Friday 28 March 2014

CHILDREN LIFE IN HO CHI MIND CITY

Asian gangs have become the rule rather than the exception in many Asian communities in the U.S. My own community in Kentucky has seen a group calling themselves the “Tiny Rascals.” The gangs flourish with ever increasing numbers. Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese children as young as nine suffer through a ritual beating to join the gang where many of their older siblings are members. I am attempting to discover why the “Tiny Rascals” choose to leave behind their culture and family, replacing it with their own” group” solidarity. I am an Asian studies minor and I have studied the Asian and Cambodian communities here for some time. My Asian cultural studies are taking me to study at Ho Chi Minh University in Vietnam for four months where I will document teenagers in both north and south Vietnam.

My goal is to discover and document the reasons why Vietnamese teenagers reject culture and family and what similarities they may have to Vietnamese teenagers in the United States, especially those in the “Tiny Rascals”.

My hope is to find similarities between the two groups that will help society understand the importance culture plays in the family, community and the development of children within society.
About the size of an 8-year-old, Duong, now 13, came to Ho Chi Minh City with the intention of making a living using the shoe shine box he's sitting on. Michel Fortier/Alexia Foundation
SOURCE: ALEXIA FOUNDATION

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