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Reaching for Harmony: Florida's Asian Arts Festival
| Article
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11449 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1994 |
2,581 Words |
| Author
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Duba Desowitz-Leibell
Duba Desowitz-Leibell is a free-lance writer and screenwriter
based in Miami Beach. |
In the winter of 1989, the Thai-American community of Dade County, seeking to build Florida's first Buddhist temple, purchased a five-acre property in the agricultural area of the Redland. The Thais expected to readily obtain the necessary zoning permits. After all, building a religious edifice was something other communities and churches in the area did with relative ease. However, opposition to their request developed into embittered hearings, racial hatred, and even violence.
Initially, "we didn't want to put up a fight," remembers Khanya Moolsiri, former president of the Thai-American Association of Florida, but the community did not back away from the issue. The Thais were supported by the Asian American Federation of Florida (AAFF), a nonprofit umbrella organization composed of differing ethnic groups, which galvanized the entire Asian community to rally behind them.
AAFF was founded in 1984 with the goal of unifying the Asian voices into one. Several vastly different minority groups are lumped together as Asians by the U.S. Census Bureau. Many of these disparate groups traditionally dislike one another and want to be left alone. Uniting them is an almost impossible task. But AAFF's founders realized that these insular communities needed to cooperate if Asian concerns were to be voiced. "Someday Asians will need strength in numbers," they lectured skeptical groups. That day finally came in the winter of 1989.
For months the Thais and AAFF worked to educate local politicians, religious leaders, and the media about Buddhism, who the Thais were, and how Asian culture had contributed to South Florida. Many opponents ignorantly and fearfully associated Buddhism with the Hare Krishna movement! Finally, on December 7,1989, Dade County's Zoning Appeal Board unanimously decided in the Thais' favor.
The victory was sweet but disturbing. AAFF soon realized that many misconceptions about Asians had to be dispelled. Moreover, in conversation, Asian parents privately voiced the same complaint: Their children were "too Americanized" and were embarrassed by their heritage. Indeed, the balancing of cultural heritage with Western influences had become a touchy, even volatile, issue between Asian parents and their American-born children. At some Asian parties, for example, the division between parents and children can be seen symbolized in the two menus served: Asian for the adults and American--pizza, hamburgers, and spaghetti--for the children.
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