5/15 Shah

            In the excerpt “Laotian Daughters Working toward Community, Belonging, and Environmental Justice” by Shah B. discusses a very intriguing point about intergeneration differences that lead to family problems. First of all, second generation Laotians are afraid that their children would lose ethnic identity and authenticity in American society, so they dedicate much of their attention to nurturing their daughters to embody the Laotian traditions and cultures through dresses, ceremonies, familial practices, expectations, and many more. What is interesting about this is that their daughters were misled to believe that they would be failures if they do not study well in school, would be undesirable if they do not learn to cook, and would be traitors to Laotian culture if they resist or make their own choices. These were all examples of the concept of epistemological authority, where ones with knowledge can set the standards of norm; what’s problematic of this, is that the ones who are subjected to the authority loses their own identity and faith in knowledge, and grows the tendency to rebel. An example of this from another reading would be the Filipino immigrants who were seen as traitors to their own countries by the Filipino officials in Benito Vergara Jr.’s excerpt. The parent’s and officials’ resentments for divergence from cultural expectations concluded with ignorance and betrayal from both the Laotian girls and Filipino Americans. The result of this from the oppressed groups was basically, withdrawals symptoms from the consumption of culture. Whereas the girls because more distant from their cultural markers, Filipinos also felt alienated from their origins despite both groups tried hard to participate in cultural consumptions.