Monkey Dance // Laotian Daughters - Shah

"Monkey Dance"
The part of the film that got me was when their mothers started talking about how they just want the best for their children. All parents want the best for their children and as immigrants, I feel like we realize and are so much more aware of how hard our parents work for us to maintain and better our lives here in this new world. I'm not saying that non-immigrants are less grateful or are taking what they have for granted, but there's just an added factor; the factor of starting over in a greatly new environment.
I can really feel, from the portion of the film that we watched, the struggle to keep the connection with the native culture. The film, I believe, really exemplifies transnationalism in that the people in the film are really building and creating communities that aim to uplift and preserve culture and identity, while at the same time, the youth are adding to and mixing up the cultural pot.
I'd just like to note the hip-hop influenced clothing styles and how people spoke.
Relating to cultural resistance, a few examples I noticed include: Sam in gymnastics - not really an Asian dominant sport; the other boy working at the supermarket (Market Basket?) who tries to do his job differently to make transferring the products from one shelf to the other easier - thinks that his way would be easier and "proves his boss wrong"; incorporation of break dancing in traditional dances.

Laotian Daughters
"Sarah: '...You need to realize that there's different Asian people.'" (Shah 108).
Having control over what aspects of your culture you want to practice or take part in - choosing your culture like how the girls dislike some parts of their Laotian traditions - like traditional clothing. Or maybe not disliking it completely but choosing to not engage that deeply in it.

Alienation from parents - I can relate to this a lot. Compared to my older sister and brothers who grew up to their teens in the Philippines and are closer together in age - I am the youngest by 12 years - I spent my entire life here in America. So I grew up learning and experiencing an entirely different type of culture - American culture, or at least, Filipinx American culture. Which created a gap between my parents and I, as well as a tiny bit with my siblings - communication barrier, language barrier, cultural barrier, behavior barrier. It was different and a little difficult growing up because the ideals and morals in the Philippines are a bit different than the ones here. I'd say parents are much stricter in the Philippines, they're more controlling of their children, and there's a much greater emphasis on respecting elders. Whereas here in America, you see on TV or in other forms of media where the parents are much more lenient and "friend-like". In American popular culture, for example on TV, teens are portrayed as much more rebellious and they don't really listen to their parents and the parents don't seem to have an effective grasp on their kids. So that really influenced me as a child - that it was OK to act out and be rebellious because all the kids were doing it. I also relate very well to how the girls felt about how their parents compared their lives back in the home country to their lives in America now. You honestly can't compare because, as we've established many times in this class already, culture is dynamic and always changing. This, for me, was so hard and more often than not, frustrating to communicate to my parents. This reminded me of Vergara's example from the Home Sic Home movie where Dolphy's grandson is portrayed as bratty and disrespectful.