An attempt at reconciliation

-- By HenryRoss - 13 Mar 2015

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.

I. Pii Praew

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.

II. Ron

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.

III. The evil they, and I, embody

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.

IV. The problem in New York, as I see it

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.

V. My idea: a very tiny part of the solution

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.

VI. Why the idea could work

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.

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.

VII. A disclaimer

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.

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(Comment: Nico Gurian): Henry, I really like this idea. You say you may not be well-informed enough to be confident in your assessment of the problem. Surely this is true (for all of us, as we confront any situation or problem), but I think you are absolutely right in identifying a group of people who really will be in need of lawyering that you can provide. In terms of getting clients for the practice, what do you see as the best networking plan to meet people in that community? Do you think there will be any trust issues on their part?

I also thought the way you used the idea of the "stage" from Leff to explain how elite Thais might feel differently about their counterparts when in the US as opposed to back home in Thailand. This seems to be another example of "splitting" that we all keep coming back to. Do you think it would be possible for the "self" that changes perspectives in US to bring back that same self in Thailand, or is it a permanent disassociation?

(Comment: Tonbara Ekiyor): I think it is a disassociation that is weakened by their involvement in projects such as that which Henry proposes. It is possible that back in Thailand, Pii Praew, though aware of the plight of Thais in need of legal assistance, probably never considered that giving assistance might be her responsibility. This could be for a variety of reasons, one of which could be the ease of passing the responsibility to someone else: the government, organizations committed to such projects in Thailand. As Henry points out there is something about being away from home that draws you closer to fellow countrymen that on the face of it, you have little in common with. Once a common ground (in this case, a common 'Thainess') is established, it is more difficult to shake when you return back home.