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< | An attempt at reconciliation | >
> | The Thai Immigration, Housing, and Labor Advocacy Project | | | | |
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< | -- By HenryRoss - 13 Mar 2015 | >
> | -- By HenryRoss - 5 May 2015 | | | | |
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< | Two friends of mine, a Buddhist who went to law school and an American who murdered a Thai prostitute and hid her body in a suitcase, elicited the idea discussed in this essay. They deserve introduction at the outset. | >
> | In my post a few weeks ago, I described my personal connection to a problem and offered a vague outline of a solution. I write to replace that quixotic narrative with an update on what I have done since then and what I intend to do next. | | | | |
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< | I. Pii Praew | >
> | I. Building the network | | | | |
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< | Pii Praew, whom I met while working in Bangkok last year, is now in New York pursuing an LL.M. She is the archetypal “yellow shirt,” a member of the elite, pro-monarchy class ruling Thailand in the wake of last year’s judicial and military overthrow of the democratically elected “red shirt” government. Like hundreds of other young Thais of her pedigree, she is in New York to obtain qualifications—in international commercial law, or something like that—entirely unrelated to the pressing issues of her country. These degrees will permit her to assume a high-level, unelected government position upon her return. We met up for overpriced cocktails last weekend at a Midtown bar. | >
> | Skeptical of Joshua Horowitz’s claim that telephone and email persistence with strangers is worth the trouble, I decided to send out a slew of messages asking for support, advice, or contacts. To my surprise, I received several responses. | | | | |
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< | II. Ron | >
> | Stan Mark, Senior Attorney for the AALDEF, called to express his support, suggesting that I contact the Thai Consulate in New York, the Legal Aid Society in Queens, and workers’ organizations with large Thai memberships. I used Lawnet to track down Thai LL.M. candidates at Columbia, who in turn suggested that I email Narun Popattanachai, a J.S.D. candidate here who specializes in commercial law. | | | | |
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< | I interviewed Ron at the Bangkok Remand Prison as part of a research assignment on Thai criminal procedure for my organization. A self-declared “take-no-prisoners, go-fuck-yourself capitalist,” Ron was a Navy SEAL commando before he retired to southern Thailand. The woman he killed, Wanpen Pianchai, had moved from Isaan, the poverty-stricken northeast region of Thailand, to Ron’s resort town, where Thai women have catered to the sexual appetites of ex-military since the Vietnam War. Ron stabbed Wanpen in his apartment after an argument at a gas station. Determined to hate him, I enjoyed his company so much that I overstayed my allotted interview time by almost seven hours, talking sports and listening to the stories of his various exploits in Thailand. | >
> | I didn’t get a response from Narun, so I sought him out during a coffee break before his presentation at the Columbia-hosted Thailand Update Conference. As it turns out, Narun is also a practicing lawyer with significant experience in several areas of poverty law. He’s busy, but he’s competent, well-connected, and eager. We arranged to meet for lunch over the coming weeks. While we were talking, Narun was greeted by Li Ling, an attendee from the Henry Luce Foundation, the event’s co-sponsor. Narun filled him in and asked—in so many words—if Luce would donate. Like any circumspect distributor of the assets of a dead rich man, Ling smiled and sidestepped: “why don’t you get it off the ground first.” | | | | |
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< | III. The evil they, and I, embody | | | | |
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< | Pii Praew and Ron both claim love Thailand, yet they represent the Thai nobility and American aggression (both overt and covert) that have conspired to divide and oppress the country for decades. I’m not Thai aristocracy and I’ve never paid, or killed, for Thai sex, but as an American who fancies himself an ally to the Thai people, I’m caught in the same shameful hypocrisy as my two friends. The idea that follows is my self-serving attempt to escape this oppressive hypocrisy by assisting a population that has come to this country to escape its effects. To this population I now turn. | >
> | II. Reformulating the idea | | | | |
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< | IV. The problem in New York, as I see it | >
> | Like Ling, most people want to see evidence of momentum. They sometimes ask if the organization has a name, so I gave it a name. Law students want to know what the administration thinks, the administration wants to know if any lawyers are on board, and lawyers want to know how much free student labor they’re going to get. My strategy has evolved accordingly. Now, rather than “Henry Ross, a law student hoping you could help me,” I am “Henry Ross from Columbia Law School, asking you to consider joining us.” The more I say it, the truer it becomes. If the project didn’t have underlying value, it would be a shameless Ponzi scheme for public interest lawyers. | | | | |
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< | As the U.S. propped up an anti-communist military dictatorship in the early 1970s, Thais began migrating in large numbers to the U.S., carrying with them the divisions they sought to escape. The result is the existence of two groups encompassing most non-citizen Thais in the United States: those who sell their food or bodies for low wages to people like Ron, and the remaining few who will return with fancy U.S. degrees to work for the Thai government or foreign corporations in Bangkok. The first group lives in Queens, mainly Elmhurst and Woodside; the second lives as close as possible to expensive Midtown bars. | >
> | Bringing in lawyers and institutions isn’t just about building momentum. Lawyers supply expertise and keep us from violating Section 478 of the N.Y. Code; institutions provide money and promotion. Thus, I have abandoned the image of myself leading a “student group” of privileged Thais and renegade law students into a tenement and emerging victorious. Instead, this idea has taken shape as a Columbia in-house pro bono project. The exchange is simple: lawyers expand their practice at no expense and with Columbia’s quality guarantee while law students get credit toward academic or pro bono requirements for graduation. | | | | |
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< | V. My idea: a very tiny part of the solution | >
> | Nobody has been more supportive of this undertaking than Laren Spirer, the Director of Pro Bono Programs at the law school. Laren, who has built her career around pro bono work, sees the same need and opportunity that I do. She has access to a vast network of organizations and people that provide legal services to the poor, including her colleagues in similar positions at NYU and Fordham. Designed for Columbia Law students, the pro bono program nonetheless permits participation by students in other divisions of Columbia and at other universities. | | | | |
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< | My idea is to harness the advantages of the second group for the benefit of the first. There are approximately 30,000 Thais in the New York City Area, less than 8,000 of whom were counted as legal residents in the 2010 Census. I assume that those people, especially those uncounted, from time to time require “legal services” or assistance of some sort on a range of issues—visas, naturalization, employment, housing, business licenses, marriage, and divorce, to name a few. Unable to find any organizations, legal or otherwise, specifically serving that population (some, such as the AALDF, include Thais but seem to focus on larger immigrant populations from East and South Asia), I conclude that my idea requires the establishment of a new organization to provide the service I envision. The organization would be comprised primarily of undergraduate and graduate students living in New York, particularly those familiar with Thai language, U.S. law, or—as in Pii Praew’s case—both. | >
> | With the help of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, the Southeast Asian Student Initiative, and the Columbia Students for Southeast Asian Development, I have arrived at a more concrete vision of what roles such non-law students might play. These include assistance with translation, web design, and community education—all familiar undergraduate tasks. Early results are promising. One Thai student is putting me in touch with the monks at Wat Buddha Thai Thavorn Vanaram, a Thai temple in Elmhurst, which I hope to visit with flyers and translators next weekend. Another posted a Thai-language summary of the proposal on the Thai community Facebook page. She has been relaying the post’s “likes” count (187 to date) and comments regarding what sorts of services are most needed. | | | | |
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< | VI. Why the idea could work | | | | |
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< | Leaving aside for the moment important logistical considerations—such as funding issues and cartel restrictions on practicing without a license—I take up the obvious objection that elite Thais who don’t care about working-class Thais back home won’t care about them in the U.S. But changes in the social environment—the stage, as Leff would call it—in which people find themselves do affect the roles that people subconsciously assume and the things they are willing to do. In the ordinary course of events, I would have been repulsed by the idea of befriending a prostitute-killer. But Ron and I were the only two people in that building who had watched the 1996 World Series. Two Americans in the middle of a Thai prison. One was a murderer and the other got to leave at the end of the day, but in those circumstances, it didn’t matter. | >
> | III. Next steps | | | | |
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< | At the bar, Pii Praew spoke freely about the Thai monarchy, something her family’s status and Section 112 of the Thai Penal Code prohibit back home. I then asked her if she’d be interested in the project. She said she would, and could think of several Thai LL.M. students in New York who would too. | >
> | My instinct is to keep visiting temples, poring over online comments, and making other efforts to assess where the greatest need exists. Laren thinks finding a supervising attorney allows us to bypass that step. Where there is a lawyer, there is a need. If that’s the case, then that search can begin immediately. Within the organizations I have contacted already, there are countless candidates—one of the lawyers at the Asian American Bar Association of New York, for example, or at the Queens Legal Services Corporation. Narun, at the very least, might be able to get us started. | | | | |
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< | VII. A disclaimer | >
> | After that, the next steps are internal. Laren indicated that the bureaucratic process of approval and budget allocation would be trivial in comparison with the difficulty of recruiting and adequately training members. Creating recruitment materials, compiling a practice manual, field visits, observations at the Queens County Civil Court in Long Island City, and other such tasks would likely prevent a launch date earlier than August of 2016. An attorney whose practice is large enough for well-established rules—such as client fees (if any) and training experience—could help us reduce the workload. | | | | |
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< | I have just thirteen months of immersion in Thai language and life, seven (mostly unhelpful) months of law school, and five months of work and research on legal aid provision. I should acknowledge that I am not well-informed enough about this topic to be confident in my assessment of the problem, that I am ill-prepared to solve it, and that I have likely belittled the problem by proposing an extracurricular activity to address it. The less the implementation of the idea relies on my limited knowledge and experience, the more likely it will be to succeed. If it fails, I’ll have to content myself with laying it to rest beneath the Thurgood Marshall epitaph that never was.
I think the important disclaimer would be that it's a long way from what people say over pricey cocktails in midtown bars to what actually is involved in showing up for the food deliverers and sex workers of Elmhurst. You don't need Ron in the story: you put him there for color, which he has, but it wastes words: he's no part of your actual machinery. So we are left with Pii Praew, a sample of one, her possible off-stage friends, and your vision.
You have a sketch on a pad, the beginning of a strategy. You see how resources provided by A might be available to solve the social problems of B. You see some people who are like people of which something you want to make could be made.
A better draft results from the further fleshing out of your strategy, consisting of fewer charming stories about why you want to do it, and more (or less) charming consideration about the actual resources, objectives, and tactical considerations involved in starting to get it done.
Comments are still available in the page "History." But just as your next draft will clean out these comments of mine, replacing everything with a clean rewrite, this is a different revision of the page than the one other commentators made.
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> | Finally, I need to keep building the tiny network that I have created. Its growth over the past few weeks has been both unexpected and deeply heartening. I don’t have a complete answer for why I’m coming back in the fall, but I am excited to come back for this project. However it turns out, I’m grateful to all of you for encouraging me to think differently about what my time here means. And, of course: let me know if you’d be interest in joining “us.” | | |
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