“PrYSM recognizes that a cycle of violence keeps the youth, families, and community oppressed and disenfranchised. Our Vision is to confront and end state, street, and interpersonal violence affecting the Southeast Asian American community in Rhode Island.” State violence includes police brutality, racial profiling, incarceration, deportation. Street violence includes gang violence and violence between youth and families that occur in public spaces. Interpersonal violence includes domestic violence, family violence, and violence in relationships (specifically women-on-women violence and gay and lesbian violence).
Our primary aim is to fight for social justice in the Southeast Asian community, but it is under the context and challenge of rampant systemic violence that often paralyzes the community. One form of violence in the community is state violence and the criminalization of Southeast Asian youth. Criminalization is a term that embodies the collective and collateral effect of failing social welfare institutions (such as education, where some Providence High Schools have a 50% drop-out rate) and increasingly harsh and punitive law enforcement practices (such as mandatory minimums and mandatory deportations). Many of our youth are faced with racial profiling in schools, on the streets, and in shopping centers on a daily basis. The majority of our membership have brothers, sisters, and parents who are incarcerated, deported or facing deportation, or who have been victims of police brutality.
On the flip side, the Southeast Asian community suffers from many forms of inter-personal violence, such as domestic violence and self-inflicting violence (such as the abuse of alcohol and drugs). There is also a high level of street violence, whereby 15 rival street gangs threaten to disrupt and challenge any efforts at community building. This is reflected in the decline in attendance at the annual Cambodian and Laotian New Years festivals.
Our theory is that in order to fight for social justice under a violent context, we must mobilize youth into campaigns and projects which bring about healing and dialogue, love and support, and political empowerment.
