From the Asian American Rally, November 5th, 2003
Written and read by Casey Wong, Co-President
"Activism through Collaboration" I want to take you all back in time, to a Hawaii before images of white sand and blue surf, before hotels lined Waikiki, before a trip to Hawaii was a vacation package. The year is 1889. Its another 70 years before Hawaii becomes the 50th state. My great grandfather arrives in Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations. He is part of a massive migration of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Filipino peoples' brought here by plantation owners to work the fields, and in return, were promised a better life. There, side by side these immigrants toiled, enduring long and hot days, complete strangers to one another, divided by their cultural and language differences. But overtime, perhaps out of necessity, perhaps out of the longing to form a community, or perhaps from the need to be unified by one voice, these immigrants created a new, simpler form of communication, Hawaii pidgin English- an odd mixture of Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, and other languages.
This pidgin English, still used by many today, exemplifies what Hawaii is all about: the coming together of people of all ethnicities bound by a local culture, yet never losing sight of their own traditions and customs. In Hawaii, ethnic differences do not divide us but enrich us. Here at Tufts we can tear a page out of history and, like those plantation workers, find that common ground that can unite us with that one voice.
With a unified front, we are more effective in implementing change. And it is quite evident that there is much still to be done. The generation before us were the pioneers. Reacting to inequalities, discrimination, and injustices, they laid down the foundations for the Asian American Movement and the development of an Asian American identity. Now it is up to our generation to continue this legacy and to steer it to new and better directions. At Tufts we need to realize that we can make a lasting impact. How we go about educating the Tufts community on social or political issues, through speakers for instance, is just as important as educating the Tufts community about our culture through various performances. What may seem incremental or insignificant to one person, can leave a lasting impression in another, and we must not discount that.
The year is now two-thousand and three, and rather than laboring on a plantation field in Hawaii, we are laboring here in Medford. Side by side we work, but we need not be strangers to one another. By forging a common ground and bringing together new ideas through the spirit of respect and understanding, we can do much. Thank you.
|