STATEMENT OF LEGISLATORS ELECTION AND FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN
We, the people moving with a trending dream!
Lorna Kung（Tri-District constituency : Sanchong, Wugu, Luzhou）-- translated by Ong S. Lorenzo
Each one of us is with a dream and definite desire to move onward
From south to north, rural to urban, from the other shore to this shore of hope, from the other country to this country…. Regardlessthe order of arrival, in this land, we all have an instinctive survival and a haunting lasting desire to move on
For more than ten years, I have devoted myself to a wide variety of complex immigration / labor movements and communities, bearing pains and enjoying smiles of immigrants and migrant workers. I perceived that immigrants and workers are the master of the society which should not be looked with indifference due to their different nationalities. To join the forthcoming legislators electoral campaign is a decision I choose to take the immigration / labor movements as a social approach to a higher ground
My own family is one of those that experienced historical tension and contained stories of grass-roots people forced to move under primary pressures. My father was a veteran of Mainland China, and my mother is from Miaoli Hakka. From different marginalized groups, they came together into the Taiwan mainstream society. Regardless of social stereotypes and disrespects, with courage they married. Working hard together, they toiled with poetry and lived at edge of a big city – Banchiao. Father worked as a driver while Mother made clothing as with the majority of hardworking ordinary Taiwanese citizens supporting their family.
Circa the late 1980 to the 1990 when the martial law was lifted coincided with my college days. I attended university countryside community camps to go working at rural areas at the time when the Taiwan society was surging and turbulent. For the first time the raging formidable “Taiwanese Consciousness” had a severe shock and impact in my soul. At that time, a feeling of alienated original sin engulfed me for not being able to speak “local Taiwanese language”. I felt so confused with how a full-blooded me could not assimilate with and integrate into the Taiwan “rock bottom” rural communities.
With thinking pain, a deep conscious analysis of what should I know to understand the world I live permeates. After university, I chose to enter and work with grass-roots workers trade unions. I started to learn local Taiwanese language and tried to learn and understand the “rock bottom” for seven years step by step. With that span of time, I am awarded with wealth of advanced experiences of social enlightenment.
