[Late] 4/25 Monkey Dance response

The “Monkey Dance” video documentary  provided a closer look at Cambodian families in Lowell, Massachusetts.  The parents of the family shown were refugees from Cambodia who escaped the Khmer Rouge who were committing genocide against the Cambodians.  With this in mind, the family was trying to revive and preserve the traditions that were almost lost in the genocide.  This was mainly through teaching traditional Cambodian dance to their children.  However, their children were growing up in an American culture, and sometimes they had trouble balancing what was expected of them from their family, and what they wanted to do to fit in with the American culture.  The daughter in the family for example was expected to not to date and to stay at home most of the time.  And the son had to balance school with working, where he used the money he saved to buy car parts.  However all the children in the family were part of the family dance troupe.  There they learned a variety of traditional dances, however they infused parts of the traditional dances with their own personal flare, such as adding break dancing to parts of the dance.  So while their parents were trying to pass down their traditions, their children were in a way making it their own.