Duong Nghe Ly | Three Years On

Dec. 3, 2012 marked the three-year anniversary of the day that changed my life.

On Dec. 3, 2009 — a year and a half after I arrived in the United States from Vietnam — I was at South Philadelphia High School when Asian immigrant students were targets of racially charged attacks that lasted from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., after school ended. My friends and I received little to no help from the school, even though many of us had asked for protection or permission to leave early.

At the end of the day, 30 Asian immigrant students had been physically attacked, 13 of whom went to the hospital to seek treatment. I could not help feeling frightened and angry at the indifference and irresponsibility of the school’s officials. Of the six Chinese immigrant students who went to the hospital on Dec. 3, 2009, five dropped out of school.

Unfortunately, that day was not an anomaly. It was the culmination of years of racial abuse and neglect toward Asian immigrant students at the school.

In response, I helped launch an eight-school-day boycott against the school and the School District of Philadelphia, which brought local, national and even international attention to anti-Asian and anti-immigrant bias. In addition, I worked with other students and community members, and we filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission.

These days, South Philadelphia High School has become a much different place. In many ways, it is safer. We fought to get a new principal, who has helped to reduce much of the outright physical and verbal harassment that I used to endure on a regular basis. We built a multiracial student collaborative to work on school safety and there are new policies in place to address harassment, where before there were none.

Over the last three years, I have grown from a victim of school violence to an empowered student activist. I am educating myself politically through conversations with others and through engaging with my own community. In 2011, I visited the White House to attend an anti-bullying summit with the president, the first lady and the secretary of education. I have learned that there are many painful stories similar to my own and that there are compassionate solutions to problems of school violence and racial hatred.

Today, I am at the University of Pennsylvania and am the first in my family to attend a private institution. Having gone to Penn for two years, I have taken a lot of things for granted. I used to go to my high school every day feeling unsafe and stressed, wondering when I would be mocked, teased or beaten because of who I was. Now, even at 2 a.m., I walk to my dorm feeling perfectly safe, knowing that Penn Police are on campus to protect me. It amazes me sometimes to reflect on my newfound privilege.

As I look back on the last three years, I realize I have learned to be more conscious of my privilege and deliberate in my actions. I have learned to invest my time and energy in specific issues I am passionate about. I am pursuing a sociology major and hope to return to my South Philadelphia neighborhood as a community organizer and educator. Most importantly, I have found a network of like minds from around the country that inspires me. There is still a lot to learn, but I’m developing my own sense of social justice and political consciousness.

Oftentimes, oppression and injustice persist because people believe they are powerless to improve the situations they are trapped in. At South Philadelphia High School, our slogan was, “We have the power to make change.” It was our belief in collective power that prompted us to challenge the status quo and create change in our school. It’s still my belief in the people’s power that motivates me to pursue my passion in working with my community. As long as we believe in our collective ability to make change and improve our conditions, what happened at South Philadelphia High will not happen again, there or elsewhere.

Duong Nghe Ly is a College sophomore from Philadelphia, Pa. His email address is dly@sas.upenn.edu.

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