The unheard stories in each of us

The New York Times did a feature article on Jacob Deng Mach, who, as a child, was one of the Lost Boys from Sudan sent to live in Georgia by the government to escape the violent shootings and attacks from the Sudanese civil war but had a difficult transition into civilized American lifestyle. Not only was the mentality and value critically different, but society didn't accept him as easily as they could have. While he went through military training, his officers often threw up their hands in exasperation and expressed their frustration at Jacob's struggle to follow orders.

For a time, this had a palpable effect on Jacob that presented a different kind of pain than wandering around Africa without a real home or family, a different kind of pain than living on one meal a day for 10 years, being chased by lions, or hiding from the shooters who made it impossible to live a single day with a sense of safety. It came from the dull, hollow, hopeless feeling that gnawed at his stomach whenever he felt alone, which was pretty much all the time. It came from the cold glances of people who judged before they listened, the people who gave up on him before they saw what he was capable of, the people who labeled him before they knew him.

This is an extreme case in which the story of the past is unfathomably disturbing, but deep down we each bury our past and feel the sting when people judge us without knowing our past. It is becoming increasingly difficult for immigrants to adjust to societies because people are becoming more and more closed in and unwelcoming to those who are different from themselves. But if we've learned anything from history, we'd know that this only creates harm. We fail to realize that intolerance harms not only other people, but ourselves as well. We lose the opportunity to learn from their stories, to connect our past with those of other people, and to contribute to the community by advocating diversity, unity, and equality.

I hope for the day when we can realize that everyone has a story, and that this makes us all equal rather than giving us the right to judge.

A look in the shadows of Cambodia

CNN recently wrote a feature on sex trafficking in Cambodia. Following the stories of survivors, the reporters traced all the way back to the mothers in Cambodia who sold their daughters into sex slavery. The motives were mostly simple. Poverty is a everywhere in some towns of Cambodia that continues to drive people to make rash decisions for the promise of money. When a family falls into debt that they cannot pay, they do anything for even a little bit of money, even if it involves giving up their own daughters to voluntarily be raped by men.

This scars the victims for the rest of their lives. Knowing that their mothers are in the car outside, voluntarily allowing them to be molested and physically abused by two or three men a night has a huge effect on the victims' sense of self worth. These mothers have to stoop so low and get their daughters to take such a low place that it's horrifying what people would do for a bit of money.

The article introduced organizations such as Agape International Missions, which rescue and rehabilitate victims of sex slavery, and described what they have done to prevent the issue. It ends on a hopeful note, talking about how the victims now have hope for a beautiful future in which they can pursue their own dreams so that they can provide for their family in ways that don't require them to harm themselves in any way.

Yes, slavery does exist in the 21st century. People do anything to survive and make ends meet, even if it is at the expense of their own dignity and the rights they have as humans. That's why I think this feature article captured something so important, so necessary. The media needs to step in and become the voice of the victims and their families on this issue that is so gruesome and dark that it's left in the shadows of countries that participate in sex trade.

It's time not only to bring these secretive, in-the-shadows issues to light, but also to start proposing ideas on how to get involved to end them.

The freedom of a blogger

The first amendment allows freedom of speech to every American citizen. There is a question of to what extent, because posts on social media can be potentially harmful, especially if it's not the truth. But to what extent can the government censor these "non-truths" without taking away the freedom completely? How would they go through every single blog post looking to see if things are true or not? What if they keywords they search for are not used in the context they're looking for?
If we were to put governmental interference and regulations on these blogs, there will come a point where people will begin to argue that they cannot post anything anymore. It will become too powerful and begin to censor things that don't need to be censored. People will lose what voice they have to speak up against governmental actions. This voice is what makes the will of the people known. It's what allows people to influence the world around them, to react to the world.

7 things the sibling of a disabled person experiences

Obviously, having a disabled member of the family is hard on the parents. They have to pay for any medications, take their child to the hospital for regular checkups, take them to therapy, find ways to help their child do things despite their disabilities, and are responsible for the child's whole life. But no one really knows how it affects the sibling of a disabled child. The sibling's story is overlooked and unheard. These are some things I've learned from the experience of growing up with my disabled brother...

1. You get embarrassed.
At a young age, I was embarrassed by the way my brother talked, the way he seemed like my younger brother when he was really older than me, and the way my parents had to constantly take care of him. Whenever he had a seizure, everyone would stare at him. I remember one time when we were at a restaurant, my brother suddenly had a seizure. No one around us knew what was going on. All dialogue stopped as they all stared, horrified, at my brother, who was shaking and making a loud moaning sound. I wanted to run away and hide. I wanted to escape from my own body and pretend I was part of a different family.

2. You wonder why.
I remember how it felt when kids my age would come up to me and ask, "why is your brother so weird? Why does he talk like that? Why does he walk like that? How old is he again?" I didn't have any answers. I would go home and ask my mom countless times, "Why do I have to have a brother like that? Why can't I have a normal brother, like everybody else?" My mother's eyes would mist over whenever I asked that question, and she would just answer, "God gave him to our family."

3. You compete for your parents' attention.
My parents were always occupied with my brother. My brother would randomly have a seizure at an unknown time, so my parents always had to hold on to him. When I was little, I didn't think this was fair. I sometimes felt like my parents liked my brother better than me. As a result, I did everything I could to make sure my parents were proud of me. I tried hard in school, earned good grades, and relished every pat on the back they gave me.

4. You compete for others' attention.
When we would go to church or meet friends of the family, my brother would always be the focus of the conversation. People would immediately run over to hug him, ask him how he was doing, and give him little gifts. Although it was obviously because they knew about his conditions, at a young age I couldn't grasp why nothing I did seemed to earn me the level of recognition that my brother got. I felt so small and invisible next to him. I didn't understand why people wouldn't treat me the same way or give me the same attention, especially when I seemed to be putting in so much effort to please my parents and please other people around me. They seemed to love my brother exactly how he was, yet the only time I got any sort of recognition was when I worked really hard at school and earned a good grade.

5. When they get bullied, you feel the pain.
Even though I was embarrassed, even though I wondered why, and even though I competed with my brother for the attention of everyone around us, I still felt obligated to protect him. Whenever kids made fun of him, I would tell them off for it. I guess it's the same for every sibling. Although you do fight all the time and sometimes you even feel like you hate your brother or sister, when they are being bullied, you always feel the pain and try to help them out. My brother protected me too, in any way that he could. He was always making sure I was okay. Though his disabilities limited him, he was always looking out for me.

6. Through them, you see how your family members rely on each other.
My brother required so much attention that sometimes even my parents felt overwhelmed. Thankfully, my grandparents would step in when times were hard. They were my brother's biggest supporters, encouraging my mom when she felt worn out and giving my parents advice. I saw their love for my brother and really learned to appreciate their support. I also saw how my parents worked together in harmony to raise my brother. I believe it was really instrumental in their marriage, allowing them to lean on each other and stay together in times of adversity.

7. You gain appreciation for disabled people.
Although I was embarrassed by my brother at first and thought he was taking my parents away from me, as I got older I began to understand how his disabilities required so much support and attention from every member of our family and how this drew our family closer. I saw how he coped with situations where his disabilities limited him, and I saw the beautiful, innocent heart in him that always sought to make others around him happy. This broke a lot of the bitterness I had towards him when I was little. I began to appreciate him, to love him, and to be proud that I was his sister. I would never have gained an appreciation or sympathy for people with disabilities if it weren't for him. I shudder to think that I might have been like one of those children who made fun of my brother. I wouldn't be the same without him in my life.

Today, I am passionate about speaking out against discrimination aimed at the disabled. I love sharing my story because I know there are so many out there who have gone through or are going through the same things I did. More people need to know how it feels when these people are not welcomed into society, and how it affects the family members.

Little Things #1

The bus was crowded as usual while I was on my way home, packed with people wanting to get home from work or school. As the bus lurched forward from a stop on Main Street, I noticed a woman holding the hand of her little toddler child and also attempting to keep track of at least four grocery bags full of heavy groceries with her other hand. The seats were already occupied on this full bus, and the woman wearily tucked a loose piece of her black hair behind her ear as she searched for a possible seat for herself and her child.

A few stops passed by, and several people got up from the seats to get off the bus. I was expecting someone to offer this woman a seat, because she was clearly in need of one. But to my surprise, this woman remained standing with her grocery bags tucked firmly between her feet and her hand still holding tightly to her toddler's. A group of teenagers occupied 3 seats near the woman, absorbed in their conversation and laughter. They didn't notice anyone else on the bus. It wasn't until a few stops later when a man finally noticed the woman's situation and offered her a seat. She gave him a fleeting but grateful smile as she sank down into the seat and took the toddler on her lap.

What could this woman have been through today? The faint, dark circles under her weary eyes made her look like she hadn't slept in 3 or 4 days. Anyone who looked at her would have seen how tired she was. But even so, half of the people on the bus didn't offer their seats, nor did they show any kind of concern for the woman. The people in need should be represented fairly, even if it is by a single action such as offering your seat for someone who might need it more than you do.

After the man got up for the woman and her baby, her face looked so much more peaceful. She actually could hear what her child was saying to her, keep track of her groceries, and keep an eye out for her bus stop. And the man? He was fine, looking at the toddler with an amused expression for a while before stepping off the bus.

Seeing that one act of kindness from one person inspired me to write about the little things we can all do throughout our days. Each moment comes with decisions we can make that will affect others around us in either a positive or negative way. Even a simple gesture like offering someone a seat on the bus can become seeds of hope for the receivers to sow in the lives of other people they encounter throughout the day.

Our attitude has a huge effect on the people we interact with. When we choose to smile, when we choose to make decisions that could brighten a person's day, those little things make a difference to at least one person. Knowing that we have that kind of power, we need to make those little choices every day, in every moment.

The key to freedom lies in yourself

Regarding the common phrase, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," Actress Salma Hayek once said, "the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder." Everyone in this world has the right to love themselves. No one should ever have to look in the mirror and fill their heads with a thousand things they wish they could change about themselves.

 

It is part of human nature to be insecure--one of the most dominant questions in our lives is, "what does he think about me? Does she like me? Do they think I'm cool?" Think about it. Have you ever walked into a room without asking yourself, "what do these people think about me?" When someone tells you you're ugly, a part of you will listen to it, even though all the other millions of cells in your body may shrug it off.

 

This is why bullying is becoming such a prominent issue in schools today. We always hear and talk about bullying in schools, but the stories related to the issue never cease to appall us. Last week, our school had an assembly in which several students shared their personal stories of their experiences with bullying. It shocked me to hear several of my classmates talk about the pain they went through, because at first glance I would have never guessed they had experienced something that horrible.

 

We have all been exposed to a form of bullying at some point in our lives. It could have been minor, it could have been long-lasting. But the pain was still real, the feeling of insecurity strong and intense. Especially among children and teenagers, who usually feel the most insecure about themselves, this issue has become a leading cause of suicide, self-harm, self-hatred, fear, and depression. Our childhood is the foundation for the rest of our lives--the things we see, hear, and experience go far into our future. Every child deserves to grow up knowing and hearing that they are beautiful and appreciated exactly the way they are. They need to be taught that they are meant to love and be loved at a young age, so that they can walk in confidence and help others around them do the same.

 

Yes, people need to stop bullying. But there is an easier solution. Instead of waiting for the bullies to stop bullying, we could change the way we view ourselves. The answer lies in our own attitudes. Complaining about how other people treat us is giving those people exactly what they want. They want attention; they want to feel good about themselves by putting other people lower. We have the power to not give them what they want. We have the power to love ourselves.

 

Even the most beautiful person in the universe worries about what others think about them when they walk into a room full of people. There's no point in wondering what that boy or that girl thinks about us, because that same boy or girl wonders what you think of them. What matters is what you think of yourself. The way you carry yourself has a big impact on the way you appear to other people. Don't shrink back. Stand tall, keep your head up, because there is nothing more attractive than a person who is sure of who they are. If you think you are beautiful, why does it matter if that boy or that girl doesn't?

Turning hindrances into advantages and curses into blessings

 

Imagine a boy struggling to walk across the streets of a busy town, taking awkward, stiff steps. He longs to join other boys in soccer games and wishes they would not mock him because of his disabilities. He longs to be a great musician, but no one would let him be near a musical instrument, concerned that he would damage it. People think he is a disgrace to his family, one who cannot bring any kind of pride or honor to his parents. No one encourages, defends, or believes in him. No, it's not a hypothetical situation. This boy is experiencing what is constantly remaining a serious issue—discrimination against the disabled.

How many actions do we perform in a single day? We sit, stand, walk downstairs, pour ourselves a cup of coffee, write, read, play instruments, have stimulating discussions with others, and think for ourselves without realizing what we are doing, what each of our body parts is required to do to perform each simple task. At the end of the day, we don't close our eyes and thank the heavens for arms or legs or a mind.

So when someone comes along who doesn't have one or many of these basic things we take for granted, we can't help staring just a second longer, wondering why that person isn't, well, "normal." We automatically and subconsciously label him or her as "abnormal" or "strange." What they do not have is suddenly magnified and that's all we see when we look at them. Their limitations, their inabilities.

Having disabilities is not something we, as humans, have control over. According to Disease Control and Priorities Project, about nine million infants are afflicted with congenital disabilities—disabilities that one is born with. There are so many pregnant women who get their fetus checked for how their baby is going to turn out, and as soon as they figure out that something about their child will not be normal, they begin to worry about how their family will cope with this unusual situation, and some mothers are even driven to abort their baby because of his or her predicted disabilities. It's because disabled people are not treated the same way people without disabilities are.

This is an issue that ties in personally to me, because I have an adopted brother who was born with a complex mix of many different disabilities, including cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and intellectual disabilities. Growing up as his sister, I have seen so much that has made me question the fairness of how disabled people are treated. When I was younger, my brother's disabilities would frighten, embarrass, and frustrate me. I would be forced to stay by his side always, because we wouldn't know when he'd have a seizure. I watched him take 14 pills a day and still collapse on the ground 3 to 4 times every day, eyes rolled back, body rigid, and foaming at the mouth. I was there when a group of kids would always come up to him and mimic his awkward gait and mock him for his disabilities. Seeing the way others treated him and viewed him as an outcast, I began to think that my brother was really not made to fit in with the rest of society. I was embarrassed that he was my brother, and I used to wonder why I couldn't have a normal brother who would play with me, talk with me, tease me a little, and protect me like my friends' brothers did for them.

As I got older, I began to see that my brother was just a normal person on the inside. He loves sports and music, he loves going to school, and he's always willing to help people. Wherever he goes, if people give him the chance, if they reach out to him, he's guaranteed to make them laugh. Even though he is limited by his disabilities, he does everything he can to make himself and others around him happy. The saddest thing for me is imagining where he will be for the rest of his life, after he graduates his school. Will he be stuck at home all day with nothing to do? I'm really hoping he'll be able to find a job, finding what he loves to do and being given the opportunity to do it for the rest of his life. It's always painful to tell him that he can't do something he really wants to because of his disabilities. He doesn't know he is disabled, and even though he wants to go out and run around with the other kids in the neighborhood, he can't because he has to be supervised at all times.

I know there are many people in the world who are going through or have been through something similar. It's true that disabled people aren't receiving the same opportunities or being treated the same way the rest of society is. There are amazing stories of people who have turned their disabilities into blessings rather than curses, surpassing the skills of people without disabilities in whatever they are passionate about. This is because they have chosen to embrace the way they are and ignore the mocking voices that tell them they are not good enough for society. In the face of adversity and tribulation, they have emerged victorious in their understanding of who they are. I think that's more admirable than anything a person born into the most ideal circumstances can do.

 

 

Stepping Stones

Human trafficking is one the fastest-growing criminal industries. It includes the recruiting, transporting, maintaining, providing, confining, abusing, or obtaining of people for self-utilization or profit. It can involve men and women, adults or children, U.S. citizens or foreigners. A branch of human trafficking is sex trafficking, which involves young women being sold into prostitution or forced to be an object of the sex trade. The most common age for young women to enter prostitution is between the ages of 12 and 14, and there are 100,000 children estimated to be a part of the sex trade every year. The victims are threatened and often verbally and physically abused. They are forced to keep their heads low and obey their bosses. Their voice is unheard and they are forced to swallow years of pain and darkness, keeping it locked up deep inside themselves. This issue is often unheard of and misunderstood, and it isn't easy to spot a victim at first glance.

The state of New York is getting up on its feet to help victims of human- and sex-trafficking and to steer women away from the jaws of the sex industry. On Wednesday, September 25, New York's chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, introduced the first statewide system of specialized courts that deal specifically with trafficking offenses and help the victims of trafficking with the darkness of the experiences that they keep buried deep inside their beings. Eleven new courts were established across the state that will unite trained prosecutors, judges, and defense lawyers, along with social workers and an array of other services together in handling cases like human- or sex-trafficking. This new system was a counterpart for 3 laws recently passed by the New York State Legislature, including the Anti-Human Trafficking Act (which makes sex and labor trafficking a federal crime), the Safe Harbor for Exploited Children Act (which states that anyone under 18 who is arrested on prostitution charges is treated as "a sexually exploited child" as opposed to previous years, when they were treated as the criminals rather than the victims), and a third law that allows the victims of trafficking to have their prostitution charges vacated. 

Chief Judge Lippman is hoping that these actions as a whole will stop trafficking cases from just being brushed over at court trials without even going deep into the core reasons why the victims are there in the first place, which is problematic because each case of trafficking is so unique. Under this new system of specialized courts, called the Human Trafficking Intervention Courts, prostitution-related offenses cases will be evaluated by the judge, defense lawyer and prosecutor. If they reach a consensus, the court will then turn over the defendants to services like drug treatment, shelter, immigration assistance and health care, as well as education and job training, attempting to prevent them from returning to the sex trade.

“Human trafficking is a crime that inflicts terrible harm on the most vulnerable members of society: victims of abuse, the poor, children, runaways, immigrants,” Judge Lippman said. “It is in every sense a form of modern-day slavery. We cannot tolerate this practice in a civilized society, nor can we afford to let victims of trafficking slip between the cracks of our justice system” (NY Times, 9/25/2013).

To the Women in New Delhi: Be Strong!

On September 13th, people celebrated outside of Saket District Court in New Delhi, India upon discovering that four men convicted of raping and murdering a 23-year-old woman coming home at night from a movie theater were sentenced to death by hanging. Cases of rape are not uncommon in India; from January to August of this year, there were 1,121 cases of registered rape cases in New Delhi, more than double the number from the same period in 2011 and the highest number since 2000. In a nation where women are expected to keep their heads down and silently surrender to the men looming above them, every bus ride is fearful to a woman, every moment spent outside full of tension and anxiety.

When I first moved to New York from Texas, I remember one of the most daunting experiences was taking the subway for the first time. The coldly alert eyes of the busy New Yorkers looked threatening to me. Yet, kids barely in middle school were casually sitting in the seats, earphones on, bobbing their heads to the music playing in their iPods.

Taking the subway alone for the first time is a pretty daunting task, especially if you're young and everyone around you seems so much bigger and stronger. As Americans, and especially as New Yorkers, we are trained to be independent at a young age, learning to take public transportation and blend in with everyone else on the streets. Men and women, boys and girls, old and young, we all walk briskly to wherever we are headed, getting on and off the trains and getting on and off the buses with no second thoughts.

Other people in the world are not so fortunate. The things we do so casually, so nonchalantly, are luxuries to others. While we complain about waking up early to commute to school, other people would give anything to be able to travel back and forth easily. Women in India must commute back and forth to and from work every day, just like New Yorkers do. However, they live in a society where they are scorned, taunted, and violated for their sex. As reported in The New York Times, a young Indian girl in college who takes the bus every day to work described the bus ride as a very tense, uncomfortable ride where a girl doesn't know when a man will sexually harass or touch her, where a girl is unprotected and left open for men to lay their hands on. In India, girls are expected to keep their heads down and silently obey whatever man is above her--before marriage, this would be her father, and after marriage, it would be her husband. When something bad happens to a girl, she is blamed for having the audacity to set foot outside of her home, where she should be taking care of the house.

These issues have not gone away. We have improved in not discriminating based on gender, but cases of rape, sexual harassment, and all sorts of other issues dealing with sexism still threaten us today. When a woman is violated, she suffers for many, many years, sometimes even her whole life, with the scars that the memories leave behind. In nations like India, where the whole cultural mindset places women far below men and classify them as weak, the entire society's view of females must change if these issues are going to be diminished. To change a whole society, one person is not enough. The community must come together as one, accepting and welcoming females on an equal ground as males. They have no reason to not be able to pursue their dreams. They shouldn't have to walk around the streets shooting 180-degree glances in all directions, wondering who will hunt them down next.

Be that one person.

So many things happen in the world every second. We pass so many strangers on the streets, sit by so many different people on the bus, hear so many voices saying so many different things, and silently judge people based on their appearance or the words that come out of their mouths. But who are we to judge when we don't know the person's story? How can we ever know a person before we have walked in his or her shoes?

A 12-year-old girl in Florida named Rebecca Sedwick committed suicide this past Monday, September 9th, after more than a year of being tormented, threatened, and abused online by a group of 15-year-olds who urged her to end her life. She was one of the youngest people added to the growing list of teens and children who committed suicide. Attempting to stop the bullying, her mother changed Rebecca's cell phone number, deleted her Facebook account, put her in a different school, and tried as best as she could to keep up with her daughter's social activity. But Rebecca had found loopholes to other social media sites and had been interacting with her peers by posting pictures and messages to which she received only death threats and comments about how ugly she was. Her peers asked her questions like "why are you still alive? Can you please just go die? Why are you so ugly?" Being a 12-year-old, she kept it all from her mother, whom she predicted would just take her phone away and make her remain as isolated to the world as humanly possible. Left to bear this pain alone, she grappled with self-hatred to the point of being so overwhelmed that she was driven to end her own life.

Rebecca was a typical 12-year-old girl who wanted to audition for the school chorus and try out for the cheerleading team. She wanted to fit in. She wanted friends. Can you imagine how many people would have seen the hateful comments on her social media accounts, shrugged, and just clicked on the next link? How many people passed by her every day, pretending not to see the cuts on her arm that she with the razor blades she had at home, looking her up and down and mentally picking out every single flaw on her body? How many voices would it have taken to stop Rebecca from killing herself? Perhaps just one. Maybe all it would have taken was just one person to stop, look her in the eyes, and say, "You look really nice today." That would have given her a glimmer of hope, a small spark that could have grown into a huge fire.

How many people have you passed by today? How many voices have you heard today? What was your attitude, what did you say, and what did you do? Whether we realize it or not, we pass by so many people who are burying years of scars and pain deep inside themselves, wishing they were someone else, or wishing someone to come by who would appreciate the way they are. Maybe your attitude can change a person's mind about committing suicide the next morning, or even in the next hour. Be that one voice, be that one person who will shatter the lies of self-hatred that a person is facing, and realize how much power your words and your attitude can have on people you interact with. We don't know a person's story just by looking at them. So who are we to judge? How many more people must be driven to end their own lives before we realize what an impact each of our decisions can have on the people around us?