, Bebe speaks great English, and is waiting to hear back from the colleges that she has applied to for next year. During her time in the US, she has had some amazing experiences, from attending a summer program in Boston, for which she was able to travel to the east coast for the first time, to kayaking and mountain climbing in Yosemite National Park. However, she still holds a very special place in her heart for her culture and her people. She hopes to find a way to go back to Thailand, to help the Karen there. As for Burma, Bebe says, “I really don't want to go to Burma at all, because I heard that when people go there bad things happen." She relayed a story of one of her friends from the camp in Thailand whose father had been an opposition soldier a long time ago in Burma. He can never return to Burma or he will be killed, even though he has no involvement anymore as a soldier. "Even at the checkpoints, the only people who are allowed in are those who have connections or know the military".

In the end, Bebe said, “Everything is a blessing from God. My family spends time to come to church to give thanks, because if they look behind at their lifetime, things are so different. And if you live on the Thai border, you cannot open your eyes to see the world, to have good opportunities, to get good education and learn English."

When I asked Bebe if there was anything else she wanted people to know, she responded that she wants people to know that there are Karen people everywhere, with the largest group outside of Burma and Thailand being in America. There is a Karen New Year celebration every year, which is one of the few times when Karen people become somewhat visible. "Usually, people do not know who they are or their culture, but that it would be nice for people to know about Karen people," Bebe says. When she tells people that she is “Karen” they say “Korean?" because people have never heard of it before. "It is Karen, not Korean!" she exclaims, laughing.

As our interview ended, we had to rush out. We had been talking for so long that people had started folding the tables and chairs around us. As I said goodbye to her, I looked back on the two days I spent with Bebe at her church. It is truly an amazing experience to be welcomed into a space when you are an outsider and where a smile gets you so far even though you don't know the language. It was a rare opportunity to be given an inside look into a culture that I had never been exposed to, and I was lucky to have had such a great guide.

Thank you, Bebe, for sharing your story with me. I know you will only go on to do more, and experience more amazing things in your life!

Edited by Tom Hyre