Documentary a.k.a Don Bonus and Neoliberal Humanitarianism

In the article “Collateral Narratives: Neoliberal Citizenship, Juvenile Delinquency, and Cambodian American Refugee Youth” Julie Kae Heyang explains how under US neoliberalism the entrepreneur and “empowered consumer” is the ideal citizen. However, only privileged people who have the financial and sociopolitical mobility can participate in such market. In other words, only white heterosexual males, who have full protection under such market, can be perceived as the ideal citizen and acquire the added privileges than result from that positionality. Hence, anyone who is not a white heterosexual male is denied economic agency and forced to depend on ineffective welfare system (137-138). This vicious cycle is portrayed in the experimental documentary a.k.a Don Bonus through the collateral narratives; these are the narratives in the documentary that show how Southeast Asian refugees are “collateral victims of the state policies that further entrench black urban poverty” (135). NY’s documentation of his life and his family’s daily struggles exemplifies how neoliberal humanitarianism allows the government to “relinquish responsibility for its impoverished and disenfranchised citizens”(137). Moreover, these collateral narratives show the ways in which the US government is ill equipped to meet the needs of refugees, people of color, poor people, etc.