Everyday Ruptures: Children, Youth, and Migration in Global Perspective

2. "For Tibet": Youth, Hip-Hop, and Transforming the Tibetan Global Imaginary

39 Chapter 2 “For Tibet” Youth, Hip-Hop, and Transforming the Tibetan Global Imaginary Julia Meredith Hess On October 30, 2007, I watched Tenzin Norgay, a Tibetan high school student living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who raps under the name Lazzyboi, perform a song that he had written entitled “Fighting for Tibet ” at the Tibetan community center in Santa Fe. Dressed in baggy jeans held up by a belt with a crown-shaped belt buckle, a long orange polo shirt covered by a black jacket, and a backward baseball cap, Tenzin Norgay performed his rhymes in front of a Buddhist altar adorned with a large photograph of the fourteenth Dalai Lama. The audience was composed of his peers and their parents, with a sprinkling of Westerners like myself, seated on the floor of the main gathering space. His performance was recorded by another high school student and subsequently posted on YouTube. Here are the opening lyrics of the rap by Tenzin Norgay (a.k.a. Lazzyboi): yeah yeah yo yeah yeah yo i have cried and cried for all the tibetans that died would shout out free tibet but never knew what it meant so i took a look at his Holiness teachings days later i started to repent started to represent 40 Everyday Ruptures where im from what i wanted to become then people looked at me like i was dumb said i knew nothing about freedom cant you understand i live in a free land so now i stand up proud fist in the air dont even care if people stare u should share the love thats whats its all about dont pout if aint going ur route —Tenzin Norgay, a.k.a. Lazzyboi, “Fighting for Tibet” This chapter considers how Tibetan youth in the diaspora are negotiating the “everyday ruptures” that shape their lives.1 These youth are often three generations removed from Tibet. Their grandparents are typically of the generation that fled to India soon after the flight of the current Dalai Lama from Tibet to India in 1959. Many of their parents were born, raised, and educated in India and Nepal. These youth—many of whom were born in India—have spent much of their lives in the United States. They make up what I call the “transnational generation.” Glick Schiller and Fouron (2001) and Boehm (2008) have used this term in an attempt to move away from the idea that clear-cut distinctions can be made between first-, 1.5-, and second-generation immigrants with attachments to multiple places and experiences in a variety of national contexts. I employ it here for those reasons and also to emphasize the importance of transnational connections and the flow of ideas, technology, and capital that contribute to Tibetan identity as the diaspora has gone global. The Tibetan youth I profile in this chapter are adept at using an array of influences from the places and institutions that affect their everyday lives and those of their families. These influences include the local communities throughout the United States where they have settled, the Tibetan government-in-exile based in India, the Dalai Lama, and myriad other influences ranging from Hindi film to, as we will see, hip-hop. Remarkably , however, many Tibetan exile youth are driven to channel these influences and ideas into a message and transnational activism to call attention to the struggle over their homeland, Tibet. Through a focus on agency, especially as it relates to youth, my goal is to highlight the ways in which the ruptures entailed in migration can be continuities in disguise. In other words, while on the face of it, a Tibetan Youth, Hip-Hop, and Transforming the Tibetan Global Imaginary 41 youth who raps in front of an altar dedicated to the Dalai Lama might seem a radical break with Tibetan norms and values, I argue here that we must closely examine the message and the intent of the artist to uncover the cultural continuities in such practices. Taking Youth Seriously, Putting Agency into Perspective In her book Anthropology and Social Theory (2006), Sherry Ortner has written about the ways in which social theorists expand upon or reject the concept of agency. She writes about the antihumanist bent of some social scientists who ignore agency to give precedence to powerful structures that undergird and constrain individual action and thought in conscious and subconscious ways. Ortner, however, vigorously defends the...