Khoua Her was my Junot Diaz: when angels fall and organizational idealism crashes

I am writing this for those who are both as young and innocent as we were before our community/organization broke apart and as old and jaded as some are when their innocence was stolen. For the survivors and social justice advocates who are struggling between upholding principles-that are essential to the integrity of their souls and to the strength they need to build the world that they want to live in — and realities they are told are the ways of the world and the best that can be done. I wish they might find new ways and their own ways, to keep their idealism intact (or at least surviving) and not break against the apparent indifference or corruption or just plain pragmatism of the world they were given. This story and opinion are my own, which I hope can give them more history and knowledge to make better decisions than those made in the past.

As I am processing the fury of opinions around Junot Diaz in writers of color’s circles, it is triggering memories of a different case of intra-community violence, that was complex from all the perspectives of the perpetrator’s history, the community responses, and the organizational choices. The two cases are very different, but considering them in parallel might provide some insights to help bridge some of the growing gaps within communities that do not need to be further divided, do not need to further suffer in alienation of each other, and mostly need healing after some dramatic experience.

My professional and advocacy life changed forever with Khoua Her. Non-Minnesotans and non-Hmong Americans may have forgotten her name, the same way that we never knew of her or discussed much women in her situation before her tragic story hit the news. Many of my progressive peers actually smartly avoided being black-holed by the devastation of the supernova of her crime. As for me, I had less of a choice to deflect as I was in the direct path and grabbed the bullet as it came within my periphery, for better and for worse.

I remember with the extreme precision one recalls epic catastrophes like the shooting of President Kenney or 9/11 the moment she bulleted into my living room. I had come home from the office after spending another weekend working 24/7 at the job that I was passionate about. I was glowing with the satisfaction of relentlessly pursuing the pure mission of building a shelter for Asian women and children who were not safe in their own homes and had nowhere else to go. I had quickly prepared some dinner, had just settled on the sofa and turned on the TV, catching up on news. Suddenly the blurry picture of some young woman flashed on the screen and facts after facts shot from the newsroom. 24 years old mother of six. Ages 12 to 2. Just killed all her children. History of staying in women’s shelters. Victim of domestic violence. Allegations of sexual assault of her daughter. I dropped my silverware. I was shocked my organization, “the” Asian women’s shelter program, had never heard of her. But then again, Asian women have fled to mainstream shelters, to avoid Asian communities’ grapevine news networks. I was shocked she was four years younger than I was, and doing some quick math, that she had been married and had her first child at age 12. Early marriage was an issue in my community, but usually never that young. Mostly, I was stricken by the immense suffering that would have led a mother to kill her most precious treasures, her beloved children. As the head of my organization, a leader on Asian women ‘s domestic violence issues, even though she had never come to us, I felt collectively guilty we had failed her and made it my mission to do for her now what was not done for her before.

Thus started my personal and professional journey of experiencing first-hand the walls of institutional and cultural oppressions that crushed her and other women like her. To summarize. I found myself standing alone before the dam of silence from the mainstream shelters that hid from being associated with the failure of giving her effective assistance when she came for help. The local police that was called 16 times to her home within a half-year period. The government services that evicted her family from public housing, which enhanced her sense of alienation and desperation at the time of her crime, remained mum. I found myself subtly blackballed by the Asian American women’s and general advocacy communities who feared defending a criminal. The most progressive Asian and mainstream women’s advocates supported me behind closed doors and through anonymous action. My Hmong community in fear of being attacked for cultural differences refused to make any statement that early marriage and domestic violence should be formally rejected as unacceptable practices. In very Asian and Minnesotan polite style, I was never frontally derided or opposed, I was just stonewalled.

I was never overly disappointed by the lack of understanding or support from those I had no expectations of and that I perceived had different values from mine and therefore could never be my allies. Overtime, several years later, I came to forgive my boardmembers who refused to publicly fight for justice for Khoua Her as it would jeopardize our capital fundraising efforts. At the time, I was alienated by their choice to protect the organization and the longterm goal of establishing a shelter for Asian American women and children, even if it meant turning their back on the very woman we had said we were working for: the woman like Khoua Her, abandoned by all, even by the usual justice fighters. I have not yet found forgiveness for my peer, another well-educated Hmong American woman from a respected family: she who became the insider-mouth to express society’s convenient refusal to take responsibility for Khoua Her. That Hmong sister said at the radio panel where we represented divergent views: Plenty of Hmong women live in the same situation as Khoua Her and are coping well, only Khoua Her took criminal action. With that statement, she threw Khoua Her to the wolves eager to tear into the flesh of this deviant and evil criminal, and we, the rest of the Hmong community remained clean of her sin and just fine as we were. Back then and now, I do understand how her statement came from a blind love and loyalty for our Hmong community, and I see the choice she and others made to demonize one woman for the good of the rest of the community. But I cannot forgive that convenient choice from someone who like me never had to experience what Khoua Her endured and yet would judge her so harshly and demonize her so easily. Right after Khoua Her, more cases of Hmong and non-Hmong family murder-suicides demonstrated that we did have a chronic domestic violence problem beyond one isolated case of one evil woman, whose biggest crime was to come to her senses at the last minute and call 911. She was saved but her children had already been lost. She survived, no longer another victim people could easily mourn, but now a criminal no one could comfortably look at.

From that experience, I see the Junot Diaz case with greater empathy for all sides, even though Junot Diaz is no Khoua Her and their past, their experiences, their crime/misconduct, and community and institutional reactions to that crime/misconduct unfolded in different ways.

Looking at the nature of the crime/misconduct. Junot Diaz did not kill anyone, but he hurt others. There is confusion as to the nature of the wrong he actually committed and the weight of that wrong, which is leaving room for ambiguous and divided responses. Khoua Her killed her six children. She said she wanted both to not leave them orphaned as she was going to kill herself and for them to go on to a better place as the world was not a kind place. The majority of the public believed it was a lie as she survived, and that she selfishly killed her children so she could be free of them. Most could find no compassion or no mercy for a woman who killed her own children even if there could have been a doubt as to her motive, as their small bodies always pointed to her guilt. On the other hand, Junot made some confession of misconduct and the majority of the public appears to believe the explanation that he had not been in his right mind due to his rape as a child. Furthermore, there is no visible long-lasting damage with sexual misconduct as there is when the crime has fatalities, leaving Junot Diaz in a more forgiving and sympathetic position.

Looking at the personal past and personal circumstances of the accused. Junot Diaz is educated, highly-accomplished, widely-acclaimed, and held a position of prestige within the Latino, writers, and academic communities. Combined with his disclosure of his rape as a boy which provided extenuating circumstances and stirred up more compassion, he still retains allies who love him and believe in him, after doing wrong. He benefits from the privileges of class and gender that Khoua Her did not have. He is articulate and had a channel through which he could powerfully tell his side of the story. He has strong allies and hero-worshippers who won’t lose faith in him. Khoua Her did not have great achievements. She was not well-spoken and had translators and attorneys speak on her behalf. She did not have a network of credible/powerful allies. She was a woman who was bride-kidnapped at the age of 11 or 12, in a refugee camp where order was shaky after wartime, and marriage used to be the reparation for rape. The borderline acceptance of bride-kidnapping and of early marriage within her culture nullified her rape as a girl child. Furthermore, Khoua Her was married for a decade and had six children with her husband, which people who are not familiar with the culture or with the impossible escape situation of women who must think of their children, may have perceived as consent. On the other hand, Junot Diaz’ rape raised more outrage and sympathy as it not traditionally accepted for boys to be raped by men in most cultures and there is no marriage reparation for boys being raped by men in most cultures. Furthermore, his status as an advocate and an icon of Latino manhood probably exacerbated the feelings of both outrage and sympathy at this rape. Junot Diaz did not have to marry and bear children for many years, with some appearance of consent.

Even more complex are the cultural gender expectations that further discredited Khoua Her and benefited Junot Diaz. Khoua Her was extensively characterized as a bad woman. A bad daughter who defied her stepmother, which led to her being locked out of the house and kidnapped by a man smitten with her. A bad wife who was not happy with the married life and dressed pretty like she was single. A bad mother who did not want to touch her first child (which might have made sense if he was the child of rape) and neglected her children to seek her own life fulfillments. A woman plagued by sexual assault accusations who complained that her boss harassed her and her daughter was assaulted, but was not believed and instead was accused of avoiding working/wanting to stay on welfare or seeking to ruin her husband’s reputation in a child custody battle. On the other hand, Junot Diaz’ Latino man identity has been more nuanced and gave him a pass both ways. The machismo and misogyny of his male characters were described as both progressively calling upon the negative traits of Latino manhood to exorcise them and expressing his real misogyny and treatment of women as sexual objects in line with not-unexpected Latino male conduct. The ambiguity of Junot Diaz as either an enlightened man or another oppressor can be pondered even in his choice of women: was he interested in women of color-only because he was attracted to similarly progressive women or was he consciously or unconsciously targeting women perceived as having less power in society? After reading his NYT piece, my personal impression was his low self-esteem with regards to women and therefore his disconnect from women. His first assumption when he is approached by women at his book signings is that their motive for talking to him is for him to read their manuscript or to give them access to literary agents. In his pursuit of smart and strong women of color as partners, he admits always hiding behind a mask and sabotaging himself behind the scenes. Furthermore and probably the crux of his “sex scandal” in that article: he classifies women in two categories — the strong and smart women he tried to partner with and the amorphous lump of women he had indiscretions with. He expresses regret to the former and not much thought for the latter. Can this all be explained and excused by his rape as a child? That remains ambiguous as well.

Those very different personal histories and backgrounds unfolded in two very different treatments. Khoua Her had no one of great power to help extenuate her actions and stop her demonization, and she bore the burden of her female circumstances. Junot Diaz’ demonization is greatly prevented by strong allies and societal privileges. Khoua Her was not believed when she explained her side of the story, while Junot Diaz is believed by a majority. Khoua Her was found mentally-fit and was punished with a 50 years sentence with possibility of parole after 30 years. Junot Diaz appears to have retreated from the public eye at the moment. Rumors say he may be getting mental health treatment. Some staunch allies are fiercely protecting him either through silence or vocal endorsement.

Looking at the communities’ responses. Khoua Her mostly generated either rage at her from non-progressives or paralysis from progressives. People who had no sympathy for women, abused women, poor women, and refugee/immigrant women were never her allies. People from her Asian and Hmong communities were afraid of backlash if not also lacking sympathy for women. People from the advocacy community who understood the injustice of her demonization and criminal-system whipping were too scared to jeopardize other good works they were doing. Junot Diaz is spared a slashing from non-allies who would not dare to attack a minority icon. He is spared the rejection from his colleagues and fans, who were proud to uphold him and cannot back out from that stance or who still sincerely hold him up. His most ardent critics and detractors are survivors who may not be at their most articulate and may be overzealous when they revisit past traumas of abuse and institutional stonewalling.

Looking at the organizational responses. In the Khoua Her’s case, my organization chose to keep safe from her, avoid getting involved in her case and focus on longterm goals. Being both young and passionate about our mission, I resigned from my position as to not advocate on behalf of Khoua Her betrayed everything I had dedicated more than two years of my life to. In hindsight, that decision had longlasting consequences for both myself and the organization. Although the shelter is up and running, it went through turbulent times. For example, my immediate successor was one of my staff members who ended up embezzling the organization. When I heard about it from far away, I regretted not flagging the fact that this staff member always fudged her timesheets but I chose to try to give her chance to self-correct. I would politely and respectfully point out to her the inflation in her timesheets, so she would know I was paying attention to her paperwork and she would learn to no longer engage in that behavior. She did change when I was there. We were an Asian women’s organization intended to empower Asian women: I just did not want to punish her right away without trying to work out her misconduct. Could she have been redeemed for the longer term under my watchful guidance? I will never know. The board had no way of knowing she had that habit and of course, we never got a chance to discuss and I did not know they would put her in charge of the budget. Although I never felt the urge to go back to the organization, it still pained me to see “my baby” struggling. Of course, I also rationalized that the organization reaped what it sowed when it refused to act with integrity and therefore, those struggles were karma coming back to it. I never felt close to it again: I had given too much to it and it had betrayed my faith. However, I was glad to be invited by the housing developer I had worked with to be one of several organizational leaders holding the shovels at the groundbreaking ceremony: I was happy the shelter did come true. I was also glad when my college friend who remained on the board invited me to tour the shelter after I had traveled the world and a lot of water had passed under the bridge since my dramatic departure from the organization. I never loved the organization or the shelter again, after I left, but I felt peace knowing they survived.

On hindsight, on one hand, I wish I had been less green, less full of idealism and more pragmatic when Khoua Her caused an irreparable rift between the organization and me. On the other hand, the organization came to exist and the seeds of the shelter were planted because there was an idealist like me who did everything to make it happen, out of pure faith and love. I should also say that I became the first executive director because no one else wanted to take the risk of quitting their jobs to gamble in a 3 month seed grant that had no guarantee of being renewed in the future. Only some young and green idealist could take that jump. I will also share that leaving my dream job and dream organization under those circumstances did have a longterm traumatic effect, which faded eventually. I will also say that not being tied to that dream job and that organization (to which I could have dedicated all my life) made me seek new paths that led to experiences and places I never even imagined before.

In Junot Diaz’ case, the organization he co-founded is also primarily concerned with the longterm goal of preserving what is good about the organization. With that priority, unfortunately, choices have to be made that may sacrifice one or a few, for the greater good of the organization and its end goal which may benefit great numbers of people for many years. For young people, idealists, writers of color, social justice advocates and survivors, that organizational choice is abhorrent. In this type of crisis, such a polarization between idealism and pragmatism is unfortunately inevitable. With my history, I feel evenly split between the two sides. I want to say to the idealists: the pro-organization people are not evil for not living up to pure principles. I want to say to the pragmatists: the idealists are neither distraught survivors nor unpractical angels who don’t know what it takes to survive on earth. In fact, as usual, we are two sides of the same coin and need both to keep balancing the coin whole.

Another dimension of the organizational response relates to the status of the accused within the organization. Khoua Her was never a client but at best would have been a client serviced by the organization, whereas Junot Diaz was a co-founder and the brightest literary star within his organization. Again, for people who were his peers or admirers, rejecting him or demonizing him overnight was not an option. Instead he is granted the benefit of a restorative response, which will allow him to make reparation to those he hurt and pay for his crime and redeem himself outside the criminal system. To be fair, Khoua Her, once she was deemed fit for trial, became ensconced in a criminal justice process that left little room for detouring from the criminal justice code: there are well-defined charges and mandatory sentencing guidelines that have to be followed. Her attorney argued vigorously that she was not mentally competent to stand trial, however, his arguments fell on deaf ears in the face of the public rage at her crime and the total lack of empathy of her detractors and the total fear of her could-have-been allies.

Finally, from an organizational perspective, Junot Diaz was part of the governance and leadership. As such, after his misconduct and pattern of behaviors were exposed, expectations of safety, rage at being endangered, and demands for action from survivors and prospective program participants have been virulent, legitimately so. On the other hand, with a fallen brother and hero within their midst and as a legal entity managing all risks in that situation and fighting for its integrity and survival in the midst of a sex scandal, the organizational response has been extremely low-key, cautious and critics would say, sluggish. Overall, the situation has been analogous to a family situation: what happens when a beloved uncle turns out to be a sexual molester because he was raped as a child? The family does not advertise the fact or the internal response. On the other hand, no matter how much it wants to and tries to, an organization is not exactly like a family and expectations of its transparency and accountability are different, especially in the arts context, which is so much in the public eye. From those perspectives, the Khoua Her was very different. She was never a client/program participant. She had no tie to the organization except for her identity and domestic violence status which fell under our mission, and should have created empathy, if not for the scale of her crime and the fear it generated that blocked all sympathy from pragmatic boardmembers. Furthermore, the domestic violence world tends to operate in the shadows, as silence in this context, means safety.

As someone who stood alone on the Khoua Her’s side, so alone that a recent search for archived news show they have completely erased all records of my involvement except for one progressive Asian Pacific Islander women’s publication, and as someone who doesn’t know much about Junot Diaz first-hand, I feel it is a good thing no one has to go through the demonization and the complete abandonment of Khoua Her. Whether he truly deserves it or not, giving the opportunity of restorative justice to Junot Diaz is a kindness that salvages our own humanity, whether we stand on the survivors’ side or the organizational side.

As someone who gave up my own “baby” organization for the sake of higher principles, I saw it grow to be a complete stranger I have no emotional ties to and I appreciate its utility. From that perspective, I think preserving the organization Junot Diaz helped build has value. Whether it deserves it or not, it is trying to undergo a progressive change process in some public light. If the experiment fails, the worse it can become is to be of some utility. If the experiment works, it could become the better place many put their hearts and souls and faiths in, for now and for future generations.

Well, the main point of this article, which has been difficult to write, even several decades later, is to share old history and the perspectives it might give to hopefully deal less painfully and more successfully with a current situation. In the end, I will say this. I met Khoua Her only once, when I visited her in the high security mental health unit at the hospital where she was held for psychiatric evaluation after her arrest. This is another experience, which is branded in my mind: the long walk in the sterile and completely white hallways leading to and equally plainly white and silver (from the metallic locks and furniture) holding cell. There I came face to face with what a fallen angel from my very own community looked like. She was young and frail and eerie. I could not blame her for anything. My heart split open for both her and my community whose child she was in all her brokenness. I fought as hard as I could for both of them and in that process, I too was wounded, and my own angel wings fell, for a long time. Junot, in his own way, is also a fallen angel. I find no desire to see him further broken. I also do not want any of the younger angels of justice and possible builders of a better world to be wounded and lose their angel wings hitting walls. I hope this organization now and its people now, of which I find myself a part of in a much more minor role, can find better ways and ends, when angels fall and organizational idealism crashes. As a fellow poet, I finish this sharing with the poem I wrote about my experience, a long time ago. Another day, I will write a poem with a happy ending.

Walking Manifesto #1, 2001

I walk into a cell

The secured wing

Of a hospital.

A Hmong woman stands in the middle.

She is our queen of evil.

Baby killer, mass murderer.

A ghost fading into the whiteness of the walls

Into the darkness of her crime.

The only color:

The silver of the nailed-down toilet,

The silver of the metal door,

The silver of her ID tag.

There is no innocence.

None for the 12-year old bride.

None for the 24-year old mother of 6,

None for the rape survivor,

The domestic violence survivor,

None for the mother

Of a sexually-abused 8 year-old-girl.

Is there anything else she can do for us? She asks.

Is there anything we can do for her? I ask, ashamed

For the rest of us.

But even my voice, now found, drowns

Into the unforgiveness of her children’s ghosts.

There is no justice for fallen angels

Whose silver wings were clipped

So long ago, that all people can see,

Are the silver bars of their cages,

And the silver bullets they drove into our hearts.

Even my wings cannot bear that weight and fall.