Javier Ortega: Hi everyone, I am Javier Ortega. I am a senior at Santa Clara University studying political science and under studies. And I was born and raised in San Jose.

Manreet Dhariwal: Hi, my name is Manreet Dhariwal. I go to Santa Clara university. I am a third year student majoring in communication and ethnic studies. And I am very passionate about social justice issues so I’m happy to be here today.

Navdeep Kaur: Hi everyone, my name is Navdeep Kaur and I go to De Anza College. I am a second year student and there studying political science and sociology.

JO: So in my opinion, I think healthy relationships include good communication and by that I mean, like they aren’t checking cell phones, aren’t asking each other for their social media passwords, I’m talking about like you know, you have to trust another individual and vice versa. From my experience I think it’s not healthy for individuals to always be on each other’s phone... likr oh, who are you are texting, who are you calling, who is this person. It’s not a healthy sign of a relationship. NK: I agree with Javier on that. Recently, I took a relationships class at De Anza for my major and we were talking about relationships. And that Usually people can identify if their partner is being abusive by what Javier said. By checking each other’s phone, always controlling the other partner or telling you what to do which is not healthy at all for the relationship. And you should have a say in what you want to do, what you want to wear, who you’re friends with and all that. And your partner should definitely not be controlling of who you’re friends with or who you’re not friends with. Basically anything that you like doing or talking about or anything that really that relates to your lifestyle that you love doing. MD: I think Javier and Navdeep pretty much covered everything. I would just say that realizing when you are in an abusive relationship, I think that’s the harder part. Like Navdeep said, obviously, you know in your mind, that this is not right, this person is being controlling or this person is being abusive. But I think when you are entangled in that manipulation, it’s very hard to get out of it. Especially when you are a teenager and you are still new at it. And you don't have much support because you are still finding your place of acceptance: whether that’s within your high school or whether that’s at home.

JO: yes, I agree. I believe that there should be mutual respect between both partners. And there shouldn’t be power dynamics if that makes any sense. There should not be you know, that one has stronger say than the other. Especially if it is a heterosexual relationship, the males shouldn’t always be the one that is dominating the relationship. Like Oh, you shouldn’t do this or you shouldn’t do that. Because that is a very common theme. Obviously, it can happen either way. But it’s more common that the male individual is the one with the power bounds.

JO: I think digital violence is very prevalent within teens. I remember the first time I heard about this was when I was in sixth grade. And this was before Facebook and social media was taking off. So it’s really kind of evolved as technology has advanced. I feel it is very prevalent.

JO: Yeah, in today’s age, yeah. I know my little cousin, he is in fifth grade, and has his own Instagram account. Never uses it but he has it. He has a Snapchat account as well.

JO: So, I mean social media can be a tool for dating violence, bullying, harassment of different kinds. I feel like I have definitely experienced that from middle school onwards. It’s been very prevalent. I’ve always heard about it. I’ve seen it and I feel like it hasn’t really ended and if anything it has gotten bigger and bigger within the teen community.

MD: I would say that digital communication has transformed into a form of abuse. I feel like before there were disagreements between friends, peers and since social media platforms are progressing, we are finding ways to use abuse on social media as well. For me personally, I didn’t really experience any digital abuse in middle school. But in high school, it was very big. I remember a lot of people getting their nudes leaked. And so, I think it was one of the biggest problems within my high school. I always heard about it. I actually didn’t make any social media accounts until I was a sophomore. So, I wasn’t very familiar with it, but I always heard from my friends going through it, stuff happening, nudes getting leaked, different pictures getting leaked, it was a mess. I think it’s very very common within the teenage community.

NK: I definitely agree with Manreet. And as Javier was saying, kids at a very young age have started to use social media. I remember when I was in sixth grade, Facebook was a really a very big thing back then and now it’s Instagram and Snapchat. I feel with social media, I mean, we are not blaming it but kids are definitely using it to attack or abuse other people through it; even simple things like: you didn’t like my picture, you didn’t comment, or you haven’t messaged me in this much time, you haven’t seen my stories. Small things like that start huge arguments and end relationships no matter how ridiculous it sounds. but that’s just what it’s come to.

JO: This is a difficult one. But I would if you want to avoid it at all, the best way is to not have any social media.

JO: Probably not. I feel that has to come from them. Depending on the situation, they may be experiencing some form of abuse, and they have to say the best way to avoid all this is to delete my account, stay away from the space. But it’s also a very difficult decision. But like others have said, they joined social media late or it’s not their thing, I know a lot of my friends from my high school, they didn’t ever have social media. They only have social media now. So it is possible.

MD: I think everybody has their way to deal with stuff individually. I think necessarily parents should not tell their kids to not have social media. I feel that’s just teenage 101. Like when you tell your kids not do something, they are going to do it. I think that would probably be not the best way to go about it. More so, normalizing the idea that there is a possibility that you will get abused or there is a possibility that this will happen. Just having that in mind will really prevent them from feeling isolated, from being able to express their feeling, if you know, God forbid, they are in that situation.

NK: yes, I think like Manreet says parents shouldn’t tell their kids because kids are going to be rebellious. But also that kids or anyone teenagers, they should keep in mind that just in case it happens, they should share it with someone, if they can’t share it, maybe avoid social media for a while. I had a friend who went through that. Just being away from social media helped her for a while you know. That’s one possibility.

MD: I think personally I was not equipped because I didn’t have any information from my parents or from my school about what dating violence was, or what positive signs and toxic signs were in a relationship— I didn’t have any of that information. Even not talking about myself, a lot of my friends and other people that I interacted with in high school, a lot of them went through similar situations where they found themselves in situations: either abusive relationships or digital abuse. They found that they were not equipped. I think talking to the school counselor does not help. I think that’s there and that’s a resource for you, but I think schools do not really do a good job with providing counselors and I can even say that about Santa Clara university. Luckily I found a counselor that I could connect to really well, but we lack diversity within our counselors. That’s a really big issue because if teens do not have a background connect with the counselor, with an adult whom they can trust, in order to talk about their pain, their abuse, they are not going to share. And that’s when depression and suicidal thoughts begin.

JO: I think I agree with what Manreet said. Teens are generally not prepared to handle dating violence or social media violence or just harassment in general. I feel like for various reasons, it’s very hard for students of color to talk about this issue with their parents. I feel like it’s a two-way street but no one is crossing to the other side. I feel like that for parents and family members to open up to their children and vice versa, especially if they are teenagers. What they are exposed to, for example it’s very easy for individuals to open a fake social media account and then bully an individual and harass an individual. Sometimes when those situations happen, harassment happens, they don’t know who to go to. Like Manreet said, they don’t have an adult who they really trust, or a counselor or teacher, uncle whatever it is. They don’t have an individual in their life that they feel that trust to open up about what they are going through and what to do about the situation.

NK: Yes, I’d like to elaborate a bit on what Manreet and Javier said, and also add on a little bit about friendship. I think, if there’s any type of abuse going on, to identify it people usually go to their friends first. Because they are more trusted friends. In order to get advice or something like that, but there is only so much that friends can do. Especially if your friends have never met your family, there’s only so much they can do. And that’s usually when they refer you or give you advice to go see a counselor or a therapist at school. But like Manreet said, with counselors and therapists, there’s definitely a lack of diversity there. Personally, I’ve been to a therapist at Notre Dame university, I went there for a year before transferring back to De Anza. Although he understood my problems that I was going through at that time, but it’s just so hard to talk about what you are going through already but then also having to explain the cultural aspects of that. But when I came to De Anza, I have an advisor- she’s very nice and understanding but then again there’s that lack of culture and lack of diversity and it’s just hard to explain everything all over again, and then having to explain why it’s happening and what’s the reasoning behind it. Or the cultural reasoning which is usually the aspect behind it.

MD: I think just adding on to that- lack of cultural sensitivity is one of the key factors of teenagers going through stuff and not being able to get out of it. Because we have a community problem to not see mental illness or if somebody is going through something internally, to not to see it as a form of pain, right? If somebody gets hurt physically, we are very caring and we are ready to take action. But when somebody is going through something emotional, something internal, we don’t really pay attention to it and we neglect it in a way right? That’s when that whole isolation, depression, suicidal thoughts comes in, right?

JO: In a way, yes. I feel that parents have to build a strong relationship with their child, where there is trust. And I know it’s difficult to open up about certain issues such as dating violence or dating in general because it’s a very taboo subject. Obviously, if you look back 20, 30 years ago, how teenagers were growing up, it was very different. So all this is new to both the child and the parent. This is a whole social media technology like the new era is very different, especially with all the statistics you have shown already it’s very different to how it was a while ago. So I think parents have to understand like you said, we are not perfect, we are human beings. We come from, like our cultural aspects like, we are different right? We are an immigrant community but we have to acknowledge that we can be better, we can improve. First step is within yourself, and then going about that. I don’t know if anything else to add to that.

NK: I think I’m going back a little bit to the previous question. Kids don’t open up about abuse to their parents— digital abuse or any type of abuse. Like Javier was saying, parents need to build trusting and honest relationships with their children. And I feel like in immigrant communities, or immigrant parents usually don’t like to do that. Not that they don’t like to do that, it’s very hard to open up about such subjects. And Like you were saying Nandini before, it’s, they’ll just think that it will go away. Or like, my children won’t do these things if I don’t talk about it with them or they’re not going to learn about it if we don’t talk about it at home. So I think one of the reasons children are not able to open to their parents.

NK: Yes, I definitely think a lot of immigrant parents think that because before teenagers twenty thirty years ago was very different. There was no social media. Teenagers didn’t like go out and meet each other you know just openly. Now everything is different. There is social media to interact with if you’re in a long distance relationship. People are able to make all kinds of excuses to go out you know. So I definitely think that is something that parents should take into consideration that just because your child is not talking to you about something, that doesn’t mean that they don’t know about it, or they’re not going through it.

MD: I think, adding on, when you have a teenager, you’re not with your child, your son or daughter as much, right? There’s eight hours of school then most of us have extracurricular activities right, anything. That’s like another two hours right? That’s ten hours. When do you see your kid? At dinner, right? And I think as you grow older, you barely want to talk to your parents anyways right? So I think in that I don’t blame parents for thinking that their kids are naive. They’re not going to do anything because you barely interact with your kids in that or you barely see how they are how they are outside of you know the home place right? So you barely see that, but I think you have to normalize the idea of dating. Right? I don’t think you have to normalize the idea of, like, oh, yeah, well you know, like, in freshman year, you have to have a boyfriend. No. I’m talking of normalizing the idea that there could be a possibility that you do get abused. Or could be a possibility that your kid is going through something. And I think it’s very important you talk about that. You talk about what dating is. You talk about what abuse it. You lay out those issues. Without that, there will always be that what if, right? Oh, well, what if my kid isn’t doing that or what if my kid is doing that, right? It’s better to just clarify it and let your kids know that these things exist. This is out there. It can happen to you and then go on from there, right? Personally, my mom never had the talk with me, right? So the talk that we all have right? Puberty and all that? Never had that talk. My sophomore year, my mom just started giving me these you know, like little lectures, little rants about how I shouldn’t have a boyfriend. And in my head, I was like, what? Boyfriend? Relationship? What? I don’t get this right? Why am I all of a sudden like, being reminded, don’t have a boyfriend, don’t have a boyfriend. How do you even get a boyfriend first of all, right? Because I think, like, when you are in high school, you’re just like, thinking how to fit into high school, come home and deal with your parents? It’s a mess right? You’re a mess yourself. So I think that, just that whole idea has to be normalized. And it’s a cultural change, right? It can’t just be like, tomorrow we’re going to you know, like create a change. No. It has to be a cultural movement. Because it’s an issue that lacks cultural sensitivity because we as immigrant community, we have a different environment here than our parents did, you know, in their home country. And I think that’s definitely not an excuse for our parents to kind of say that, oh, if we weren’t allowed to do it, you can’t do it. Because then, then we are here in a different community here, integrated within this society here right now. You’ll have to keep both aspects in mind.

JO: Yes, I think, as communities of color, specifically, you know most of us being you know, being first or second generation immigrants, I think we have to understand like the social implications and cultural implications of like, how does a lack of discussion about dating and dating violence in our community, mental health as well— So looking historically, like how, we as a community can have these conversations right? Looking at how we can do away with these structures of sexism and other forms of isms that lead to a lack of conversations such as dating violence. So I think, as a community member, you have to be understanding of the space that you are in. And looking specifically, how you can dismantle these I guess, -isms of oppression if that makes any sense. And if you see something, say something, you know? I think that’s too hard to do but I mean but it depends on the situation I suppose.

JO: Yeah, so in high school, as mentioned earlier, it was very common for when these situations arise, you go to your friends. So I recall a friend of mine in high school said hey this and this is what’s going on. And I did not notice a few changes in him and I did reach out, but he didn’t really open up until later about this person he was seeing at that time. It was a very difficult situation. She was very manipulative and he didn’t really know how to understand or how to grapple the situation; he understood it to be like, oh, this is how it should be. Like she had all his passwords. She was always like where are you at? Once he got out of work, like, what you’re going to do right after? I know you guys just got off work. All these kinds of things. She knew what he was going to do at every moment. So it was very hard for him. He felt suffocated. He didn’t know what to do. So I think, I just told him, hey we’re going to figure this out. It was a very tough breakup for him, but he was finally able to overcome the situation. But it was after we talked to an adult who we trusted at school. Thankfully, the individual was someone we trusted and we looked up to. So, it was a difficult situation but those are the situations that still play out today.

MD: I think that I would just like to add on that there’s ways to kind of change negative diction into like positive form, reform methods right? I think for one, as a south Asian woman, I’ve always had the idea of ijjat or anakh (honor) is very common, it’s very present within our community. And I think it’s always kind of, portrayed with a negative connotation, like, there’s always, that like, oh, well, women are the ones that can never carry that ijjat. They’re the only ones that can you know, abuse it or like, kind of like, you know, shaken it, or whatever it may be right? There’s always that dominance that men carry the ijjat, they carry the honor and women are just there to you know like, to make sure that they don’t do anything to harm it right? But I think there’s positive ways to go about that right? Like you don’t have to necessarily put it in a negative way right? So, like, anakh its a form of identity right? So you can talk about with your kids, or like, even like with you know, anyone, with woman right? You can talk about that, how to change that and how to change all these words and all these actions that we’ve been doing for so long within our communities that are toxic, that are negative, that constantly degrade women. We can change those into ways of like, positivity, and like, you can talk about anakh, or honor right, being a form of identity, being individual, your identity not being linked to your parents right? Because I think, constantly, like, I’m always told the idea, how like, I have to keep up with my parents’ image or keep up with you know, what they are doing. But I feel like necessarily I don’t have to. I respect them but there’s those boundaries that have to be set for me to live on my individuality, my identity. And I that’s very important to normalize within our society because this is one of the key factors that keep children from interacting with their parents, keep children from being able to openly express their abuses, their traumas with their parents because they are constantly worried about their image. And I can say that from personal experience because last year, I went through severe depression and I talked to my parents about it. My parents, when I told them you know, that I wanted to go to therapy, I think my mom was very hesitant because she was like, Oh, well, when you’re going to apply for jobs, what if they say that you are emotionally unstable right? Like, I was just so shocked and like, obviously, I’m used to it now, right? I’ve been with my parents for so long so I’m used to it, I’m used to getting those kinds of reactions from them but I think when I reflect by myself, I’m like, wow, my parents are more worried about the image that I’m going to have to society than my own like, well-being, my own sanity right? I think that is very very very important to normalize the idea of having your individuality, having your sanity, rather than as you know, like Nandini was saying, loki ki kehenge (what will people say), ijjat, anakh, (honor) all those toxic ideas that are very present within our society.

NK: Yes, I definitely agree with you on that. And going back to the point that men carry the ijjat or anakh (honor) and that they shouldn’t ever face any type of mental illness I feel like that a very toxic ideal within our culture that if you are a male and you are going through a mental illness and if you tell someone, people are just going to be like, oh but, you are a man, why are you going through this? You shouldn’t be going through this. That’s like something that women go through, you know? Also you were saying about mental illness. I was very hesitant to talk to my mom about it because I knew she would react this way. She would say, oh like, it’s nothing, you know? But I finally got the courage to talk to her about it, and I was really hopeful that, you know, she wouldn’t react that way, that or, she would understand over time, you know? Time and time again, like, I would talk to her, oh maybe now she’ll understand you know? But it was always the same response. That oh, there’s no such thing as depression. You’re just sad for no reason. Or I feel like there’s also there’s also this idea that parents have, especially immigrant parents, our children haven’t gone through the same things that we have, like, we had to leave our homeland, we had to you know, cross over to this country, we had to do all these things. We had to build ourselves up from nothing. Our children don’t have to do that because we’re providing for them and therefore they shouldn’t be facing any mental illness coz, they didn’t go through the same problems that we have. And I think parents should also address that as well because even though we were not going through those problems, there are many more problems arising day and day that we have to go through ourselves.