Apr 05 2008
True Life v.Moving to America.
I really like the MTV documentary show-True Life. It really does an excellent job on illustrating the daily struggles that people go through. One of the episodes is about two foreigners moving to the United States to find the American Dream.
Thimonthy Ju, a Burma refugee, was excited to go to America and escape a life of poverty;however, living in America isn’t easy. He wanted to go to school, but unfortunately he had to full time to support his family. He worked at a pickle factory for $300 dollars a week and was worked so hard that he wished he was back in Burma. There is little opportunity in America for people people that can’t speak English fluently, or have a proper education; Thimonthy discovered it the hard way. To make matters worse, his dad recently had a seizure; this made Thimonthy the sole provider for his family, further delaying his education. Not only does his story compel me to work harder and cherish what I take for granted, but I want to help his family.
Since Thimonthy is currently living in Texas, I would really like to visit him and do an interview, so I can post what his experiences are. The more people know about his story, the more support he’ll get. If I get a chance to meet Thimonthy, I’ll definitely buy him and his family whatever necessities they need.
Additionally, The producer of the documentary set up a website to donate to the Ju Family. You can visit it here.
Watch the episode here.
Yeah.
BTW. If ya’ll have any suggestions of what we can do to help him out, feel free to leave a comment!
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This was the first True Life episode I’ve seen. I watched it last night and also found the Ju family story captivating. I just wanted to mention that if I recall correctly, Thimonthy was earning $300 weekly, not $900. (For $900 a week I might consider moving there myself to make pickles.) I hope you get to meet the family and do your interview, that sounds great.
woops, I accidentally put 900 instead of 300. You’re absolutely right.
Saw your comment on the video at mtv.com… I also live nearby and would like to help out. Posting this comment on your blog is a great start. I am sure Thimonthy is seeing a lot of the worst parts of America so that I hope that between us and all the other people who see this documentary, we can do something to show him the best parts.
This episode was just re-run and I was fascinated and really bummed out by the family’s story. The family budget is the thing that really upset me. I paused that scene where the caseworker is going over the budget which came out to something over $2000 per month because I couldn’t see how they came to that figure. Even with such a large family to feed, the rent is only $660 so what made up the rest of the cost? When I paused it I could read the budget sheet and I was appalled to see that *$350* per month was set aside for “Travel Loan”. So, the supposedly charitable organization World Relief that resettled them is now extorting the family for $350 per month?! Which, if they are paying back the total cost of moving the whole family - plus interest, probably, given the way this org runs - could take years to pay off. That made me so angry. How many of us, even with decent jobs and only a couple of kids, could face an additional $350 per month in our budget and not have some serious issues with paying that? It is insane to me that they would bring this family to the US, then set them up with an impossible financial situation that will pretty much ensure that they are stuck in a life of poverty. Especially heart wrenching is the completely useless response Thim received to trying to go to school. There is financial assistance and grants are available! Instead he was told there was no hope. One ESL course is not going to get him a decent job. Meanwhile, he is stuck working a minimum wage job and the family has no way to improve their situation. I would love to donate some money to help this family, but the site linked to here seems to be affiliated with World Relief and I definitely don’t want to give it to them. It would probably go straight to pay of the bloody “travel loan” and not help the family at all! If anyone knows any other way to donate to the family, maybe you could mention it here.