ON THAI TRANSNATIONAL misleadingly considered Thailand to be the SUBJECTIVITY “next domino” to fall to communism. The US was actively contributing to military authoritarianism abroad to fight socialist Sudarat Musikawong 1 communism (Bradley 1978). The US Congressional Hearings on Human Rights Abstract in Thailand marked an end to US military aid sent to Thailand after the October 6,
1976 massacre. The testimonies by Thai This paper examines the formation of nationals examined in this paper were transnational subjectivity through Thai transnational political acts. political engagements in the United States
(US). Thai people in the US participate in The scope and scale of Thai political Thai homeland politics, while negotiating homeland transnationalisms in the United for a Thai immigrant identity in the US. States is a subject greatly understudied. Thai diasporas exist through political and Several contemporary events point to the social experiences, in which Thai formation of Thai political experiences communities and persons engage in that occur through travel between Thailand homeland politics . Political acts and and the United States, involving Thai protests by Thais in the United States are transnational political engagements in the not new, but emerged in the aftermath of United States. Such events include the the Cold War. This paper asks how public participation of political exiles from political exiles, popular protests, film the 1970s, the May 1992 demonstrations festivals, and satellite television challenge among Thai diasporas in Los Angeles what Benedict Anderson has termed against the Thai state’s crackdown on “long-distance” nationalism and Arjun democracy demonstrators in Bangkok, and Appadurai’s mediascapes. the 2004 film festivals in Los Angeles and
New York City. Much of the literature
about memories of 1970s Thai state Introduction violence has remained primarily focused on the contest over Thai historiography Thais in the United States (US) have been contained within the borders of Thailand integral participants in the issues of (Somkiat 1978, Nidhi 2002, Charnvit democracy, human rights, migration and 2001). Yet, memories about 1970s state immigration through their transnational violence have traveled between Bangkok political ties between Thailand and the US. and US cities, through the 1977 travels of The United States has long been a ‘home’ political exiles to testify at the US away from home in which Thai politics are Congressional Hearings, and the 2000s negotiated, especially in light of the resurgence of interest in the October 14, history of US counterinsurgency in 1973 uprising against the military Southeast Asia. In the aftermath of the dictatorship and the October 6, 1976 October 14, 1973 uprising that led to the massacre of the student movement among demise of the Thanom Kittikajorn military diasporic Thai communities in the United government, US political analysts States. Beside cultural activities involving memories of both of these October events, 1 Assistant Professor, Department of political activities in New York City Sociology, Siena College, New York.
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included demonstrations against former reunification under the United States 1965 Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra during Immigration Act. By 1975, while over the United Nations 2006 meeting. Activist 30,000 Thais resided in the United States, organizing against the Thai government more accurate estimates were as high as and 2006–2007 military junta in major US 200,000, with most being women and cities was a key highlight of transnational children. In the mid 1970s, 42% of all Thai homeland politics. These Thais admitted were wives of American transnational activities form a range of citizens. While some university students direct political/cultural engagements that returned to Thailand, some did stay, but reveal the contextual and fragmented not in significant numbers to constitute a nature of the “Thai transnational” subject. “brain drain” (Desbarats 1979: 304–306). The formation of Thai transnationals in Family reunification immigration was at places such as Washington DC, Los its height in the 1980s and constitutes the Angeles, and New York reveals multiple second wave of Thai migration. Some political subjectivities in conflict over thirty years later, in the wake of the 1997 what constitutes democracy and Asian economic crash, many working- belonging, and that are ultimately poor Thais migrated to the United States, dangerously bound to nationalism. overstayed their visas, and found work. This is the third wave of migration. In Making the Thai political subject 2000, demographically Thais increased in transnational their relatively small numbers in official numbers in the United States to over The research on Thais in the United States 150,000 as documented by the U.S. in general is limited. I suggest it can be Census. However with Desbarats’ rooted in two diverging premises. One is estimation of 200,000 Thais in 1975, it based on the study of Thai economic would suggest that there are at least four immigration to the United States. The times more Thais in the US. other focuses on transnational Thai homeland political engagement as a vibrant from of social and cultural There are essentially, two Thai diasporic practice. As part of the historical communities: 1) earlier immigrants with migration of mainland Southeast Asians to Green Card/ US citizen status tied to Thai the United States, most Thai immigrants middle class politics in Thailand since the are distinct from their regional 1970s and 2) an emerging working class of poor economic migrants who have both counterparts, who are mostly displaced 2 refugees from the US wars and their documented and undocumented status. aftermath in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Initial Thai migration in the 2 Within the context of US debates on “illegal 1970s–1980s stemmed primarily from the immigration” there has been an effort by middle and elite classes who attended hyper-nationalist nativists to name racially university in the US and applied for non-white immigrant persons as “illegals.” In residency, or who migrated via their a counter-discursive move, immigrant rights professional status in fields such as advocates have sought to use the term medicine and engineering. Many of this documented and undocumented immigrants to decriminalize immigrants who have not first wave of Thai immigrants were able to received government documentation for their sponsor immediate family members for presence in the US. The 2000 US Census does
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Within migration from Asia to the United category, which cannot be grounded in a States, there is an observable pattern of set of fixed trans-cultural or transcendental bifurcation or bipolarization between racial categories…” (Hall 1996: 443, 448). affluent middle class Asians and more recent economic migrants (Takaki 1998). Informed by Hall, James Clifford (1994) This may be also true for Thais in the US. posits that diasporas cannot be contained Evelyn Hu-DeHart (1999: 16–17) suggests by assimilationist formations of the that this bifurcation is symptomatic of the immigrant. For both Hall and Clifford, ways global capitalism has uneven effects diaspora is in tension with nativist identity upon different economic class formations of national hegemonies, communities within one ethnicity. In Los invoked increasingly by displaced peoples Angeles, New York, and other urban ports with a connection to a prior sense of of entry, Thai temples, consulates, small homeland. Displacement of these migrants markets, and video stores emerged as occurs under the pressure of political centers for Thai social life, but violence and transnational capitalism that incorporating the working poor and middle simultaneously enables relative mobility classes quite differently. In this article, between homelands and major international however, I will focus primarily on Thais cities. In the case of Thai immigrants, in who have engaged in homeland politics as urban centers like Los Angeles and New part of an emerging Thai immigrant York, the production of October 1970s middle class in the United States. memories suggests a transnational Thai subject who travels both physically and The work on transnational and diasporic ideologically between Thailand and the communities varies across academic United States, participating in homeland disciplines. In media studies, Stuart Hall politics. (1990) argues that conditions of decolonization created influxes of Black In conversation with notions of diaspora, Diasporas in Britain. These postcolonial Aihwa Ong (1999, 2006), argues that subjects produced cinema and other media capitalist neoliberal systems offer state that connect displaced peoples with their regulated rights that privilege a “flexible histories, in a process that served to citizen.” This flexible citizen labors as a “enunciate” their identities. This is equally subject skilled and predisposed to care of true of Thai diasporas when exhibitions of the self for the purpose of maximizing Thai media and video take place in centers profit. For Arjun Appadurai (1996), the for Thai immigrant social life. However, porous boundaries of the nation-state “Ethnic” enunciation is far from stable or through the traffic of transnational media- removed from the sometimes violent scapes creates imaged selves via satellite politics of identity. For Hall, the project television, the global commerce of cinema, of “de-coupling” ethnicity from video, restaurants, sports, and tourism. nationalism reveals the fluid and While Ong maintains a tension with the contextual nature of how ethnic-racial nation-state and Appadurai notes a need to identity as “black” “is essentially a go “beyond” the nation-state, both politically and culturally constructed problematically presume a political subject premised on social experiences of the cosmopolitan in which the state no longer not accurately represent actual population, plays a significant role. These especially for the undocumented.
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conceptualizations of the citizen-subject in alliance between royalists and some studies of transnationalism came in the progressive activists. Furthermore, other late 1990s at the height of economic neo- strategic alliances between Thaksin’s liberalism. Conceptualizations of the strains of populist capitalism and transnational subject depend on contexts competing groups of other progressives of time and place. Yet, clearly the role of have also organized transnationally. While the state in determining belonging to within Thai immigrant communities there nation has far from vanished. The is some homeland political participation formation of Thai transnational politics is among the newly arrived working poor, it mediated by long distance nationalism. is predominantly the established Thai According to Benedict Anderson, immigrants that participate in organizing “electronic communications, combined political and cultural events related to with the huge migrations created by the remembering the 1970s. present world-economic system, are creating a virulent new form of Many of the more established immigrants nationalism, which I call long-distance constitute an emerging Thai middle class nationalism: a nationalism that no longer in the US. Jiemen Bao (2005) focuses on depends as it once did on territorial middle class’ transnational economic ties location in a home country” (2001: 42). through the Thai temple as a space in This paper points to the tensions over which cultural capital and social status is defining “Thai-ness” as a viable ethnic, achieved within Thai diasporic democratic, political, historical communities. Bao illustrates Ong’s idea transnational subject, as social practices of flexible citizenship by demonstrating that foreshadow the virulent nationalism of how Thai Buddhist merit making converts the contemporary era. economic capital into cultural capital (Bao 2005). Given different notions of Thai Before illustrating these tensions in identity forged out of displacement transnational homeland politics, I want to (economic and political), I suggest that a call attention to the fact that not all Thai focus on Thai transnational identity is immigrants participate in homeland better understood not necessarily as Aihwa politics in the same way. Saskia Sassen Ong’s privileged flexible citizen (1999), (2003) argues that the less privileged but more broadly as a bifurcated Thai denationalized citizen can demand political subject that intervenes in Thai accountability from global economic and politics by crossing national borders political entities through activist politics between Thailand and the US. One located in the global city. Thai political subject emerges through the communities in the US have struggled necessity of economic migration and the with these very issues by engaging in Thai other seeks fulfillment as a political politics at Thai embassies and consular subject through a tie to homeland histories offices, most recently illustrated through and politics. I would like now to turn to the demonstrations in Los Angeles, New this second Thai transnational political York, and Dallas against ousted Prime subject by resituating the cultural Minister Thaksin Shinawatra by the memories about the 1970s leftist social transnationally organized People’s movements between Thailand and the US Alliance for Democracy/ Phanthamit through leftists’ and intellectuals’ Phuea Prachathippatai [PAD], a strategic engagement with the US government in
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1977 and through their more recent 2003 Thanom inside the gates of Thammasat engagement with Los Angeles-based Thai University in central Bangkok, the Thai temples, and university alumni military, police and right-wing organizations connected to homeland paramilitary groups attacked the politics. demonstrations. The assault escalated into a brutal massacre in which 48 people were 6 October Memories: brutally killed. The late 1970s marked a mass exodus of students and leftist “… it is because you do not have to live in organizers to join the Communist Party of Thailand as a Thai citizen.” Thailand (CPT) in the provincial border – Dr. Puey Ungpakorn, testimony to US regions, only to return to major cities in Congressional Hearing the 1980s defeated and “pardoned” under on Human Rights in Thailand. state amnesty. This amnesty and public silence left both critical events unsettled, October 14, 1973 (a civil uprising in and memories of the leftist movements which 500,000 demonstrators in Bangkok marginalized as a lost cause of the Cold helped to oust the military regime) and War. October 6, 1976 (a massacre of student demonstrators protesting the return of the In the 1970s, these traumatic memories regime) mark the experiences of a were a fresh stain for those who personally generation of Thais who participated in the experienced them. Many student activists social movements of the 1970s. These went underground to join the Communist two events are pivotal to the violence Party of Thailand (CPT) and were committed by the state during the 1970s instrumental in developing an international against the leftist and student movements. network organization against authoritarian While the military and institutional powers rule in Thailand. Fresh memories about forced order and obedience to the nation, Thai state violence traveled to the US, Buddhism, and the King, leftist student Europe, and Australia with activists movements were inspired by a organizing talks, publications combination of reform, royalist (Bouehapakdee 1978), and the 1977 US democracy, Marxist-Leninist, and Maoist Congressional Hearing testimonies on ideals. Although the Bangkok popular human rights in Thailand. uprisings of October 14, 1973 successfully led to the ousting of the Thanom The Congressional Hearings were to hear Kittikajorn military regime, the the testimonies on how US military aid to demonstrators suffered great losses with Thailand contributed to the decline of the police and military shooting into the human rights in the country. During this crowds, killing 77 people. October 1973 special session of the US Congressional ushered in the height of student Hearings, public figures like Sulak involvement in labor disputes and land Sivaraksa and former Thammasat reform as well as a counter-wave of right- University Rector Puey Ungpakorn as well as an American political scientist W. Scott wing reactionary organizations through 3 vigilante and paramilitary groups. On Thompson were present to testify. I will October 6, 1976, while five thousand college students and supporters were 3 Puey Ungpakorn was red-baited and accused protesting against the return of General of being a communist sympathizer, responsible
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focus on the exchanges between Puey and financially fueled the police-military Thompson. Thompson saw insurgency and apparatus that ultimately used the October civil rights as separate issues. He events to justify the need for compared the Thai one percent loss of life counterinsurgency funding and a due to Cold War conflict against continuation of armed assault against the Cambodia’s extermination of one-quarter student movement and the CPT. 4 When of its population, and suggested that such Thompson began speaking in abstract loss of life was worth the risk of terms, Puey Ungpakorn pointed out how foreclosing the possibility of another easy it was for Thompson to talk about Khmer Rouge problem. Furthermore, indifference curves and the ability for the Thompson considered right-wing violence Thai government to withstand an exodus against leftists under the Thanin of academics, students, and liberals Kraivixien government (1976–1977) as a because Thompson did not have to live in concern of domestic affairs, and not as a Thailand as a Thai citizen. 5 For violation of human rights. For him, the Thompson, even four years after the US objective was clear: US interest in Congressional Hearings, Thailand and regimes of other countries was to secure much of Southeast Asia was still in US military strategic locations and constant threat of communism (Randolph economic interests. According to 1981). Contrary to Thompson’s claim that Thompson, “letting more countries go Thais publicly spoke of the desire for communist” would weaken the western order, Puey Ungpakorn reminded the US international system based on free enterprise that had been in place to US 4 In 1974, the US spent $29 million in military advantage since the end of WW II (United and economic aid to Thailand. David Morell States Congress 1977: 62–63), with the US and Susan Morell, "Thailand and the U.S.," setting the rules for the World Bank, New York Times , November 22 1976. International Monetary Fund, and the According to Thomas Lobe (1977), the US United Nations. While the US was not funded the Joint US Military Advisory Group (JUSMAG) through the CIA to assist directly involved in rearticulating the Thailand’s counterinsurgency efforts. In October events into Cold War discourse, addition, the US Agency for International US economic and political interests Development (USAID), US Operation Mission (USOM), Office of Public Safety, the World for supporting the student demonstrations on Bank’s Development Committee (DEVCOM), October 6, 1976. When Thammasat and US Information Service (USIS) funded the University Rector Puey Ungpakorn was exiled very structures of Thailand’s police state. in England after the October 6 massacre, he Specifically, US funding was used to fund the traveled to the US to testify in 1977. W. Scott Border Patrol Police, Internal Security Thompson is a political scientist. United Operations Command (ISOC), National States. Congress House. Committee on Security Command, and the Police Aerial International Relations. Subcommittee on reinforcement Unit. Thomas Lobe, United International Organizations., Human Rights in States National Security Police and Aid to the Thailand : Hearings before the Subcommittee Thailand Police (Colorado: University of on International Organizations of the Denver Graduate School of International Committee on International Relations, House Studies, 1977). of Representatives, Ninety-Fifth Congress, 5 United States. Congress. House. Committee First Session, June 23 and 30, 1977 , on International Relations. Subcommittee on International Human Rights (Washington: International Organizations., Human Rights in U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1977). Thailand , 63.
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congress audience that terror and fear of Public remembering, private state violence forced Thais to say just that. memories
The contrast in how memories of the Representations of the traumatic episodes October 6 massacre are differently from the 1970s Thai Cold War traveled to articulated reveals that for Puey the US via community organizations and Ungpakorn, the October 6 event was a film festivals. In 2001, while Bangkok human rights violation, while for commemorations of the 25 th anniversary of Thompson, it fitted into the narrative of the October 6 massacre and the opening of constant encroachment of communism the October 14 uprising Memorial site into Southeast Asia. The hearings are not were underway, historian Charnvit generally mentioned in Thai Studies Kasetsiri, based at Thammasat University, approaches to understanding the October traveled to the Los Angeles Thai temple to 14 uprising and the October 6 massacre, screen and discuss his documentary, The but acted as an event contributing to the October 14 Student Uprising (1998). 6 close of the Cold War in Thailand through While I was attending the October transnational political engagements of commemorations in Bangkok, my parents notable Thai public intellectuals in exile. were attending the Los Angeles screening Ungpakorn lived the rest of his life in of Charnvit’s film, along with other Britain. members of the Thammasat University Alumni Association (Musikawong 2010). In contrast to the idea that the October 6, For many of this older generation of 1976 massacre represents a culmination of Thammasat University graduates who left tragic massacre, or nostalgic leftist lament, Thailand before the social movements of the 1977 US congressional testimonies (as the 1970s, watching the film and memories produced one year after the participating in discussions of Thai politics massacre) reveal a competing scenario of was a way to connect to their sense of continuing human rights urgency on the homeland and the generation of student part of victims of the Cold War. I cite this activist university alumni who had case because it indicates that the notion of immigrated to the US in the 1980s. For a Thai transnational political subject in the many, being an immigrant in the US US is hardly new. Thai transnational meant a downward move in terms of social political subjects emerge out of the tensions of US intervention in Southeast Asia. This Thai political subject can be 6 As an established academic and public traced to the Cold War period and intellectual, Charnvit Kasetsiri also relied on preceding eras in places figuratively his connection to universities, arranging spanned between the massacre site of screenings at the University of Hawaii and Cornell University. Benedict Anderson Thammasat University and Washington worked with Charnvit to provide the subtitling D.C.’s Congressional Hearings. and English text chronicling the events that had led to the uprising in 1973 that accompanied the booklet distributed with the film. Thai communities in the US are connected with Thai intellectuals as well as scholars of Southeast Asian Studies through spaces like the Thai temple, university, and community centers.
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economic status, working in manual labor; pirated, others legitimately produced. In but being connected to friends through the fact, the video store played a pivotal role Alumni Association meant that one had a in providing access to the film for Thais biography prior to the harder life in the living in Los Angeles. US. For some of this older generation’s children in their teens, it was simply about Four months after its Thai release, connecting to Thai identity in terms of Moonhunter had a theatrical premier in the culture. US at the Los Angeles Asian/ Asian American film festival. Visual That same year in October 2001, Five Star Communications, a community-based released Moonhunter , directed by Bandit media arts organization that emerged out Rittakol and co-written by Seksan of the 1970s Asian American movement, Prasertkul. It is a biographical film about organizes this festival every year. One of former student organizer Seksan the most difficult obstacles for festival Prasertkul, who had become one of the organizers in reaching out to Thai iconic figures of the 1970s student communities in Los Angeles as potential movement. Many of this generation were audiences was the fact that many Thais now academics and had attended graduate who might have been interested had school in the US, Australia, and Europe already seen the film through video store after leaving the Communist Party of outlets. Another disconnection between Thailand. Moonhunter is titled after a this particular film festival and the Thai scene in which Seksan shoots at the moon, communities of southern California was mistaking it for a Thai military searchlight. that the organization itself did not involve In the scene, his hill tribe guides laugh at any Thai organizations in the screening. him because one cannot shoot at the moon, With a small staff, efforts to contact and which Seksan believes to be symbolic of work with Thai community members was his generation’s efforts to create a difficult task. With the exception of revolutionary change. The film juxtaposes myself and two others, the audience for scenes of the days during the October 14 the film festival premier was primarily uprising, when Seksan and several other twenty or so non-Thais, some Los Angeles student organizers led 500,000 progressives, and people who had lived in demonstrators in Bangkok against the Thailand during the 1970s. Moonhunter ’s Thanom Kittikajorn military government, circuit of distribution for a Thai diaspora with his days fighting alongside the was the video store and the circuit of Communist Party of Thailand [CPT] in the exhibition was the individualized space of late 1970s. In the final scenes, as Seksan the family living room. The consumption and his wife, Jiranan Pitrpricha, leave the of leftist lament by Los Angeles based CPT, a voice-over monologue closes with Thais was thus essentially a private affair. “I am a historical wreck” (Bandit 2001). Both juxtaposed experiences tell of leftist In contrast, The October 14 Student lament, of failed revolution, and social Uprising ’s circuit of exhibition was change. While the film played in Charnvit’s connection to the Thammasat Thailand’s commercial theatres, it soon University Alumni Association, which traveled to the Thai grocery store and enabled a screening at the space of the video outlets of major US cities in the Thai temple in Los Angeles. At the level form of VCD/DVDs and VHS tapes, some of narrative, The October 14 Uprising is a
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documentary about the 1970s student products and an active participant in the movement, with the implicit support of the Los Angeles Thai community, chaired the King, earning a victory in ousting the organizing committee to commemorate military regime. By contrast, Moonhunter October 14 as a “Day of Democracy” as is a narrative feature about the internal instituted by Parliament that year. conflicts within the student movement and Somchai had been a politically active the Communist Party of Thailand from the Ramkamhaeng student in the 1970s, who point of view of a defeated iconic former immigrated to Los Angeles in 1980 to join student activist. The circuits of distribution his family in Southern California. When and exhibition point to the formation of Somchai first arrived, he worked in a Thai cultural practices that link the Thai plastics factory and then went back to immigrant physically situated in Los school to study computer programming, Angeles to Bangkok media and politics. finding employment in that field, and later However, not all cinematic memories becoming a well established entrepreneur about the 1970s student and radical leftist and Thai socialite (Panu 2003). Personal movements circulate under the same friends with members of parliament like terms. When Visual Communication’s the Chair of the October 14 Day of festival curator, Abraham Ferrer was Democracy Committee, Somsak considering a film from Thailand to Prisananthakul, Somchai and many other represent the alleged emergence of a Thais in Los Angeles organized “renaissance” in Thai cinema, he debated commemoration activities at Wat Thai in between director Chatri Chalerm Yukol’s North Hollywood. While debates about Suriyothai (2001) and Moonhunter (2001). immigrant assimilation/acculturation into Suriyothai is a royal nationalist mega- host countries often argue that, in order to feature about a 17 th century queen who survive, immigrants sever their ties to their sacrifices herself to save her King and homelands and assimilate, Thais like Siam (pre-nation-state name for the Somchai are transnational subjects territories) from the invading Burmese traveling physically and politically forces. Eventually, Suriyothai was remade between a sense of “homeland” and their for a “western” audience through Chatri place of residence in Los Angeles. Chalerm Yukol’s transnational Recognizing transnational subjectivity collaboration with his former University of demands attention to the complexity of California Los Angeles film school negotiating being (economically and classmate, Francis Ford Coppola. Given politically) in between “states” and the Visual Communications’ sympathies for notion of “Thainess” that reveal how the independent films and leftist politics, the latter’s sense of national histories are curator ultimately selected Moonhunter for transportable. the festival, knowing that there would only be a small audience in attendance. While The events at Wat Thai in Los Angeles Thai immigrants celebrated the victory of included merit making for those who had the October 14 uprising at the temple, the died, a concert with Nga Caravan and pain of leftist defeat found a Thai audience Ponsit Kampee, and a panel to discuss only in the privacy of one’s home. democracy and history with academics like Charnvit Kasetsiri and Members of In 2003, Somchai Thaitan, a businessman Parliament (from Thai Rak Thai, importing Thai home décor and media Democrat, and Chart Thai Parties) and
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representatives from the Ministry of Siam Chronicle USA Newspaper) alleged Education (Kluykiengchon 2003). The that Somchai did not understand history documentary by Charnvit was again and that the over-emphasis on the October featured as a major part of the 14 uprising displaced the significance of commemorations but as a mass give-away the end of absolute monarchical rule on of 1,000 VCDs to the people who attended June 24, 1932, the role of the People’s the activities. The documentary reveals not Party, and the October 6, 1976 massacre as only the events leading up to the October part of the nation’s democratic history. 14, 1973 uprising, but also posits the story More interestingly, Jankrapau contended of Bangkok as central to national that “Thais in the United States know how democratic social movements. In addition, to use rights and freedom without relying there was a photo exhibition at the Los on commemorating [October] because the Angeles Wat Thai that focused on the way of life of Thais in America is already events leading up to October 14, 1973 saturated with freedom in such a way that with explanations in Thai and English, a it is in the blood and bone” dimension that Somchai explained as (Kluykiengchon 2003). The desire for designed to reach out to all Thais, some Thais in the US from the October suggesting a way to connect younger generation to connect with homeland generations of children who could not read politics is tempered by others who do not Thai to this aspect of “Thai national identify with that group, but who history.” The dynamism of the visual nevertheless lay claim to understanding a medium, here both VCD media and more comprehensive notion of national photography, is harnessed as a way to democratic history. There were similar transport a sense of Thai national history, debates about the over-emphasis on connecting Thai diasporas and second- October 14 as Day of Democracy in generation Thai youth born in the US to Thailand; however, the major difference Thai identity. Thai transnational history was an assumption that living in the US and subjectivity are articulated the space meant that democracy was already fully of Bangkok and in the monumental time of integrated into one’s “blood and bone.” A the 1970s democratic movement. claim that is not necessarily true, but more revealing about the political resentment In 2003 to cover the expenses of and fragmentation among the Thai organizing the commemoration, Thais in diaspora over what constitutes being Los Angeles collected substantial connected to Thailand. The tensions and donations, the Thai Parliament budgeted fragmentation intrinsic to these disputes some travel assistance, and members of over claims to Thai nationalism solidify Parliament’s October 14 Day of the coupling of “Thai ethnicity” with Democracy organizing committee paid nationalism, in what Stuart Hall terms a their own travel costs. 7 It was perhaps the practice of epistemic violence from the largest commemorative activity for policing of what is “Thai” from inside the October 14 outside of Thailand, which ethnic group (Hall 1996, 445). The deep brought vibrant debates in the newspapers desire for an identification with democracy and on internet Blogs for Thais in the US. and claims to nation is a form of epistemic Jankrapau (pseudonymous columnist for violence because of its denial of the full range of democracy and belonging without nationalism (in non-monarchical and non- 7 Panu Neutini, "Somchai Thaitan Interview."
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Thai ethnic terms). The assumption that that many forgot (Thongchai 2002). In modern democracy exists in the blood and 2003 in Bangkok, the Thai Film bones of those who reside in the United Foundation and the October 14 Memorial States is a misrecognition that democracy were interested in exploring how to resides in place rather than social practice, increase ways that both events were being and it infantilizes Thai struggles as remembered in opposition to each another. somehow less democratically mature, less I was fortunate to have collaborated with modern. these two organizations in hosting a video collective workshop for young people When the story of the October uprising is under 25 years of age to create short told as memories of leftist lament, they are videos about “October,” interpreting what privatized in the space of the home. When the significance of the 1970s social the story of the uprising is celebrated as a movements were for their generation. For milestone of Thailand’s path to democracy seven weekends, twenty participants supported by the King, it is publically watched old found footage of both events, acknowledged in the communal space of read about and researched the events the Thai temple. When the celebration together. They were visited by former becomes self-congratulatory politicking by student organizers like Jiranan Pitrpricha Thais in Los Angeles, that history is and Sinsawat Yaudbangtheuy, and went greeted with resentment. Together these on a walking tour of both October events’ versions of October 14 and October 6 landmark sites in central Bangkok. travel from Bangkok to Los Angeles in contrasting senses of a transnational Thai The participating youth produced three historical subject tied to the Thai nation’s different films distributed as the October ideological conflicts during the Cold War. Youth Short Film Project. Full Moon tells I want to suggest that when the 1970s the story of a disillusioned 'Art for Life' student and revolutionary movements are fan out of touch with contemporary times. remembered as regrettable, it cannot The Wall is an experimental documentary become a moment in which to bring Thai with various Thais from all walks of life communities in the US together. For the writing graffiti on a wall, with sound transnational Thai political subject to lay overlaid from an interview with Wat claim to homeland histories, it is easier Wunlayangkul, a well known leftist when they are celebratory democratic activist from the 1970s. In Night for histories. What is it about a transnational Freedom , a young man, whose parents sense of public Thai self-imagining that died during the 1970s political turmoil, requires seamless historical victories at the reckons with his gay libido. One abandonment of complex conflicted workshop participant, Doungta histories? Patummasoot said: "I learned something about political trauma and about Transgenerational forgetting: from forgetting. I don't think violence is the Bangkok to New York answer to political problems.” She co- produced The Wall with three other young By the late 1990s, politicians incorporated people. She continued, "[n]ot only has the October 14 uprising into a national each of us learned something about discourse about democracy. Conversely, teamwork and the film-making process, the October 6 massacre became a tragedy we each, in our own way, have acquired a
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memory of the October incidents” Some write “Without them [those involved (Alongkorn 2004). Those memories in October], there would be no you today.” acquired were in no doubt partial, Others write, “I don’t care, I have no food discontinuous, pro-student movement. and I am hungry.” The last scene shows While the curriculum of the workshop was the shop owner, to whom the wall belongs, predominantly from the perspective of the coming out and painting over all the student movement, we gave the graffiti. The camera zooms in on the participants free license to interpret the painted wall with only “Love the Reader” past in terms of any genre, documentary, left in small hand-writing, suggesting that experimental, narrative, and even satire. October is left for the audience to read, interpret, and find their own meaning. The visuals are overlaid on the soundtrack with Doungta’s interview with famous 1970s activist Wat Wunlayangkul and the British pop song “Sing” by Blur as well. The visual and audio tracks are thus completely disconnected. While the visual is a reckoning with the fact that the 1970s October 14 uprising is disconnected from the experiences of everyday life in present-day Thailand, the audio interview The Wall (2004), translation by author: pays tribute to the student movement “October 14 viciously devours” (top line); through a 1970s activist’s retelling of the “really?” (middle); “there is no you today” political and economic contexts for the (bottom line); Photograph Still Credit- uprising and how Thaksin’s politics in Thai Film Foundation 2004 was a military dictatorship under elected means.
While some who experienced the October The three short films, including The Wall, 6 massacre first-hand were traumatized, were screened at several film festivals in having been silenced for so many years, a Singapore, Bangkok, Los Angeles, and younger generation does not “acquire a New York. In May 2004, despite memory of the October incidents,” as advertising in Thai Town, nobody from Doungta asserts, but rather re-scripts those the Thai communities in Southern memories in the practice of forgetting. California attended the Visual The experimental film The Wall begins Communications screening in Los with the rude graffiti by one young man, Angeles. The curator programmed the “October 14 hustle/ ha kin ;” another three shorts as part of a series on activism young man subsequently crosses out eat/ and many in the audience were non-Asian kin and replaces it with the even more city residents, film students, and Asian vulgar rendition of kin , “viciously devour/ American students interested in the topic. daek.” The people writing the graffiti Without a background in the political include an ordained novice monk, a young events of the 1970s in Thailand, many in man in torn up military fatigues, a young the audience remarked that they did not woman with a school bag, two young understand the films’ historical references. school girls, a homeless man, and others.
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In April of 2004 in New York City, Thai His distrust was not unwarranted, given Links programmed the October Youth the degree to which those on the left were Short Film Projects in their 2 nd Thai Takes forced underground. With Thai Links’ Film Festival. Thai Links is a Thai- mission of creating what constitutes a sort American organization dedicated to of reversal with linkages between Thailand “increasing awareness on issues affecting “abroad” and New York “at home” Thai communities at home and abroad through art and activism, the film festival through art and activism” (Thai Links became a critical site for creating 2006). With a small voluntary staff of connections for US-born Thai Americans. mostly US-born Thais, Thai Links (2002– For many Thai Americans, “abroad” 2009) was a creative collective that began meant outside of the US and “home” was to address the need for critical dialogue the United States. But for others like the among a growing population of Thai former student-artist activist, even as a US Americans in the city and an emerging resident, his “abroad” was New York and generation of artists and independent “home” was Thailand. When Thai Links filmmakers in Bangkok. With the programmed the October Youth Short emerging recognition of independent Thai Film Project, it also created temporal links cinema at international film festivals, Thai between the 1970s and 2004, between an Links has been providing a venue for Thai older generation of Thai immigrants who independent films in New York City were activist-artists and those who are through festival, panels and other Thai Americans. activities. While most of the organizers of Thai At the screening, both myself and Thai Links are Thai Americans in their late 20s- Film Foundation director Chalida 30s, when the People’s Alliance for Uabumrungjit were invited as guest Democracy [PAD] was organizing speakers for the film. In contrast to the transnationally against Prime Minister Los Angeles screening of Moonhunter , the Thaksin, politically active older Thai audience was a mix of Thai Americans immigrants worked for the first time with affiliated with Thai Links, Thais who were Thai Links. While Thaksin’s war on drugs former student activists and had in 2003 killed thousands and the 2004 immigrated to the US in the 1980s, and militarization in the South led to the other New Yorkers. A former student Takbai massacre of 78 Muslim activist who resided in New York where demonstrators, all of which caught the he had been working and struggling as an attention of the United Nations Human artist remarked that, for him, having left Rights Commission, it was in 2006 when Thailand so long ago and not having gone Thaksin was accused of being anti-royalist back, it was the first time he was able to and securing untaxed revenue when he see and talk about the October 6 massacre. sold his Shin Corp––a Thai media and He recounted his own memories about the telecommunications conglomerate––to a brutal killings and was visibly shaken. Singaporean Company that many middle When Chalida and I spoke to him class Thais became militantly opposed to privately, he was glad to see that this him. Soon PAD, a coalition between Thai moment in the past mattered to a progressive activists, economic political generation of younger Thais but, when rivals like media mogul Sondhi asked, he would not give his full name.
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Limthongkul, 8 and royalists, was formed. Both progressives within PAD in Thaksin was attending the United Nations Bangkok 10 and Thai Links have been meeting, hundreds of Thais in New York active in practices of keeping the October and along the east coast rallied outside the memories in circulation, but coalitions building demanding “Get out Thaksin.” formed in a turn of political interests At some of the Thai restaurants in the city, against Thaksin. The PAD from those in the owners put up posters against Thaksin. the leadership ranks to the everyday Outside the UN building the police asked a restaurant worker in New York donned the man and woman who joined the rally with yellow shirt, which has become a symbolic their “We Love Thaksin” signs to leave social practice of expressing one’s because they did not have permits to stage allegiance to the crown. The act of a counter-demonstration (Thaksin Greeted wearing the yellow shirt enlisted the 2006). Outside the UN building, Thai monarchy, as an incredible political force Links unwittingly showed solidarity with imbued with undeniable symbolic power, PAD by wearing yellow shirts, symbolic to various political ends. of their allegiance to the King. 9 According to David and Susan Morell: For each memory insisted upon, many things are forgotten. The September 2006 A critical factor in the October 6 military coup against Thaksin was (1976) coup was the role of King allegedly approved by His Majesty. The Bhumiphol Adulyadej, Rama IX. high court of Thailand had ruled against In lending his visible support to Thaksin and his political party Thai Rak the forces of the right, he Thai from further participation in politics. abandoned a tradition. Always, in After his exile to London, Prime Minister the past, he remained officially Thaksin returned in 2008 with the full detached from “politics,” thereby support of the government led by Samak making it possible for all citizens Sundaravej, but returned to exile in 2010. to identify with him and, more Practices of homeland politics abroad, important, to continue believing concerning royalist protests against and that deep in his heart the King was gatherings for Thaksin at Thai Consulate on their side, whatever side that offices in cities like Los Angeles, Dallas, might be. (Morell 1976) New York City and Chicago demonstrated that long-distance nationalisms are conflicted. However, these political allegiances to a “virulent nationalism” do not offer liberation, or any subversion
8 against the structure of the state’s In late 2006, Sondhi toured Los Angeles, regulatory power, nor the power of global Seattle, Dallas, San Francisco, and New York to rally support for PAD and for Thais in the capitalism. It is in the spaces between US to invest in his satellite television arm of Manager Group, his media conglomerate 10 Suriyasai Katasila, PAD coordinator in (Tantipinichwong 2006). August 2006 had previously organized the 9 Yellow is the color of the King and in 2006- October commemorations in Bangkok in 2003 2007, royalists and political opportunists alike and 2004. In 2003, Suriyasai was a lecturer in used the symbolic power of the yellow shirt to the Faculty of Political Science at Thammasat express their opposition to Thaksin, who is University and an organizer for the Campaign accused of being anti-monarchical. for Popular Media Reform.
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Thailand and Washington D.C., Los Bandit Rittakol. 2001. Moonhunter . Angeles, and New York that Thai Bangkok: Five Star Productions. economic and political transnational subjectivities are forged under conditions Bao, Jiemen. 2008. From wndering to of migration and forgetting the 1970s wat: Creating a Thai temple and stories of US counterinsurgency in inventing new space in the United Southeast Asia and its connections to Thai States. Amerasia Journal 34. 3: 1–18. state violence. As such, we must undoubtedly redefine what long-distance Charnvit Kasetsiri and Damrongsak nationalist social practices are, not only as Petchlertanan (ed.). 2001. From 14 to 6 actions like voting, demonstrating/ October/ Chak 14 Thueng 6 Tula . lobbying, sending remittances, creating Bangkok: Social Sciences and film/video/art, fighting, killing, and dying Humanities Textbook Foundation/ for the homeland; but we must interrogate Munnithi Khlongkan Tamra how these social practices remake Sangkhomsat Lae Manutsat. democracy and belonging, chipping away at the framework of nationalism’s Clifford, James. 1994. Diasporas. exclusionary politics. This is one of the Cultural Anthropology 9. 3: greatest challenges in studying the making 302–38. of transnational subjects. Desbarats, Jacqueline. 1979. Thai References Migration to Los Angeles. Geographical Review 69. 3: 302– Alongkorn Parivudhiphongs. 2004. Short 318. on Film, Long on Content. Bangkok Post , August 5. Hall, Stuart. 1990. Cultural Identity and Diaspora. Identity, Community, Anderson, Benedict. 2001. Western Culture, Difference , edited by J. Nationalism and Eastern Nationalism: Rutherford. London: Open University. Is There a Difference That Matters? New Left Review 9: 31–42. ---. 1996. New Ethnicities. Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Apinand Bouehapakdee et. al. 1978. Studies , edited by David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen. London: Routledge. Letter from the 'Bangkok 18' to
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