IMPACT CAMPAIGN WORKSHOPS

SHARE YOUR STORY - COMMUNITY VOICES

After our film screenings, we encourage our audience to share their stories with us in relation to the film themes as a way for more voices in the community to be heard. If you have watched WE NEVER LEFT and would like to share your story, please contact us at weneverleftdoc@gmail.com

“This is a powerful film that brought back for me the trauma of my youth living in Beirut in the 1975 to 1976 civil war and demonstrates the tragedy of Lebanon over the decades”

“As a Palestinian, I am going through the same in terms of living abroad while my country is in complete chaos and our government is completely useless to aiding their people.”

“Definitely, this evoked a lot of emotions regarding my family and I’s experience during the Arab Spring in 2011-2013 looking at what was happening in Tahrir.”

“I immigrated to the US as a child from Pakistan, and related so deeply to the idea of being neither here nor there, belonging to a liminal space in-between. And the idea of struggling to effect change from afar.”

“My father left Vietnam after the Vietnam War. My mother left China to Vietnam and Vietnam to America. Growing up they were both unspoken about their past given their traumas as well.”

“I’m also a first generation immigrant though I have a few people from a few generations back. Some stayed and others went back to Japan. Anyway, guilt, anxiety and unease to be “in between” are feelings I share with the film. My home country is also going through a lot of changes and I share the sentiment that I wish I didn't have to leave.”

“The statistic about more Lebanese in the diaspora than in your homeland is our shared experience with Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians). We stand in solidarity with you folks in reconnecting with the separation you experienced at the hands of a corrupt government in the pursuit of liberty and peace”

“My family and I left Pakistan to move to the U.S. through the political asylum system, because of the discrimination, persecution and structural injustices we endured for years simply for belonging to a religious minority. While I could really resonate with the young adults and activists in the film, I feel like I struggle with the added element of grieving the loss of a homeland that is jubilant at my disassociation from it. Maybe I was never meant to belong there, but then where and what do I belong to? Perhaps there is deeper liberation in forging my own belonging and community; yet at this moment I feel like a plant forced to grow in soil it wasn't meant for, sustained only by an artificial environment crafted painstakingly to prevent my essence from breaking.”

“My mama is a first generation immigrant and endured many hardships during China's Cultural Revolution, including bearing witness to the imprisonment and torture of her father, having a mother in labor camp, and being a "sent down youth" herself where she had to stop her education to labor in farms in rural China. She is sad to know that there is an entire new generation of young people in China who barely have any idea what she and so many others went through in that period because there is no official archive of the lives ruined by this history. This film helped me reflect upon the healing powers of documentation, of remembering, even if politics and time move faster than we can keep track of, even if we don't want to stew in the pain of our pasts. Today when we go back to China, I worry she does not recognize anything about her home other than Chinese faces and language. But I know talking about it with me, and telling others her story, helps her see herself less as a fugitive of history.”

“I identify myself deeply with the stories being told. The same struggle, the sounds of war that can’t never be erased from my brain. My family were part of a group that was displaced due to the war in 1969 between Elsalvador/Honduras . The USA military were training in Honduras at that time and thousands of salvadoreños were killed and displaced back to their birthplace. Some were placed in concentration camps, some were place in train wagons were they kept the animals, some were being sent back to concentration camps created by the red cross/Military in rural areas. So much pain and courage came out of that. My grandparents decided to leave El Salvador due to Civil war, since lots of family members were being killed, disappeared for speaking up. My grandfather decided to travel for months to bring me to the USA after crossing 4 borders. In 1979, we arrived to Irvine. Now we are all together after almost 7 years of being displaced.... We are now 5 generations.”

COMMUNITY RESOURCES

In this past very unstable year, our community has been needing a lot of support of all kinds. And whether you’re from the community and need mental health support or you want to provide support by donating to nonprofit organizations, this page is for you.

HOW YOU CAN HELP LEBANON

SWANA MENTAL HEALTH HELP

  • Embrace Lebanon (Mental health help in Lebanon)

  • HEAL Beirut (Free telehealth for people living in Lebanon)

  • HELEM (LGBTQIA+ SWANA organization)

  • AMALY (Individual and group therapy for Women, Muslims, BIPOC)

EMERGENCY RELIEF MUTUAL AID

SWANA RESOURCES