Creating Pan-Karen Identity: The Wrist Tying Ceremony in the United States*

Heather MacLachlan
University of Dayton

A movement to unite all Karen-language speaking people under the banner of a distinct and unified Karen identity has been afoot for more than a century. Buddhist and Christian Karens from Burma, now living in Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA, are forging and contesting a universal Karen identity through the celebration of the traditional wrist tying ceremony. This articulation of pan-Karen identity is an example of Baumann and Gingrichs (2004) theory of identity construction, which they call a grammar of encompassment. This case study shows that the theory, which claims that instances of encompassment are often contested by the encompassed (that is, the subordinate people whose alterity is denied), must be extended. In the United States, it is the encompassers (that is, the Christians who have greater economic and political power) who are the most deeply troubled by the denial of difference demanded by the discourse of encompassment.

Approximately six thousand Burmese people live in Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA. The English word Burmese is poorly understood by most of the native residents of Fort Wayne, who tend to think of this group as an undifferentiated mass. In fact, among people whose country of origin is Burma (also known as Myanmar), significant numbers self-identify as members of different ethnic groups, and do not speak Burmese as their first language. One of these groups is the Karen, approximately one thousand of whom now live in Fort Wayne.
* The author thanks Saw Barnardo for his help in translating Sgaw Karen language documents and also thanks two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, Vol. 21, No.4, 2012

459

460

ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL

In this article, I describe an annual event organized by Karen leaders in Fort Wayne, the putatively traditional wrist tying ceremony, and the issues it evokes. In so doing, I seek to make two contributions: First, I provide a thick description of a large Karen community in the United States and thereby add to the scholarship of the Karen, of Southeast Asia, and of diaspora groups. As the bibliography to this article reveals, most of the important studies of Karen groups have been conducted in Thailand. However, the large majority of Karen people hail from Burma, and during the past decade hundreds of thousands of these Burmese Karen have been resettled in countries including Canada, Norway, Australia and the USA. Scholars are just beginning to pay attention to citizens of Burma in diaspora (see Ho, 2008; Cheah, 2008; Lu, 2008; Kenny and Lockwood-Kenny, 2011), and this article furthers this new field of research. Secondly, this article addresses one of the most pressing questions in anthropology how do groups of people construct their identities by applying an important new analytic framework. A movement to unite all Karen-language speaking people under the banner of a distinct and unified Karen identity has been afoot for more than a century. Karen studies scholars have made note of this movement (Yoko, 2004:285; Gravers, 2007b:250; Fink, 1994:293), but have never provided an anthropological description of how this pan-Karen identity is discursively constructed. In this article, I explain how political leaders of the Fort Wayne Karens, most of whom are Christians, articulate a universal form of Karen identity when talking about the annual wrist tying ceremony. Furthermore, I argue that this articulation of pan-Karen identity by members of the historicallydominant Christian Karen group is an example of Gerd Baumann and Andre Gingrichs (2004) theoretical formulation, which they call a grammar of encompassment. However, this encompassing perspective is not universally shared by the Christian Karen people I interviewed. In fact, the wrist tying ritual, which is celebrated specifically to promote the idea of pan-Karen unity, actually provides an opportunity to examine important differences among the Christian Karens of Fort Wayne. This article, therefore, highlights the fact that the Karen diaspora community is not a homogeneous group; it contains influential divisions, just like all human societies an important point that needs to be further explored by scholars of diaspora (Anthias, 1998:564). Empirical support for this article is based on data I collected from 2010 to 2012 using ethnographic research methods. During the summer of 2010, I lived in Fort Wayne for seven weeks. I stayed in one of the Karen enclaves (that is, an apartment complex that residents jokingly refer to as Tham Hin, which is the name of a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border). This allowed me to observe the daily routines of nearly 300 Karen people and

CREATING PAN-KAREN IDENTITY

461

to develop relationships with my neighbors; I also took Sgaw Karen language lessons from a woman who had been a refugee camp teacher. Most importantly, I conducted formal interviews with twenty-five Fort Wayne residents, including fifteen Karens, five Burmans and five Americans. Eleven of the interviewees were women (six Karen, two Burman, three American) and 14 were men (nine Karen, three Burman, two American). All were adults whose ages ranged from 28 to about 70. The initial interviews were conducted during the summer of 2010, when I lived in Fort Wayne. I conducted follow up interviews with a couple of informants, over the phone, while editing this article. Interviewees were selected using the snowball method. I began by interviewing my neighbors in the apartment complex. I told them I hoped to meet people who were knowledgeable about Karen culture, especially Karen music and dance. These neighbors suggested I contact members of the Fort Wayne Karen Association (FWKA). The FWKA leaders suggested still others. I also interviewed American missionaries who have spent some time in Burma. They were members of the Fort Wayne city administration and were often present at community events. Interviews were conducted mostly in English. I speak Burmese, so I often posed questions in Burmese to Burman informants, but they usually answered in English. About half of the Karen informants did not speak English. With them I worked with a translator, a man named Saw Barnardo, who spoke excellent Sgaw Karen, Pwo Karen and English. The Burman and Karen interviewees who participated in the study were community leaders. Generally, they had more formal education than most of the Karen refugees in Fort Wayne. The initial interviews were conducted during the summer of 2010, when I lived in Fort Wayne. The upcoming wrist tying ceremony, which was then being prepared, emerged as an important topic during these interviews. I attended the ceremony on 6 September 2010 and again on 28 August 2011. I have maintained my relationships with friends in Fort Wayne during the ensuing years; I to live close enough to be able to drive there for day trips a few times every year. I conducted follow up interviews with a couple of informants, over the phone, while revising this article.1

1 The authors research was approved by the University of Daytons Institutional Review Board. All informants named in this article gave their consent to be interviewed and quoted. However, they are all identified by pseudonyms except for James Shwe and Hti Mu.

462

ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL

Baumann and Gingrichs Grammars of Identity

Baumann and Gingrich (2004) base their ideas about identity formation on the well-established theory that all formulations of identity envision a self and an Other. They argue that there are at least four different ways of othering, that is, of describing the other in relation to oneself. These four types of discourse are called grammars (2004:xi). The first and simplest is the binary grammar; people who employ this grammar claim that the Other is totally bad and inferior to us. Second, when using the orientalizing grammar, subjects talk about the Other as foreign and exotic. Third, groups who operate according to the segmentary grammar believe that the Other is roughly equal to themselves; in this case, subjects see both groups as belonging to one larger category of identity (like states in a federal system of government). Fourth, the grammar of encompassment - the most important for our discussion - is an act of selfing by appropriating, perhaps one could say adopting or co-opting, selected kinds of otherness (Baumann, 2004:25). In an encompassing grammar of identity, there are two levels of segmentation: the subordinate party (that is, the Other) is subsumed into the identity claimed by the encompassers. For example, in Canada, the minority Francophone population is continually claimed by majority Anglophones to be part of the larger Canadian identity. Of course, as Baumann points out, social interactions usually do not conform to tidy theories of identity formation; in most social contexts various people articulate various points of view about others, and all of these discourses may circulate at the same time among one group (Baumann, 2004:31). After formulating their grammars of identity, Baumann and Gingrich invited other scholars to put their theory to the test. The resulting book, Grammars of Identity/Alterity: A Structural Approach, consists of chapters exploring the four grammars in ethnographic case studies. Those who looked at the grammar of encompassment discovered that members of the subordinate group have varying responses to this grammar, and often reject it in favor of an orientalizing or segmentary grammar that implies more equality between the two groups. For example, Christian Karner explains that Hindu nationalists claim Sikhs as a sect that belongs to the larger Hindu nation, and then profiles a Sikh informant who insisted that he and his fellow Sikhs were an entirely separate, distinctive and internally unified religious community (2004:168). Guido Sprenger points out that in Laos, government officials describe all people in the nation-state as various kinds of Lao, but members of the Rmeet minority see themselves as clearly different (2004:180-182). In fact, the Rmeet claim to be the ancestors of all humanity, including the Lao effectively contesting the encompassing grammar of the government with their own grammar of

CREATING PAN-KAREN IDENTITY

463

encompassment. As we shall see, among the Fort Wayne Karens, it is the Christians who are the encompassers. Their most articulate representatives, the elected leaders of the FWKA, use the grammar of encompassment to describe the annual wrist tying ceremony, an event which is supposed to unite all Buddhist and Christian Karens. Most importantly, we will discover that the Christians themselves that is, members of the encompassing group struggle with and even sometimes reject this grammar of identity.

Community and Scholarly Understandings of Karen Identity

Although Karen people have been coming to Fort Wayne since at least 1994, most of those currently calling it home arrived between 2005 and 2010. These recent arrivals are refugees who fled the protracted and vicious civil war in Karen State (Eastern Burma), where Karen insurgents have been fighting for independence from the central government of Burma since 1949. The conflict increased in intensity during the late 1990s; a detailed report produced in 2005 goes so far as to claim that the actions of government soldiers against Karen civilians amounted to a low intensity, slow form of genocide (Horton, 2005:523). As a result, hundreds of thousands of Karen people, including members of the insurgent army, fled over the border to Thailand. Tens of thousands of them have been resettled in the United States since 2004.2 Karen people in Fort Wayne usually reject the word Burmese because it represents not only a foreign ethnic group but also their military opponent. However, they are well aware that they are usually perceived as Burmese in their new home. In fact, Fort Wayne is a prominent center in the Burmese diaspora, because of the large number of migrants from Burma who now live there. The citys importance was underlined when Nobel Peace Prize winner and Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi toured the United States in September, 2012. Suu Kyi visited only three locales: Washington, DC, Southern California and Fort Wayne, Indiana. She pointed out to the Fort Wayne audience, which was composed of thousands of migrants and native-born Americans, that the name of Fort Wayne is often mentioned on radio broadcasts inside Burma. The city of Fort Wayne has generally been hospitable towards new arrivals. When it

2 According to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the United States has accepted 78,303 refugees from Burma from 2004 to 2011. The large majority of these refugees are believed to be of Karen ethnicity, although a precise breakdown is not available (see http:/ /www.acf.hhs.gov/ programs/orr/resource/refugee-arrival-data, accessed on 13 November 2012.

464

ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL

won an All-America City Award in 2009, Fort Wayne was recognized specifically for its efforts in assisting refugees and helping them integrate and succeed in the community (Mellinger, 2009). The city officials that I encountered when I lived there in 2010 gave every evidence of sincere concern for newly-settled Karen people, although they usually could not differentiate between Karen and Burmese. Karen refugees do gain some advantage from being associated with the Burmese community; they take free English classes at the Burmese Advocacy Center,3 for example, and in July 2010 they sent a group of representatives to perform Karen dances and songs at a Burmese Culture workshop organized by the Allen County Public Library. Karen, like Burmese is an all-embracing term which describes millions of people whose ancestors have lived in Eastern Burma and Western Thailand for centuries, and who speak one or more of dozens of Karennic languages (Yoko, 2004:23-25, 31). Today, Sgaw Karen and Pwo Karen are the most widespread of these languages; virtually all of the Karen refugees in Fort Wayne speak either Sgaw or Pwo or both.4 Further, Karen people generally practice one of three religions: Theravada Buddhism, Protestant Christianity, or a distinct form of animism focused on agricultural rituals that is unique to Karen villages (Rajah, 2008:5-6). The notion of Karen identity is problematic, since the word Karen is a transliteration of the Burmese word kayin, a term applied indiscriminately to disparate hill-dwelling groups who speak different languages and have no unique cultural features in common (Hinton, 1983:159). However, some ethnographers who have done fieldwork in Karen villages in Thailand assert that there is a set of people who, under some circumstances, apply a term meaning Karen to themselves and to others who would similarly label themselves. There is a consciousness of kind among these people (Kunstadter, 1979:157; see also Iijima, 1979:106; Fink, 1994: 295). Other scholars argue that religious beliefs are so central to three different Karen identities animist, Buddhist and Christian that members of these faiths should properly be regarded as members of different subgroups with different cultural ideologies (Rajah, 2008:248, 253-254).
3 The Burmese Advocacy Center (BAC) was founded in 2008 and is staffed by migrants from Burma who saw the immense need for extended resettlement services, especially for the Karen refugees arriving from camps in Thailand. The center offers English language lessons and training on accessing services such as food stamps, Medicaid cards, and subsidized housing. The BAC also sponsors outreach events in which performers and speakers from the refugee community educate Americans about refugee history and traditions. 4 See Yoko (2004:37) for a table showing how various ethnographers and the Burma/ Myanmar government have tabulated Karen groups throughout the twentieth century.

CREATING PAN-KAREN IDENTITY

465

Most importantly, as Christina Fink notes, Karen people themselves disagree about who is a real Karen: The debates about who was a real Karen were anguished ones for the Karen in Ti Buh Ri [a Buddhist Pwo Karen village] as well as the Karen elsewhere. The Karen were saddened by the differences between themselves (1994:293). Certainly all contemporary observers of Karen people in Burma agree that a multiplicity of Karen identities exist there.5 In this article, I explore the difference between two dominant categories of Karen identity, that is, Buddhist Karens and the Christian Karens. Recent scholarship uses these categories rather than differentiating groups by language or by area of origin to analyze contemporary Karen life in Burma and in the ThaiBurma border camps; for example, Ardeth Thawngmung writes that Christian and Buddhist Karens together make up more than eighty percent of the Karen population of Burma (2008:3). Mikael Gravers explains that these two categories emerged during the nineteenth century when significant numbers of Karen people converted to Christianity under the influence of American and British missionaries (2007b:228). Within just a few years, the Christian Karens became embroiled in violent conflict with other Karens, now differentiated from the Christians as Buddhist Karens. Intermittent but continuing violence during the past 170 years has solidified the understanding among Karens that the Christian/Buddhist divide is the most important division between Karen groups (Gravers, 2007b:252). As we shall see, Karen refugees in Fort Wayne agree with this scholarly perspective on Karen identities. Gravers goes on to point out that Karen leaders have also engaged in many attempts to bridge the boundary created by armed conflict between Christian and Buddhist Karens (2007b:240). For the last 150 years, Christian Karen leaders have publicly emphasized the difference indeed, the eternal antagonism between the Karen and Burmese peoples. In Baumanns terms, Christian Karen leaders in Burma have used a simple binary grammar to define their enemy, the Burmese army (and sometimes, by extension, all Burmese). At the same time, in an attempt to gain support for their opposition to the Burmese, Karen leaders use a grammar of encompassment to argue for the unity of all Christian and Buddhist Karens. Since 1949, when Karen nationalists formed the Karen National Union (KNU) and took up arms against the Burmese state, KNU leaders almost all of

5 For example, the Burmese population includes so-called Karen Muslims. Karen Muslims also constitute an important group in Fort Wayne, although they are not included in this discussion. Also called Black Karens, they are mostly descendants of Indians who entered Karen State during the 20th century; they speak Sgaw Karen, but Pwo and Sgaw Karen people do not think of them as belonging to the Karen ethnic group (Gravers, 2007a:x-xi).

466

ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL

whom are either Baptists or Seventh Day Adventists - have proclaimed a pan-Karen identity that embraces all Karen groups (Hinton, 1979:92). Jessica Harriden writes that Karen identity as espoused by KNU leaders is singular and exclusive, with an emphasis on pan-Karen solidarity in opposition to other ethnocultural, politico-ideological, and religious movementsLargely because it is so rigid and uncompromising, however, the KNU representation of Karen identity fails to recognize Karen diversity (2002:86). I am not interested in the rigidity of the pan-Karen identity articulated by the KNU and other Christian Karens from Burma, but rather in its flexibility. How does this all-embracing idea of Karen-ness account for the undeniable differences between Buddhist and Christian Karens? And how does this grammar of encompassment operate in everyday discourse? Seeking the answer to these questions in Fort Wayne makes sense because the pattern of Buddhist/Christian division, established long ago in Burma, persists there today.

Karen Identities in Fort Wayne

To illustrate how Karen refugees in Fort Wayne think about and speak about Karen identity, I begin with James Shwe, who is the current president of the FWKA and who will feature prominently in this article. When we first met in 2010, James told me that he is Pwo Karen (Interview, 4 August 2010). I later discovered that both James and his mother speak, read and write Sgaw and Pwo Karen fluently; in fact, James mother taught school in Sgaw Karen when she lived in the refugee camp. James father is Burman and only learned to speak Pwo after marrying James mother and moving to a Pwo Karen-dominated area. When James says that he and his family are Pwo Karens, he means that they speak Pwo Karen at home that is, most of the time. I heard them speaking Burmese on occasion, and their toddler grandson already speaks English well. The labels Sgaw Karen and Pwo Karen, especially as they are used by Karen people in diaspora, tend to obscure complexities created in families by bilingualism and intermarriage. It is therefore problematic to link Karen ethnic labels to language, and Karen people sometimes acknowledge this. For example, a woman named Tulip told me that she is one hundred percent Sgaw, meaning that both of her parents spoke Sgaw and identified as Sgaw Karen (Interview, 8 August 2010). This is somewhat unusual, which is why she felt the need to point it out.6
6 Tulips children are still very young; when they are older it will be interesting to see how they define their ethnicity, since Tulips husband is a Burmese-speaking Burman.

CREATING PAN-KAREN IDENTITY

467

For both James and Tulip, and for most Karen people in Fort Wayne, the most salient aspect of their Karen identity is not their native language but rather their religion. James and Tulip are Christians, and this fact determines not only how they worship, but with whom they spend much of their time. As both of them told me echoing dozens of others there are two kinds of Karen people in Fort Wayne: Christian Karens and Buddhist Karens.7 Moreover, these two groups are somewhat alienated from each other, in part because they spend their leisure time apart; most Christians spend many hours each week in church related activities at which Buddhists are not welcome or at least, in which they are not included. Knowledgeable outsiders social workers, resettlement volunteers and the like affirm that there is a basic and persistent division between Fort Wayne Karen groups. A missionary who has been working with Burmese immigrants since 1990 was blunt when I asked her about the Karen community in Fort Wayne: There is no community here! she said (Interview, 5 August 2010). Karen people themselves explained the division between Buddhists and Christians by referring to history. They claimed that the lack of unity in Fort Wayne is a continuation of the patterns established in Karen State. The Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the KNU, is the longest-lived Karen insurgent organization. However, since 1949, other armed groups in Karen State have periodically turned against each other (Crozier, 1994:36-39). The most consequential split in the Karen resistance movement came in 1994, when Buddhist Karen soldiers in the KNLA broke away to create the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA). The DKBA almost immediately signed a peace agreement with the government of Burma and then began fighting the KNLA alongside the soldiers of the Tatmadaw (Burmas national army). The ongoing conflict between the Buddhist DKBA and the Christian KNLA caused many Karen people to flee Karen State during the past two decades and some of those refugees now live in Fort Wayne. Hti Mu, a Christian Karen leader in Fort Wayne, is convinced that the conflict at home continues to impact relationships in the diaspora. In the United States, she says, there is no physical fighting between Buddhists and

7 The Christian group includes both Sgaw and Pwo-speaking Karens, just as the Buddhist group does. According to James Shwe, approximately half of the Karens in Fort Wayne are Buddhists, and half are Christians (Interview, 16 May 2011). The FWKA has been conducting a census of Karen people in Fort Wayne for some months; at the time of writing, they had collected information on 89 families.

468

ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL

Christians, but in their hearts, they wont be [refuse to be] united (Interview, 13 August 2010). Law Eh, a young father and a keen observer of his own community, agreed. The leaders have different ideas and will not compromise.They dont have one heart; its not like one person, he said by way of explanation (Interview, 9 August 2010). Law Eh agrees that the best analogy for polarized Karen groups in Fort Wayne is the warring insurgent groups in Burma. When I met this [situation] I thought of the KNU and the DKBA, he says sadly. While he hopes that Buddhist and Christian Karens in Fort Wayne will be able to work together, I saw clearly that there is not peace, he told me. With real frustration Law Eh concluded, People here believe that their side [i.e., their religion] is good and the other side is badjust like the KNU and the DKBA (Interview, 9 August 2010). Seventh-Day Adventist Pastor Thura Yo Shu evinced the same emotions. When I think about the Karen, I want to cry, he said quietly. Speaking of the DKBA and the KNU, he said, Until today we do not have our own country and we are split in many places (Interview, 11 August 2010). Fort Wayne Karen people do come together for two annual events that celebrate Karen culture and traditions: Karen New Year in December/ January and the wrist tying ceremony in August/September. James Shwe explained to me that these events are touchstones for disagreements between Buddhists and Christians. He said that people on both sides disagree on where the celebrations should be held, for example (in a church? In a Buddhist temple? At some neutral location which will be expensive to rent?). They disagree on whether the ceremony should begin with a Christian prayer, on the order of events on the program, and on whether the fashion show (which is often part of the program) should include only traditional clothing or also modern styles created using traditionallywoven fabrics (Interview, 4 August 2010). Nevertheless, James Shwe and his colleagues, the elected leaders of the FWKA, are determined to encourage the widest possible participation in both New Year and the wrist tying. It is of crucial importance to note that Shwe and six of the other elected officers of the association are Christians; only two of the total nine are Buddhists. Shwe lamented this fact in several interviews with me, pointing out that Buddhists and women are underrepresented on the FWKA board, and that therefore it is not representative of Karen people at large in Fort Wayne. The results of this election mirror political realities among the Karen of Burma for the past century and a half. Christian Karens have experienced much more economic and professional success than their Buddhist Karen cousins. The relatively advantageous situation that Karen Christians enjoy today is linked to their historic close ties to British colonial officials

CREATING PAN-KAREN IDENTITY

469

and missionaries (Thawngmung, 2008:17). Karen Christians, much more than Buddhists, have had access to English-language education, and this linguistic competence allowed them to pursue expanded professional opportunities. For example, as I have noted elsewhere, Karen Christians are markedly overrepresented among the most commercially successful professionals in the Burmese pop music industry (MacLachlan, 2011:21). Moreover, Christian Karens have consistently held the large majority of elected and military positions in organizations claiming to represent all Karen people in Burma, such as the Karen National Association and the insurgent Karen National Union, and continue to hold key leadership roles in the refugee camps (Thawngmung, 2008:22). In Fort Wayne, this pattern continues. Christian Karens, who are more likely to speak English well, tend to hold better-paying and less labor-intensive jobs than Buddhist Karens, most of whom are unemployed or are working as meatpackers and seamstresses. The most fluent English speakers in Fort Wayne often work as translators in medical offices, public schools, and at the court building; the half dozen professional translators that I know are all Christians. For Karen refugees in Fort Wayne, having Christian Karens serve as the official and public leaders of both Buddhist and Christian Karen people is a continuation of the norm they have always known. Therefore, we can identify the Christian Karens as the dominant group in the broader Karen population of Fort Wayne. In addition, they are the encompassing group, that is, through their elected leaders they articulate a pan-Karen identity that claims to encompass both Christian and Buddhist Karens. This articulation of pan-Karen identity is crystallized in their discourse about the annual wrist tying ceremony.

Wrist Tying as Described by Karen People and Anthropologists

The act of wrist tying, and the belief on which it is based, is widespread among Southeast Asian hilltribes.8 However, Karen people consistently claim that the wrist tying ceremony is a uniquely Karen custom. The Reverend Harry Marshall, who wrote the definitive ethnography of the Karen in the early twentieth century, described wrist tying as one of many rituals practiced by animist Karens as a propitiatory sacrifice to the kla

8 The fact that many Southeast Asian hilltribes believe illness is caused by a wandering soul, and that a wrist tying ceremony is the appropriate cure, has complicated their relationships with American doctors (Muecke, 1983:436). Anne Fadiman (1997) gives a very detailed description of the conflict between another Southeast Asian hilltribe refugee group the Hmong and the medical establishment in California.

470

ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL

or life force of a human being (1992/2010:225, 251-253). From Marshalls work we deduce that the ceremony was practiced by animist Karen groups in Burma at least one hundred years ago. Buddhism has generally been much more amenable than Christianity to retaining animist beliefs and practices, because folk Buddhism includes the propitiation of spirits, whereas Christianity condemns this as idolatry (Fink, 1994:255; Iijima, 1979:112; Nash, 1969:110; also Gravers, 2007b:235 mentions a Karen Buddhist/Animist tradition). Therefore, in Burma today, this ceremony is also celebrated by Buddhist Karens. It is virtually unknown among Christians. Four more English-language accounts of the wrist tying ceremony date from the late twentieth century, and all are based on research conducted in Karen villages in Thailand (Fink, 1994:128-132; Iijima, 1979:112; Rajah, 2008:226-238; Yoko, 2004:146-153). In addition, I rely on two Sgaw Karen language accounts (Htoo, n.d.: 59-63; Drum Publications, 2010). From all of these descriptions, it is clear that what I have thus far called the wrist tying ceremony is actually a tradition which participants re-enact in a variety of ways, for a variety of reasons. It may be a household event, directed by the mother of the family, when one of her children is ill (Htoo, n.d.:60), it may be part of a more extended ritual to propitiate spirits (Iijima, 1979:112), or it may be a village-wide event, one that draws relatives and friends from around the region and which takes place according to the lunar calendar. In each case, the heart of the ceremony consists of one act: one Karen person (often an elder) speaks a prayer or blessing over another Karen person and then ties a string around his or her wrist. This act is based on the belief that ones spirit or soul may depart from ones body, and if so, one will be in danger of illness or death. The idea of the wrist tying ceremony is to summon a wandering soul during the prayer, and then to ensure it stays inside the body by tying a string around the wrist. Sources point out a myriad of rules governing other aspects of the ceremony, and these rules vary according to whoever is articulating them. In Fort Wayne, at the ceremonies I attended in 2010 and 2011, organizers distributed handouts explaining the brief meaning of seven different items used in the Karen Traditional Wrist Tying Ceremony. The list included compressed rice, sticky rice, banana, sugar cane, water, and white thread. Each of these is to be placed in a large bamboo tray which is then struck with a wooden spoon before the prayer begins. The handout explains that each item symbolizes an important Karen value (the compressed rice symbolizes the Karen people will confront whatever problems with unity.the sticky rice is used in the ceremony to highlight the Karen peoples sincerity and loyalty, etc.) Other sources require other substances be used in the tray, and offer different rationales for their

CREATING PAN-KAREN IDENTITY

471

symbolic meaning (Htoo, n.d.:60; Yoko, 2004:148; Drum Publications, 2010). All sources, however, agree that the prayer spoken just before the tying of the wrist begins with the call Come back, come back!9 These words are addressed to the wandering soul. Here is one example: Come back, come back to home. If you live in a tree, or on a mountain, in a field, on a bamboo tree, in the wood, in the forest, wherever you stay, come back and live with your brothers and sisters and mother and father and uncles and aunties and grandparents. Come back, come back! (Htoo, n.d.: 61).10 In Fort Wayne, the 6 September 2010 and 28 August 2011 ceremonies began with speeches in Sgaw Karen, Pwo Karen, Burmese and English. The main aim of these speeches was to explain to all present the history of armed conflict between Burmese and Karen people in Burma, and the significance of the ritual foods, as described above. The message was clear: Karen people are not Burmese (in fact, they have been oppressed by the Burmese); further, the Karen are a distinct and unified group, and they have their own traditions of which they are very proud. The fact that the meanings of the various foods had to be explained ironically highlighted that the event was not all that traditional. The wrist tying ceremony is practiced differently, and for different reasons, throughout Karen areas, and for Karen Christians it is usually a completely new experience. Therefore the people present at the Fort Wayne events the overwhelming majority of whom were Karen, and who wore Karen clothing had to be instructed about the symbolism inherent in this particular local manifestation of wrist tying. Next, seven married couples seated themselves at a long table across from teenagers of the same gender; all of these people were pre-selected by the organizers according to their marital status. Although everyone is welcome to participate, the men and women who enact this initial, very formal, part of the ritual, must represent Karen virtues. The adults must be married couples who have never been previously divorced or widowed, and the teenagers must be the children of parents who have never been divorced. 11 The participants faced each other over bamboo trays loaded
9

In Sgaw Karen, this phrase is Heh gay and in Pwo Karen, it is Reh tain.

For other examples of this prayer, see Yoko (2004:149-150); Phan (2009:39 and 41); Rajah, (2008:226-227 and 234-235); Marshall (1922/2010:252-253).
11 Christian missionaries commented frequently on this insistence on monogamy when they first encountered Karen groups in the mid-nineteenth century (Yoko, 2003:112). This ideal has been reinforced among Christian converts, of course, but it is clear that sexual fidelity in marriage was important to Karen people prior to the missionaries arrival. Animist and Buddhist Karens in Thailand today still require public atonement for fornication and adultery (Yoko, 2003:117-118).

10

472

ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL

with ceremonial foods. The man at the head of the table, a Buddhist elder, then picked up a wooden spoon and (speaking into a conveniently-placed microphone) prayed very quickly in Pwo Karen. True to tradition, he began with Come back, come back! Then each adult placed the foods in the tray in the hand of the adolescent opposite, scraped the teens wrist with thread three times, wound the thread around the wrist three times, snapped off the remaining thread, touched it to all the foods the teen was holding, and finally dragged it up the teens arm and crumbled it on the crown of the head. This took about thirty seconds, and each adult spoke a quiet blessing to each teen while scraping, dipping and tying the thread. Afterwards, a master of ceremonies invited others speaking in Sgaw Karen, Pwo Karen and English to sit down to have their wrists tied. Most people in the hall participated eagerly; in fact, there was rather a rush for seats when the first group of teens vacated their spots. The ritual seemed to promote positive interactions, since the overwhelming majority of people there engaged in some dialogue with those who tied their wrists, usually laughing as the rice-and-egg-coated thread was rubbed into their hair. And virtually everyone stayed to enjoy a generous meal and a stage show featuring traditional dancing, individuals singing nationalist songs and (later) a rock concert presented by local Christian Karen musicians.

The Wrist Tying Ceremony as an Emblem of Pan-Karen Identity

The wrist tying ceremony calls for the reunification of spirit and body (Rajah, 2008:226). It requires physical contact between individuals, and it emphasizes the idea of life-long relationships by spotlighting monogamous couples. It is therefore seemingly tailor-made for anyone who wants to promote the idea of unity. Karen leaders in Fort Wayne have seized on this ceremony in order to promote unity between Buddhist and Christian Karens. In fact, Dr. Hillman, who is the past president of the FWKA, told me that the association was formed specifically to organize public events, and that the main aim of these activities was to foster unity among the Buddhist and Christian Karens (Interview, 5 August 2010). Thura Peter, another elected member of the association, concurred. He said that promoting the two annual festivals is an important mandate because the festivals foster unity in the most concrete way: these events are first and foremost gatherings of Karen people, so they serve to bring people together (Interview, 7 August 2010). Zaw Moe is a Pwo Karen Adventist and one of the main organizers of the wrist tying ceremony in Fort Wayne. He also agreed that the purpose of the ceremony is to cement a sense of shared Karen identity: When you encounter someone who tied a string on your wrist, you recognize them. You say We are both Karen, he explained (Interview, 19 July 2010).

CREATING PAN-KAREN IDENTITY

473

The idea that the wrist tying ceremony is an event meant to bring Karen people together, rather than to heal illness or to reinforce animist religious beliefs, seems to be a recent innovation. I deduce this from the fact that middle-aged and senior Christian Karen informants in Fort Wayne repeatedly told me that they had never attended a wrist tying ceremony while they were growing up in Burma. For example, Thura Peter said that he grew up in a Christian family in Karen State, and never saw a wrist tying ceremony when he was young. He recalls it being a camp-wide ceremony in the refugee camp where he lived in the 1990s (Interview, 7 August 2010). The Karen Teacher Working Group, an NGO based in the camps on the Thai-Burma border, claims that a communal wrist tying ceremony was first celebrated in Mae La camp, the largest of the Karen refugee camps, only in 2004 (2007:3). Hti Mu is the daughter of Saw Ba U Kyi, the martyred founder of the Karen revolution, and has been married to two different KNLA fighters. Having spent more than twenty years in KNU-held territory, moving in the upper echelons of the KNU leadership, she is familiar with the insurgents attempts to promulgate a pan-Karen identity. As a Christian, she says that she never attended a wrist tying ceremony in Burma, and in fact, did not learn about it until she moved to KNU-held territory in her thirties. Her recollection is that KNU leaders introduced it as a community celebration in the 1980s in order to unite the Buddhist and Christian Karen. She points out that General Bo Mya, the charismatic general who led the KNU for fifty years, grew up Buddhist and converted to Seventh Day Adventism when he married. Therefore, she surmises, he knew the wrist tying tradition and hoped to leverage it to promote bonds between his Buddhist and Christian soldiers (Interview, 13 August 2010).12 The Karen Teacher Working Groups account emphasizes that wrist tying is now a way to represent pan-Karen identity: White needle [i.e., thread] on our hand also reminds us that we're Karen: we are the same group of people. In the past, our ancients stayed closed to other groups of people and in order to separate or notice themselves from others, older Karen marked their children with white needle [thread] (2007:3, my emphasis). Drum Publications, another NGO located on the Thai-Burma border that specializes in publishing Sgaw and Pwo Karen language texts, published a detailed explanation of the Karen wrist tying ceremony on its website in 2010. The writers make an explicit case for the idea that the wrist tying ceremony is an emblem of pan-Karen identity:

12

General Bo Mya passed away on 23 December 2006.

474

ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL Our grandparents believed that our spirits leave our bodies and do bad things. Every year, they had to call their spirits back. Whatever you think about [i.e., whatever your opinion], its up to you. So at this time, we bring back our souls, and we bring back our friends, and our Karen people and our unity: This is the meaning of wrist tying.Its the time for our Karen unity, to come together, to love each other, to be blessed. Even though our ancestors have long since passed away, their words still speak to us. And they said, Come back, come back! (2010).

Constructing a Pan-Karen Identity: Deploying the Grammar of Encompassment

In order to justify the notion that the wrist tying ceremony, which is so clearly linked to animist beliefs and practices, should be embraced by Karen people of all faiths, Christian Karen leaders use the grammar of encompassment. The discourse of encompassment asserts that, while clear differences exist between Buddhists (who are comfortable and experienced with wrist tying) and Christians (who are ignorant of it or even opposed to it on religious grounds), these differences do not matter in the proper understanding of pan-Karen identity. This discourse of encompassment necessitates two discursive moves: first, drawing a clear line between the concepts of culture and religion, and second, telling origin stories about the wrist tying ceremony that justify a universal understanding of Karen-ness. James Shwe articulated the grammar of encompassment by saying that wrist tying is simply Karen culture; its not based on one [particular] belief. He immediately followed this comment by explaining that the FWKA promotes this idea because we hope to unite our Karen people (Interview, 4 August 2010). Dr. Hillman, the past president, also used an encompassing discourse to describe wrist tying. He emphasized that he always encourages Karen people of all faiths to attend the wrist tying ceremony: Its not religious, its our culture, he said, encapsulating the distinction that he and his fellow Christian leaders are eager to make (Interview, 5 August 2010). This rationale that wrist tying is cultural rather than religious was advanced by other members of the Fort Wayne Christian community. For example, Law Eh told me that it is acceptable for a Christian to attend the wrist tying ceremony, and that his parents and his pastor did not forbid this because its not one particular religion. Its from the Karen ancestors. [You participate in it] so that you do not forget who you are and where you come from (Interview, 9 August 2010). In another interview, Klee Thoo,

CREATING PAN-KAREN IDENTITY

475

a Karen Christian who served in the KNLA for thirty years, told me he planned to attend the upcoming wrist tying ceremony because its part of Karen culture thereby distinguishing it from religion (Interview, 4 August 2010). Distinguishing culture from religion is crucial to the grammar of encompassment, that is, to the idea that the wrist tying ceremony is an event that unifies Karen people of all religious faiths. Here is the first paragraph of the English-language handout distributed at the 2010 and 2011 celebrations in Fort Wayne: Among Karen traditional practices, the practice of the Karen Traditional Wrist Tying Ceremony is one of the most valuable Karen traditional practices. It is not a religious ceremony based on any religious beliefs but it is a cultural ceremony which has been passed down from generation to generation and has been practiced since before Christianity and Buddhism were introduced in the place which is now known as Burma (my emphasis). Christian Karen leaders also tell a new origin story about the wrist tying ceremony. This story supports the argument that wrist tying is not tied to any particular religious belief, by claiming that wrist tying originated in the distant past, when the Karen ancestors all belonged to one family, and before any factions embraced other religions. Dr. Hillman related one version of this origin story (Interview, 5 August 2010). He began by pointing out that wrist tying is a very old and pure Karen tradition and that he learned about its origins from elderly relatives. It is said that the wrist tying ceremony began with the original group of Karen who migrated to Burma from northern China. While they were crossing the Gobi desert, a sand storm blew up and they all scattered. After reuniting, they decided to each wear white threads on their wrists, so that, if Karen people were ever separated in the future, they would have a way of knowing that they belonged to the same group. If you see someone with a white thread you know they are Karen, he concluded (see also Karen Teacher Working Group, 2007:3 for a similar version).13 Pu Saw Kay, a youth group leader in the largest Karen church in Fort Wayne, recounted another version of this origin story: Pu Taw Meh Pa, the father of all Karen people, had so many children that his descendants eventually scattered across a wide area. The wrist tying ceremony gathers them together to bless each other and be unified. It dates from the ancestors time when Karen people saw God in the trees, the rivers and so on.

13 Rajah (2008:251) traces the desert-crossing portion of this origin story back to Francis Mason, a missionary to the Karen in the late nineteenth century.

476

ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL

Pu Saw Kay blithely equated the Come back prayer (i.e., calling back the spirits) to praising God, thereby re-casting the wrist tying ceremony in his own Christian terms (Interview, 6 August 2010). The wrist tying ceremonys origin story foreshadows the present-day separation of the Buddhist and Christian Karen. More importantly, for those promoting an encompassing notion of Karen identity, it provides a non-religious explanation for the symbolism of the wrist tying ceremony. The story is therefore important to many Karen people in Fort Wayne, especially the Christians, who need to reconcile their adherence to their faith with their commitment to a pan-Karen identity.

Christian Karen Responses to the Grammar of Encompassment

Many committed Christian Karens in Fort Wayne want to remain faithful to their beliefs and yet also want to support the idea of a unified Karen community. Participating wholeheartedly in the wrist tying ceremony is difficult for them, because they are well aware that the core of the ceremony is based on an animist religious ritual, and that allowing their wrists to be tied could be construed as idolatry. At the same time, they are anxious to adhere to the idea of pan-Karen identity promoted by Christian Karen leaders. They respond to the grammar of encompassment in one of three ways: rejection, partial accommodation, or full acceptance. Saw Hsar Gru exemplifies the attitude of rejection. He believes it is fine for Sgaw Christians like himself to participate in cultural practices like dancing traditional dances. This is not religion, he said. But he was adamant in rejecting the encompassing notion of the wrist tying ceremony. That is not our business, not the Christian business, he stated emphatically. He himself does not attend the ceremony and pointed out that he does not even understand it, never having encountered it while growing up in Burma (Interview, 26 July 2010). Naw Julia, a Pwo Christian grandmother, echoed his words. She said that she refuses to participate in the wrist tying ceremony because its Buddhist. When I presented the notion that the event is a way of celebrating an all-embracing Karen identity, she rejected it instantly: Like I told you, I dont like it. If they see me [on the street] and they say, She is not Karen, I dont care! I know I am Karen! (Interview, 21 July 2010) However, most of the Christian Karens in Fort Wayne that I interviewed took one of two other approaches to the grammar of encompassment. The first group claimed to come to some accommodation with this discourse. Since they do not agree with the logic that wrist tying is a nonsectarian ritual that is, since they cannot accept the denial of difference between Christians and Buddhists which is inherent in the grammar of

CREATING PAN-KAREN IDENTITY

477

encompassment they find ways to partially participate in the event. They hope to be seen as supportive of Karen culture and pan-Karen identity, while still remaining faithful to their religious beliefs. Linda Khin is an example of this first group. She says that she attends the wrist tying ceremony but does not actively participate in every facet of it. Like many of her fellow Christians, Linda stands back when the actual wrist tying ritual occurs. She enjoys the food and fellowship but does not allow anyone to tie a thread on her wrist. She is supportive of the event, she says (I want Karen language and culture to be maintained; its not a religious thing) and she is happy to go if it does not conflict with her volunteer work at her church (Interview, 17 July 2010). Pastor Thura Yo Shu typifies the accommodating Christians. He told me that my conscience is not very clear on this (Interview, 11 August 2010). In 2009, he said, he compromised by attending the event but stood aside when the wrist tying took place. In 2011, he participated much more publicly by giving the opening speech welcoming the assembled guests but again stayed in his seat when others rushed to the center table to have their wrists tied. A number of other Karen Christians told me that they planned to arrive late to the wrist tying ceremony. They said they would stay to enjoy the meal and the entertainment, which they understand to be part of Karen culture, and avoid the wrist tying itself, which they still see as part of the Buddhist (or animist) religion. Still other Christian Karens accept and even extend the grammar of encompassment. For example, at the 2011 wrist tying ceremony, one of the most prominent Christian leaders in Fort Wayne and a fluent English speaker gave a speech summarizing the handout quoted above. Saw Franklin emphasized to the approximately one dozen Anglo American and African American guests that the ceremony dates from ancient times, and that it is a way for Karen people to celebrate our culture and show respect for our elders. At that same event, I observed that one of the seven married couples (who were seated in the center for the first part of the ceremony) clearly did not know what to do. In fact, they had to be instructed on how to accomplish the wrist tying by the teenagers who were sitting across from them. This couple, as I discovered, are Christians; they were willing to participate in the central ritual of the event despite the fact that it was foreign to their experience and religious beliefs. This husband and wife are contemporaries of Saw Franklin; all three are in their early sixties. When I expressed surprise to Saw Franklin about their involvement in the wrist tying, he said somewhat apologetically, We are all still learning (Interview, 28 August 2011). Saw Franklin and others of his generation show that acceptance of the wrist tying ceremony and thereby, the grammar of encompassment - is

478

ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL

not limited to young Christians. However, younger Christians did seem to be more willing to assert in interviews that they accepted (or found ways to accommodate) the idea that the wrist tying ceremony is a non-sectarian event. For example, Tulip, a thirty-year old Christian, has been attending wrist tying ceremonies since she was a teen. She recalls that, when she first attended this event in Burma, most of the people in attendance were Buddhists. Now, she says, she sees the event as a time of fellowship. She said she enjoys the Fort Wayne ceremony, which draws Karen people from other cities and states, because its like a reunion.It is a way of reminding our children that we are part of an ethnic group (Interview, 8 August 2010). Paw Wah Say, a Christian Karen woman of the same age as Tulip, explained that the pastor of her church in the refugee camp said that the wrist tying ceremony was part of the animist tradition, and that Christians should leave that behind. However, she now understands the wrist tying in a new way: Its like American Thanksgiving, she said (Interview, 29 July 2010). The analogy works for her because the wrist tying ceremony is an annual event, always held at the same time of year, and it is a time when everyone comes together to eat. Her husband, who was present when I met with Paw Tha Hla Htoo, made a theological argument: Christians are not under the law, he said, referring to the long-held belief that Jewish laws recorded in the Hebrew Testament do not apply to Christians. Plus its a happy occasion, a time for relatives to come together, he pointed out. Like his wife, and like other Christian Karens of their generation, this young man claimed to fully support the wrist tying ceremony and the pan-Karen identity which it represents because he embraced, and even extended, the grammar of encompassment. The majority of Christian Karens in Fort Wayne say that they accommodate or even completely accept the grammar of encompassment. However, their claims are not borne out by their participation in the wrist tying ceremony. During the 2010 and 2011 events, it was striking that none of the Christians who told me during interviews that they would support the wrist tying ceremony ever appeared. Christian leaders were there and some, such as Pastor See La and Saw Franklin, played important roles in the official program but the rank and file were not. At this point, despite the Christian leaders sincere attempts to persuade their fellow believers to embrace a pan-Karen identity, Christian Karens in Fort Wayne seem to be more willing to articulate a grammar of encompassment than to attend an event which celebrates that grammar.

CREATING PAN-KAREN IDENTITY

479

Conclusion
Karen people, like people everywhere, do not usually accept a bold statement like All Karen are one without question. As Baumann and Gingrich have already shown, it is to be expected that encompassed people often contest the grammar of encompassment. The Christian Karens of Fort Wayne reveal that encompassers, too, evaluate the grammar of encompassment thoughtfully. Some embrace it, creating new analogies to justify the denial of difference (Karner, 2004:184) that it demands, others decide to partially accommodate it, and some even reject it. Pan-Karen identity is a contested notion, even among those who have the most to gain from its wide acceptance.

REFERENCES
Anthias, Floya 1998 Evaluating Diaspora: Beyond Ethnicity?, Sociology, 32(3):557-580. Baumann, Gerd 2004 Grammars of Identity/Alterity: A Structural Approach. In Grammars of Identity/ Alterity: A Structural Approach. Edited by Gerd Baumann and Andre Gingrich. New York: Berghahn Books. Baumann, Gerd and Andre Gingrich 2004 Grammars of Identity/Alterity: A Structural Approach. New York: Berghahn Books. Cheah, Joseph 2008 The Function of Ethnicity in the Adaptation of Burmese Religious Practices. In Emerging Voices: Experiences of Underrepresented Asian Americans. Edited by Huping Ling. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Crozier, L.A. 1994 Mawchi: Mining, War and Insurgency in Burma. Queensland: Griffith University, Faculty of Asian and International Studies, Centre for the Study of Australia-Asia Relations. 2010 About the Karen Wrist Tying Tradition. (trans. Saw Barnardo). Available in English at http://www.drumpublications.org/wrist.php, accessed on 13 November 2012. Fadiman, Anne 1997 The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, her American Doctors and the Collision of Two Cultures. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. Fink, Christina Lammert 1994 Imposing Communities: Pwo Karen Experiences in Northern Thailand. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley.

480

ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL

Gravers, Mikael 2007a Preface. In Exploring Ethnic Diversity in Burma. Edited by Mikael Gravers. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies.

2007b Conversion and Identity: Religion and the Formation of Karen Ethnic Identity in Burma. In Exploring Ethnic Diversity in Burma. Edited by Mikael Gravers. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies. Harriden, Jessica 2002 Making a Name for Themselves: Karen Identity and the Politicization of Ethnicity in Burma, Journal of Burma Studies, 7:84-145. Hinton, Peter 1983 Do the Karen Really Exist? In Highlanders of Thailand. Edited by John McKinnon and Wanat Bhruksasri. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press.

1979

The Karen, Millenialism, and the Politics of Accommodation to Lowland States. In Ethnic Adaptation and Identity: The Karen on the Thai Frontier with Burma. Edited by Charles F. Keyes. Philadelphia, PA: Institute for the Study of Human Issues.

Ho, Tamara C. 2008 Women of the Temple: Burmese Immigrants, Gender, and Buddhism in a U.S. Frame. In Emerging Voices: Experiences of Underrepresented Asian Americans. Edited by Huping Ling. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Horton, Guy 2005 Dying Alive: An Investigation and Legal Assessment of Human Rights Violations Inflicted in Burma, With Particular Reference to the Internally Displaced, Eastern Peoples. Chaingmai, Thailand: Images Asia Inc. Htoo, Pu Klah Doh n.d. Remember. Volume 2. (trans. Saw Barnardo) Yangon, Burma: self-published. Iijima, Shigeru 1979 Ethnic Identity and Sociocultural Change Among Sgaw Karen in Northern Thailand. In Ethnic Adaptation and Identity: The Karen on the Thai Frontier with Burma. Edited by Charles F. Keyes. Philadelphia, PA: Institute for the Study of Human Issues. Karen Teachers Working Group 2007 Preservation of Karen Culture in Mae La Camp. Available at http:/ /ktwg.org/ Library/Wrist%20Tying%2007.pdf, accessed on 13 November 2012. Karner, Christian 2004 Between Structure and Agency: From the langue of Hindutva Identity Construction to the Parole of Lived Experience. In Grammars of Identity/Alterity: A Structural Approach. Edited by Gerd Baumann and Andre Gingrich. New York: Berghahn Books. Kenny, Paul and Kate Lockwood-Kenny 2011 A Mixed Blessing: Karen Resettlement to the United States, Journal of Refugee Studies, 24(2):217-238.

CREATING PAN-KAREN IDENTITY

481

Kunstadter, Peter 1979 Ethnic Group, Category and Identity: Karen in Northern Thailand. In Ethnic Adaptation and Identity: The Karen on the Thai Frontier with Burma. Edited by Charles F. Keyes. Philadelphia, PA: Institute for the Study of Human Issues. Lu, Hsin-chun Tasaw 2008 Festivalizing Thingyan, Negotiating Ethnicity: Burmese Chinese Migrants in Taiwan, Journal of Burma Studies, 12:29-62. MacLachlan, Heather 2011 Burmas Pop Music Industry: Creators, Distributors, Censors. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. Marshall, Rev. Harry Ignatius 1922/ The Karen People of Burma: A Study in Anthropology and Ethnology. Illustrated ed. 2010 Gloucester, UK: Dodo Press. Mellinger, Mark 2009 Fort Wayne Named All-America City Again, WANE TV. Friday July 19, 2009. Available at http:/ /www.wane.com/dpp/news/news_tampa_wane_fort_wayne_ named_all_america_city_again_200906192004, accessed on 13 November 2012. Muecke, Marjorie A. 1983 Caring for Southeast Asian Refugee Patients in the USA, American Journal of Public Health, 73(4):431-438. Nash, Manning 1969 Burmese Buddhism in Everyday Life. In Man, State, and Society in Contemporary Southeast Asia. Edited by Robert O. Tilman. New York: Praeger Publishers. Phan, Zoya with Damien Lewis 2009 Little Daughter: A Memoir of Survival in Burma and the West. London: Simon and Schuster. Rajah, Ananda 2008 Remaining Karen: A Study of Culture Reproduction and the Maintenance of Identity. Canberra: Australian National University E Press. Sprenger, Guido 2004 Encompassment and its Discontents: The Rmeet and the Lowland Lao. In Grammars of Identity/Alterity: A Structural Approach. Edited by Gerd Baumann and Andre Gingrich. New York: Berghahn Books. Thawngmung, Ardeth Maung 2008 The Karen Revolution in Burma: Diverse Voices, Uncertain Ends. Washington, DC: The East West Center. Yoko, Hayami 2004 Between Hills and Plains: Power and Practice in Socio-Religious Dynamics among Karen. Kyoto: Kyoto University Press.

482

ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL

2003

Morality, Sexuality and Mobility: Changing Moral Discourse and Self. In Living at the Edge of Thai Society: The Karen in the Highlands of Northern Thailand. Edited by Claudio O. Delang. New York: Routledge Curzon.