The pro-democracy demonstrations the military crushed last month were led by the middle class but also joined by the poor.
Already fighting a daily struggle to get by in the grimy Klong Toey slum, Hataya Srisuk, a pregnant 18-year-old widow, now mourns her dead common-law husband.Thewan Boonleua, a 20-year-old welder, works with a bullet in his abdomen because he couldn't afford to stay in the hospital awaiting surgery.
A country girl from a poor family, Hataya moved to the big city to eke out a living. Soon she set up house with Pridi Iamsam-ang, a 22-year-old worker at Klong Toey port who earned about 100 baht a day, when work was available.
During the demonstrations, Pridi, like many other Klong Toey residents, went downtown to take a look, riding with his cousin on a motorcycle.
They tried to race away when troops started firing, but a bullet knocked Pridi off the bike.
Boonleua's mother, a laundry worker, had joined hunger strikers demanding the ouster of Prime Minister Suchinda Kraprayoon, a former army chief who led a military coup last year.
Concerned that his mother had not returned home after troops started shooting, he headed with a cousin for the demonstrations.
They had no way of knowing that police were on the hunt for gangs that cruised around town smashing street lights and police booths.
Frustrated in their search, the two young men headed home. They found themselves at the tail end of a large group of motorcyclists. Veering his bike around, Thewan heard shots and saw blood soak his shirt.
He had injuries to his spleen and gall bladder and was hospitalized.
Despite his weakened condition and a bullet still lodged in his body, Thewan was back at work within a few days of leaving the hospital.
He could not afford to be away from work while doctors waited for him to regain the strength he needs to have the bullet removed.
Prateep Ungsongtham-Hata, despite being five months pregnant, joined the hunger strikers for a few days.
Prateep is probably Klong Toey's most famous native. In 1968 she set up an illegal school in the slum for those so poor they could not even afford to send their children to state schools.
Her efforts attracted widespread attention, and in 1978 she won the Ramon Magsaysay award, Asia's equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
Once she joined the protests, Prateep threw herself into the task, and by the end was one of a small group whose arrests were ordered by the military.
Despite death threats against her, she has returned to Klong Toey to continue her work for the poor and for democracy.
"Even though I am five months pregnant, I think that I still must run around when there are so many things happening," she says. "And I think it would be an injustice toward the people who passed away not to do so."