Huie: “He can’t make himself white!”

On page 46 of “The Only Kid,” Yuen, Huie and their friends were in the midst of a casual conversation about Jimmy Chan and his prostitute when Huie blurted out a disturbing statement that I wanted to discuss. Yuen stated “A Chinese can do anything with fan gwai if he has money,” to which a Huie exclaimed “He can’t make himself white!” The once jovial crowd became exceedingly quiet and the mood of the room changed quite drastically. The characters quickly became uncomfortable because, as Huie states, the statement has some truth to it. No matter how much money you have, Huie argues in his five word statement that you can’t buy whiteness.

Being white in American society provides a straightforward path to success that is not as easily obtainable, if obtainable at all, for other minority races. I read this quote by Albion Tourgee that states that whiteness was “the most valuable sort of property, being the master-key that unlocks the golden door of opportunity” (Harris, 1748). Just by the color of one’s skin, Tourgee claims that a white person will be have more opportunities available to him/her. Therefore, Tourgee asserts that this intangible notion of whiteness as property is valuable in thriving in America’s racially polarized and oppressive society.

In his five word statement, Huie picks up on this underlying issue of whiteness as property in American society. We see that certain characters, like Rose or Jimmy Chan, try (or are economically persuaded) to “make [them]self white,” but ultimately do not entirely succeed (46). Jimmy states “I’m becoming an American citizen, not because I want to be like them, but because it’s good business.” But does legally becoming an American citizen open the “golden door[s] of opportunity” the same way that Tourgee claims the color of your skin does (Harris, 1748)? Just by analyzing Huie’s five word statement, I think he would dismiss Jimmy’s attempts to integrate in society by obtaining American citizenship. As Huie said, no matter how hard Jimmy tries, he can’t “make himself white” (46). This is a disgusting reality for Huie and the other characters in “The Other Kid” because Huie is basically declaring that he will never have the same rights as his white peers. I understand why the author portrayed the characters becoming incredible uncomfortable when Huie stated that. For these characters, Huie just brought to light a terrible reality that they have been trying so hard to forget about.

The End

I was wondering if anyone had given more thought to the end of Woman Warrior. We only briefly got to talk about it in class and, I must confess, I don’t think I’m any nearer to reaching a conclusion (or even an understanding) about the narrator’s motivation for ending the novel with this story.

My initial thought was that this was about being Chinese living in America. With this type of analysis, white Americans would be analogous to the barbarians. However, I’m not sure if the term “barbarian” is used as a derogatory representation of white Americans, or if it is simply for the sake of the story. It would be simple to say that this was a derogatory term because the barbarians are described as primitive, and “barbarian” immediately conjures negative imagery. However, it feels as if Ts’ai Yen becomes comfortable with these people.

Again, following with this metaphor, what is the symbolism of the song? I was thinking that it may be it could be symbolic of self-identity or understanding the past or history of an individual. If this was the case, it makes sense that the barbarians could understand the underlying sentiments and emotions of the song, even if they couldn’t understand the words. These are like “universal truths” that, as the narrator says “it translated well” (Kingston, 209).

In Frank Chin’s article, “Come All Ye Asian American Writers,” he discusses the song about Mulan and its references to the twelve years that Mulan spends fighting. He also mentions that twelve years is “one full cycle around the lunar zodiac—a lifetime in microcosm” (Chin, 7). I think that this point is important to note for this reference as well. For Ts’ai Yen, she spends a lifetime amongst the barbarians.

And, if all of this is a legitimate interpretation of the final story, why would the narrator discuss it in such an oblique manner?

Ancestors and Respect for Age In Woman Warrior

(Apologies that this is a bit late. I've been doing battle with sickness and an extremely time-consuming video production project. Argh.)

One thing that I found interesting about The Woman Warrior was the role of ancestor worship in all of the characters' lives, and the differences between those still living in China, the immigrant generation, and the first generation to identify as Asian-American. Early on in the book it is articulated that Chinese families (and possibly Chinese-American as well) try very hard to preserve 'roundness' as described here: "The frightened villagers, who depended on one another to maintain the real, went to my aunt to show her a personal physical representation of the break she had made in the roundness...the villagers punished her for acting as if she could have a private life, secret and apart from them"(pg 12-13). The villagers are preserving a traditional culture and punishing those who act outside it by taking part in a ritual; a physical, public representation of the "wrong" that was done and the percieved effect that it has on the culture/society as a whole. In short: these people ransacked the protagonist's house because her aunt had created a disturbance by being impregnated by a man who was not her husband, so they are disturbing her house in return.

Regardless of whether the Aunt was raped/forced or whether she willingly had sex with this illicit lover, what she's being punished for is secret-keeping; allowing events to remain unknown, or not having the courage to speak up for herself. Having been raised the strongly individualistic American society and culture, I was fascinated by the paradox that appears to exist in Chines or Chinese-American culture concerning the role of the individual. Talking about a rape or confessing to adultery takes a great deal of personal strength and security in oneself; the Aunt's story suggests that these are valuable qualities in Chinese culture.
Family members continue to rely heavily on one another for resources and marriages are carefully arranged to ensure the best future for the family line, and yet there are many stories (mythological or not) about warriors, male and female, who find their strength within and are not governed by the wishes of others. This "warrior" image seems to be what is admired; and yet there is constant obligation or submission to the family. Is American influence what starts making the 2nd gen/"Chinese-American" characters start to reject this system? Because at the end of the book, one of the girls begins to express moving past such reverence for ancestors and Chinese history in order to claim her individuality: "I don't need anyone to pronounce English words for me. I can do it by myself. I'm going to get scholarships, and I'm going away. And at college I'll have the people that I like for friends. I don't care if their great-great-grandfather died of TB. I don't care if they were our enemies in China four thousand years ago..."(page 201).

I found this passage very interesting: "She stares straight ahead as if she could see past me to her grandchildren and grandchildren's grandchildren. She has spacy eyes, as all people recently from Asia have. Her eyes do not focus on the camera. My mother is not smiling; Chinese do not smile for photographs. Their faces command relatives in foreign lands--'Send money'--and posterity forever--"Put food in front of this picture'. My mother does not understand Chinese-American snapshots. 'What are you laughing at?' she says" (pages 58-59). This suggests that native Chinese and immigrants are different from Chinese-Americans because they either live in the past, fulfilling obligations to the dead, or in the future, thinking about their grandchildren's lives. Chinese-Americans (possibly Asian-Americans by extension, because of the influence of American culture) focus more on the present, laughing and enjoying current life. Is this difference a common source of conflict, maybe? It could contribute to that "split" feeling I've heard others describe, of being half in one culture and half in another.

My main purpose in writing this was to point out patterns that I noticed, analyze them some, and then open them up for discussion, so please comment! : )

Births in Woman Warrior

Something that struck me as really interesting in Woman Warrior was the two different types of births that were described; one in No Name Woman and the second in White Tigers. Both the aunt and Fa Mu Lan gave birth during inconvenient times and both include images of space, the sky, and stars.

Kingston writes of her aunt’s labor, “The black well of sky and stars went out and out and out forever; her body and her complexity seemed to disappear. She was one of the stars, a bright dot in blackness, without home, without a companion, in eternal cold and silence” (Kingston 14). The description seems to emphasize the painful process and her aunt’s loneliness as she has no one to support her and help her through her difficult time – not her family or her lover. Kingston compares the aunt’s feeling of being alone with the dark emptiness of space, which conveys to me sadness and pity.

In contrast, Kingston writes about Fa Mu Lan’s birth in a more optimistic light. Mu Lan gives birth in the middle of a battle while a leader of her own army, who along with her husband are with her before and after the birth. A few words are used to describe the seemingly painless birth, a stark contrast between the two women. Again, Kingston brings in space and stars into the birth, but this time, the baby is described as a boy and “his soul a star” whose “last star rays sank into [her] belly” (Kingston 40). This depiction is like a celebration of life rather than the agony the aunt went through.

I have to mention that both stories both used in stories that Kingston’s retelling and are fabricated as Kingston writes to cater to her needs. Kingston assumes the aunt’s child was a girl, or else the mother and child might have had a better chance of survival if the child was a boy. She also makes it a point to directly note that Fa Mu Lan’s child was a baby boy.

I think the two examples are used to contrast the two different females and their roles in the novel. The aunt was portrayed as helpless woman who was shunned to the point where suicide seemed like the only answer to her problems. And the allusion to her child as being a girl supports the stereotype of the inferiority of women. Then there is Mu Lan whose role is as masculine as possible and delivers a baby boy. She does not receive any consequences from masquerading as a male and is even celebrated for her achievements. I wonder if Mu Lan’s story has a happier ending because of her role as a more masculine figure and the aunt’s story ended with death because she had a more feminine role?

The No Name Woman and her Substitute

I was interested by the first story, “No Name Woman,” because of the way that the narrator imagined the type of person that her aunt was in her attempts to understand the past. I though that this introduced the reader to the type of stories and self-exploration that would follow in the novel.

Firstly, I thought that it was ironic that in trying to understand the truth of what really happened, the narrator speculates about the type of person her aunt was and fills in the details with her own imaginings. I think that this was an integral story for the narrator, however, because it shows how important it was for her to name the unnamed and to sort through the silence within her family.

The opening paragraph of the chapter emphasizes the silence that we have discussed many times in class. As the speaker noted, “No one said anything. [They] did not discuss it” (Kingston, 3). The family acted as if the aunt never existed in order to protect themselves from the shame—shame of a child born of wedlock, shame of a wife’s infidelity to her husband, and shame of a woman who committed suicide.

It was also interesting that while the mother used stories like this to scare her children into silence and to keep them from humiliating the family, the narrator took the skeleton of the story and started to flesh it out with a strong, individualistic woman. The narrator imagined her aunt in many different capacities—someone who wanted to travel west, someone who dreamed about a different life, or even someone who was “a wild woman” who took care with her appearance to attract the attentions of a man. She also imagined her aunt as a woman who accepted her responsibility as a mother: “[s]he may have gone to the pigsty as a last act of responsibility: she would protect her child as she had protected its father” (Kingston, 15). Even though she knew that her aunt killed herself and her baby, the narrator sees the suicide as an act of loving because the aunt did not abandon her child.

I felt that the narrator envisioned her aunt as a strong and individualistic woman because she felt a tie to her ancestor. Perhaps this connection arose because the narrator felt distanced from her family in China—the same family that distanced themselves from her aunt. Or maybe these sentiments arise because the narrator is in the process of negotiating her role in Chinese society, in Chinese American society, and in American society. The connection that the narrator had with the aunt made me think about the mother in All I Asking For Is My Body. In this novel, the mother thought that she was a substitute for someone else in the family and accepted the punishment until she could find someone else to shoulder the burden. In a similar manner, it seems as if the narrator sees her aunt as her own substitute. The aunt accepts the punishment of the family, a punishment that has been perpetuated for fifty years.

With the telling of her aunt’s story, it is as if the narrator is now lifting the punishment off of her aunt. The narrator becomes the substitute that her aunt, “whose weeping ghost, wet hair hanging and skin bloated, waits silently by the water to pull down” (Kingston, 16).

Doug's Roots (and mine??)

well that was bomb that doug posted that thought and brought up questions on it, because that was exactly what i wanted to talk about.

when i saw the reading we had to do from the ROOTs compilation, i was so excited. the yellow power movement is something that i have a huge interest in, particularly as it helped construct many things that i take for granted now in my politics and identity. the yellow power movement brought into national focus the struggles and issues of the API community, and even gave a name to this community, that is, the term Asian American. and while there are problems with this term, such as in its essentialism and its connotation for e. asians only, etc, providing an umbrella for these racialized asian/asian descent groups to come together under is really incredible to me. i thus really wanted to reexamine these readings with doug's question in mind of how i relate to the selections.

in particular, i found the parts in the articles when they discussed race relations for the API community to be very interesting. these young men and women rather directly discuss the issues of being a more "privileged" ethnic minority, even when these apparent privileges can be misleading. they also own up to the fact that by participating in the model minority myth, this behavior can be detrimental to other marginalized communities. Amy Uyematsu bluntly states that "Asian Americans have formed an uneasy alliance with white Americans to keep the blacks down", which is admittedly a bold and contentious statement. however, her following comment of how Asian Americans "close their eyes to the white latent white racism toward them which has never changed" is something that i find can be true still today. i find it amazing that API/As can still claim that racism (or at least racism against API/As) has been eradicated when on any given day you can find something on the Internet that day that proves to the contrary. Uyematsu, along with a few other authors, bring up the idea that by accepting our roles as the 'model minority' and remaining passive, we are ultimately detrimental to other marginalized communities. and i find myself in complete agreement, for in my mind, there can be no end to these intersections of domination and oppression if each marginalized group does not come together.

further in that vein of thought, Violet Rabaya [I Am Curious (Yellow?)] brings up a point that is still often ignored today, that is, the construction of "asian american". Rabaya writes that "the term oriental has been interpreted by most to mean peoples of yellow skin, [and] the Filipino is not yellow, but brown." thirty years later, rather than finding ourselves in a more inclusive state/community, it seems that we have only perpetuated this habit of exclusion. in fact, this really brings us to the issue of why the term "asian american" is so problematic. connotatively, it does not spread its umbrella over south asians, southeast asians, pacific islanders, and other invisible groups. further more, there is not even a single generalized 'asian american experience' that one can point to. i find today that we have reached a place where there is not even a shared JA experience, particularly with the arrival of the shin-issei (a new current set of Japanese immigrants).

reading all the works from the ROOTS compilation, i was really overwhelmed by all the different emotions that they evoked. recently, i've been looking and studying the different progressive movements of the recent past i.e. from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. looking at these different movements (in particular, the women's movement, and the yellow power and black power movement), i become both exhilarated and depressed. it seriously lifts my heart and i find myself so moved that people were able to come together and create this glorious social change that we benefit from so much today almost without even any gratitude. but then i reflect on the state of today, and i can't help but feel that what happened was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and we will never be able to coalesce as they did then. we are in a state of society where we are far from being done with achieving social equality, justice, and freedoms. the very fact that, as doug points out, we are still struggling for many of the same issues is something i find to be absolutely shit. this particularly frightens me, because i really do fear that this could remain status quo, given what i perceive as apathy among youth. that isn't to deny the presence and power of activism currently in existence, but rather, a comment on what i see as our nation's inability to really come together and fight for something we believe in. for example, if Obama were to win the popular vote but lose in the convention due to super delegates (or vice versa with Hillary), how would the nation react? would we rise up and protest? or simply accept it and complain about it to ourselves/each other. i admit, i can't help but feel no matter how hard some people try to bring about a revolution, the latter would prevail.

ok i realize this was all very disjointed and weird but it was kind of a thought in process deal, and i might try to go back and add other thoughts from when i was reading it, but for now, holler.

Back to the ROOTS of the matter ...

Like the title? My mama says that I should be an author with a wit like that.

With the invocation of the William Hung media figure (sitting smack dab in my second year of college, which I spent with the UC Irvine Asian Pacific Student Association), I feel compelled to talk about the student publications of ROOTS. Prevalent media stereotypes, institutionalized racism, the need for a united racial and gender front, and the need for political action to shatter the model minority stereotype - all things that even in 2004 we were still struggling to address in APSA. Reading through the articles and thinking about my experience at the UCI Cross Cultural Center, it seemed that the only thing that has changed in the Asian American movement in the past few decades is the need for a united front across the lines of ethnicity, gender, class, and sexual orientation - although the diversity of identities has changed, the language of the struggle hasn't seemed to progress very far.

Going back to your histories of politicization, how do you relate to the selections from ROOTS or Asian Women? For example, the representations have become more complex, but they still seem to hold on to some stereotypical baggage - every time I talk about Asian Americans in pop culture, I can't help but think of Raj in Van Wilder, Jackie Chan (and his many adventures), and Better Luck Tomorrow (all AA cast, but is the main drama really revolving around homework?).

All views welcomed. Happy Saturday!

Quick question that came up while reading "The Woman Warrior"-

Have you guys come across any Asian Americans (or any race for that matter) who had a similar mentality as Moon Orchid, especially her notion that young people should be modest.  I found it surprising that Moon Orchid was annoyed that her nieces and nephews responded with "thank you" rather than something like "oh no, but I'm so ugly" etc, etc.  

Another Look at "Reminiscing About A Chinese Restaurant"

Yay, blog time, my favorite time of month! To be honest however, I am a bit more enthused for this month’s post, since I actually think I have something to say, and three whole days before the deadline no less!

That being said, this post is going to be a bit of a throwback; I want to go back to “Reminiscing About a Chinese Restaurant”, and just spew my musings about this poem out there. I know we just about beat this poem to death in class, but I recall I had a bunch of stuff to say about this poem. Alas, I’m nowhere near as articulate as I wish I could be so I’ll spew on this tonight on the blog!

To begin examining the poem, I’d like to look at the last stanza. By writing

“What would the glasses, the ovens

and chopsticks tell, what grease

on uniforms, what language

beyond food?”

The author clearly directs the reader to look for a deeper meaning in the food she uses as details in the poem. With this in mind, the focus of the poem is taken from the food that each individual or group of people eats, and given to the actual Chinese restaurant and the people who “inhabit” it. If the inhabitants are taken as Chinese people, and the Chinese restaurant is symbolic of Chinese Americans, this poem becomes an exposé on the state of the Chinese people in America.

The author introduces the poem with a scene describing the variety of dishes being served in the Chinese restaurant. This introduction alludes to the diversity among Chinese Americans. Looking at the poem in this light each individual/group mentioned in the poem becomes symbolic the different types of people that make up Chinese America.

The first person mentioned specifically is the chef working in the kitchen of the restaurant. With a reference to “stick[ing] a needle into his arm” the author suggests a drug dependence in the Chinese community. Next a man with only one leg is mentioned. Details surrounding his character are the “Aloha Hotel” and “sugared ‘bombs’”, which could be subtle hints at war injuries (aloha brings up images of Hawaii, and the word bombs creates the image of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and World War II).

A family dinner is the scene described after the disabled man. The father and mother here are eating a grand dinner of “halibut steak, rice and gravy, and apple pie.” Though they are eating well, they only feed sixty cent dinners to their daughters. They are the vanity of Chinese people, a very common fault among many Chinese: the over emphasis of social status. What follows next, is someone who represents the poverty of Chinese people, someone who cannot afford more then “three slices of wholewheat bread”.

“A young gypsy girl” is the next topic of the poem. A poor sexualized woman, she may represent the remnants of the female Chinese immigrants that were tricked into sexual slavery as the cost for immigration to America. Lastly a blue collared worker is mentioned. The most normal of all the people mentioned in this poem, that he “pays to eat and look at the other waitress” is a subtle hint at a sadder existence, then on initial inspection.

A post like this isn’t anywhere near enough to analyze this poem. Besides the just the above mentioned (which I feel is only beginning to scratch the surface of each of those individual topics), there is still to analyze how the narrator fits into this whole situation. If anyone else has anything more to say about this please feel free to comment. To be honest, by the time I got to the end of my post, I was less convinced of my initial argument then when I began.

Oh and one more thing. This line completely stumped me: “This man paints red in my father’s eyes”. I don’t know what to make of it or what it’s supposed to mean. Red is very important color to the Chinese people, and symbolizes many different things. Unfortunately the things that it symbolizes are sometimes complete opposites of each other. Any thoughts?

what should my kid read?

so in texas, there's been an uproar because the board of education's administered a list of recommended reading with only four books by hispanic authors. kinda typical sadly. but what's worse is how the board chairman Don McLeroy responded to criticism:

However, McLeroy said he directed a group of experts to add examples of "good literature" to the list. He said students should spend their time in English class learning English and reading literature that will help prepare them for college.

"What good does it do to put a Chinese story in an English book?" he said. "You learn all these Chinese words, OK. That's not going to help you master ... English. So you really don't want Chinese books with a bunch of crazy Chinese words in them. Why should you take a child's time trying to learn a word that they'll never ever use again?"

He added that some words — such as chow mein — might be useful.

Thank you, sir for your wise words. You're a great example for my children of a mature respectful adult.

I particularly like a quotation they included from the great poet, Sandra Cisneros:

Tyroff said missing from the list is local author Sandra Cisneros' book "House on Mango Street." However, Cisneros said Friday she doesn't think there should be a recommended list at all. Instead, educators should choose books to which students can relate.

"I feel it's just important that we select books that might speak to young people at whatever age that reader is," Cisneros said. "A lot of times, people who aren't used to books aren't going to read ... books that they find intimidating."

Anyway, just thought i'd post that (saw it on angry asian man) since we were talking about "canon" and what is considered "greatest hits," etc. I think this up what the Board feels is the purpose of education.

"Heroism or Feminism?"

Carol's presentation today brought up the really interesting issue of racial/ethnic/national stereotypes in The Woman Warrior. This point relates directly to Professor Suh's precaution of not making sweeping generalizations about cultures or people based on the texts [because, as we can see, sometimes the representation isn't always very flattering], which is a truth that we may only be hearing because of the classroom setting. After all, Elaine H. Kim introduces her critical analysis of Asian American Literature (aptly titled Asian American Literature) by telling a story about a Chinese American friend of hers who, after The Woman Warrior came out, had friends from other backgrounds telling her that, because they read the book, they "understand" her better.

This matter of how people read ethnic literature brings up an old question that Asian American Studies scholars have grappled with for decades: do readers and writers have to choose between ethnic heroism or feminism? Think about the question with Murayama's and Okada's problematic portrayal of women on the one side and Yamamoto's "Seventeen Syllables"/"Yoneko's Earthquake" and Kingston's more troubling depictions of characters who live in the intersection of race and gender struggles on the other.

So, finish reading Woman Warrior, read "Come All Ye Asian American Writers of the Real and the Fake" this weekend, and, for a special pat on the back, read Chin's less academic version of his Kingston critique (http://www.chintalks.blogspot.com/) and let me know your thoughts. (Chin's blog entry on Kingston is based on an interview with her, so you can get a sense of what she has to say about her telling of the Fa Mu Lan tale.) I'm curious to see what you all think.

Let's talk about poetry for a bit

I really dig the poems that we've been reading in class. Two Tuesdays ago, we had a really in-depth discussion about "Reminiscing About a Chinese Restaurant" and "Without Tongue" and I was wondering if anyone wanted to share their insights about the other poems.

Since there seemed to be a general agreement with Mary Rose's suggestion about relating the issues of the texts to contemporary issues in Asian America, I'm particularly interested in what you have to say about Janice Mirikitani's "Doreen" (and how it seems like a 1987 premonition of calf lengthening, double-lid surgery, colored contacts, and other transfigurations of the Asian body - P.S., I can't seem to make my hair stay black for very long) and Sun Yung Shin's series of poems (and their relationship to or disavowal of Western fascination with all things "Asian" - know any anime fans who have said disturbing things about "Asian" culture?).

Any and all comments welcomed. Discuss.

Silence in The Woman Warrior

I wrote this post before class this morning, but it turns out to be very relevant to Carol’s presentation this afternoon, especially in regard to the silencing of Asian females. Silence and voice emerge as major themes throughout Hong Kingston’s memoir. The book’s opening line, a quote from Hong Kingston’s mother, reads, “You must not tell anyone…what I am about to tell you” (3). Indeed, the author has been instructed since youth to be silent; some words and topics remained simply unspeakable in her household. Hong Kingston explains that Brave Orchid “never explained anything that was really important,” leading Hong Kingston to loath “the secrecy of the Chinese” (121, 183). However, this silence is not something attributable to Chinese culture—Hong Kingston makes clear that the Chinese have “loud voices, unmodulated to American tones,” and she is unable to “stop [her] mother’s screams in public libraries or over telephones” (11). This silence is instead particular to Chinese Americans. Hong Kingston writes, “Normal Chinese women’s voices are strong and bossy. We American-Chinese girls had to whisper to make ourselves American-feminine” (172). Perhaps, then, the silence Hong Kingston experienced in her household and her community was the result of the Chinese American immigrant experience (specifically marginalization and racialization) as opposed to some fault or negative aspect of Chinese culture itself. Moreover, the constant interplay between race and gender can be seen here in this quote and elsewhere; Hong Kingston is silent because she is Chinese and a girl. Hong Kingston explains, “The other Chinese girls did not talk either, so I knew the silence had to do with being a Chinese girl” (166). Also, Brave Orchid cuts Hong Kingston’s tongue, for “the Chinese say ‘a ready tongue is an evil’” (164). However, the very silence around this cutting of the tongue, an act Hong Kingston interprets as a silencing of her own voice and self, causes misunderstanding and animosity between Hong Kingston and her mother. Brave Orchid believes that she cut her daughter’s tongue so that she “would not be tongue-tied. [Her] tongue would be able to move in any language,” but Hong Kingston has trouble understanding this act, especially since her mother did not cut any of her other children’s tongues (164). Brave Orchid, however, refuses to offer any more explanation, furthering the silence in the household.

Hong Kingston, however, defies the rule of silence and uses both her voice and her words. She is a rule-breaker, a transgressor, rejecting the silence both her household and her community perpetuate. In this way, she challenges and even breaks the stereotype of the silenced Asian female. Vengeance plays a significant role in Hong Kingston’s breaking of silence. Interestingly, in White Tigers, the author mentions that a god rides before her: Kuan Kung, the god of war and literature (38). The fact that one god represents both war and the written word reveals a connection between the two; perhaps literature, words, and the breaking of silence are in fact a form of revenge, a way to fight back against something. In many ways, this may be the function of Hong Kingston’s book—to avenge or seek revenge via telling or the written word. Indeed, the author expresses the connection she feels to the swordswoman with the word revenge carved on her back:

What we have in common are the words at our backs. The idioms for revenge are “report a crime” and “report to five families.” The reporting is the vengeance—not the beheading, not the gutting, but the words. (53)

Hong Kingston’s novel breaks the silence surrounding her past, her culture, and her family and therefore functions as a tool for revenge. Hong Kingston directly counters the opening line of the novel (“You must not tell anyone,” my mother said, “what I am about to tell you” (3)) when she declares at the beginning of the memoir’s final section, “I would’ve told. If I was his wife, I would’ve told…” (163). Her ultimate rebellion against the culture of silence, however, is the scene in which she tortures the young girl in her class who will not speak unless asked to read aloud by the teacher. Hong Kingston is so desperate to break the silence in her world that she torments the girl she views as representing that culture of silence. In a way, however, Hong Kingston’s outburst seems a rejection of not only silence but traditional femininity as well. She declares, “I hated fragility…I wanted a stout neck…Her neatness bothered me…I hated pastels…I hated her fingers. I could snap them like breadsticks” (176, 177). Here the author seems to rebel against something more than just silence; she defies the conventional role of women as meek, submissive, and dainty, desiring instead to be strong and stout—in fact, more like the tough, enduring, powerful Brave Orchid.

While the memoir itself functions as a breaker of silence, Hong Kingston breaks her own silence inside the book as well. Significantly, she chooses her mother as the listener, someone who has perpetuated the silence surrounding her childhood. Hong Kingston experiences a physical need to tell, to use her voice—“the throat pain always returns, though, unless I tell what I really think” (205). However, when she finally expresses to Brave Orchid what she has kept silent for years, Hong Kingston finds that her mother “acted as if she hadn’t heard…’Mm,’ she said, nodded, and kept dipping and squeezing” (199, 200). Hong Kingston’s telling seems therefore more something she had to do for herself as opposed to something her mother needed to hear. Because the author truly finds her voice at the end of the memoir (and in the form of the memoir itself) and experiences real growth, change, and understanding, it might be considered a bildungsroman in many ways.

This post is already really long, but I also think the picture of gender roles and relations in Hong Kingston’s memoir is quite interesting. The author’s farther is notably absent throughout the majority of the book, and when he enters the story, he is often referred to as Brave Orchid’s husband as opposed to father or my father. Brave Orchid is clearly the one in charge; she tells Hong Kingston, “I shouldn’t have left [China], but your father couldn’t have supported you without me. I’m the one with the big muscles” (104). The father figures in both Milton Murayama’s All I Askin’ for is My Body and John Okada’s No-No Boy bear a striking resemblance to Hong Kingston’s fairly silent, largely absent (figuratively, not literally) father. The husbands in all three of these families are the weak, subordinate ones; it is the wives who seem to truly run the family. Perhaps these men are reflective of the racialized feminization of Asian American males. Indeed, when Brave Orchid suggests that Moon Orchid “do the hand-finishing on the shirts when they came off the machines,” Hong Kingston recalls that “this was usually Brave Orchid’s husband’s job. He had such graceful fingers, so good for folding shirts…” (136).

Self-reproducing systems / The question of "America"

I had some lingering thoughts about the class discussion that Tom led two weeks ago. Specifically, I wanted to futher explore his concluding question apropos of an apparent ambiguity at the end of No-No Boy: Was the text working to retrospectively redeem the notional content of the socio-political signifier "America" (i.e., the merits of individual will, prosperity via liberal/modern conceptions of "free enterprise," the constitutive importance of cultural plurality, etc.)? Or was it, instead, articulating a foundational critique of that very content—so as to complicate a field of political discourse that, despite myriad empirical inadequacies in the post-modern / post-colonial world, still sought (and still seeks) to conceptualize the world within the bounds of liberal ideology (which is, in essence, and beyond any particular claim, what the signifier "America" stands for contemporarily)? In other words, does No-No Boy claim that the "project of America"—and the various sensibilities of freedom, autonomy, and equality entailed thereby—failed in some particular context (e.g., of Japanese internment, or perhaps of WWII-era and post-WWII-era race relations more generally)? Or does it claim, rather more forcefully, that the project was doomed from the outset?

I think Tom was right to emphasize the comparative radicality of the second claim as compared to the first. If No-No Boy merely highlights one or more instances in which "America" fails to live up to its overdetermined ideological promise, it's not so far from dominant historical narratives that attempt to mitigate and legitimize present conditions by depicting grandiosely horrific past-situations (along the lines of, e.g., "Look how mean and imperial the explorers were toward native peoples [thankfully we have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes—and more to the point, we've already learned from their mistakes]"). Indeed, No-No Boy can be construed as radical only insofar as it attempts to genuinely transform the socio-symbolic coordinates of "America," by rejecting, in other words, the very liberal/modern foundations on which all dominant conceptions of "America" are founded. Yet what if this dichotomy is already illegitimate? Perhaps a space for contestation/ transformation is built into the discursive fabric of "America" and therefore it's impossible—or at least analytically misleading—to differentiate between a) the legitimation and b) the transformation of "America." That is to say, what if "America" refers, ideologically speaking, to the project of continual transformation itself? Indeed, is this not precisely the message of traditional "melting pot" / "salad bowl" / etc. narratives? As Barack Obama articulated it in his recent "race" speech, only in America could a story like his—son of an African man and a white women (and becoming president to boot!)—have come to pass. Which is to say, America is wonderful precisely because it allows for internal transformation of its symbolic content (here, in terms of the demographics of its polity).

This question—whether transformation is an integral part of America's ideological-symbolic content—overlaps interestingly with another strand of class discussion re: the "post-" prefix and its legitimate deployment. Tom—citing Seung Hye's question, if I remember correctly—asked whether or not the Black Eyes Peas could be construed as an example of "post-hip-hop." There's always an ambiguity in the "post-" prefix: Does it designate a legitimate end, or merely a space of potential redemption after something has gone awry? Consider the term "postmodernity." If we've moved beyond the modern, is it a) because modernity, as a set of truth-claims and political impulses, was flawed from the start, or b) because the (ultimately valuable) project of modernity got corrupted somewhere along the way (e.g., in fascism), and the space of postmodernity thus offers an opportunity to restore the "true" principles of modernity? In terms of the hip-hop / post-hip-hop question: Are the Black Eyed Peas (assuming we do, in fact, understand their music as "post-hip-hop") attempting to produce an entirely new musical form, or rather, are they trying to revivify the original impetus of hip-hop (which has since become corrupted by commercialization etc.)?

Once again, however, we're faced with the same illegitimate dichotomy—a dichotomy that only holds if we ignore the possibility that both alternatives can be simultaneously true: what if modernity became corrupted because its internal flaw was precisely that it was destined to become corrupted? In other words, what if, in going awry, modernity actually came to full fruition? Practically speaking, this implies that something like fascism represents a corruption of modernity—but it's an internal corruption, a corruptioin that was unavoidable by virtue of modernity's own, self-corrupting impulse. We should note how this re-formulation undermines both previous positions: now, it is not simply that modernity either a) became corrupted, or b) was flawed to begin with, but rather, that so long as we understand the modern impulse to be one of self-overcoming, both claims amount to exactly the same. To tie this back to the discussion above, if "America" is able to self-revolutionize by incorporating its own discursive contestation in this way, then traditional forms of political resistance (textual or otherwise) lose their efficacy. When we consider the differences between contesting and affirming the concept of "America" (the ambiguity offered by Tom), is not the proper response that neither is more radical than the other, precisely because they coalesce: in the context of "America," to contest is to affirm—to affirm a conceptual matrix based on contestation. So, where does this leave us, praxis-wise? The only way to disrupt the reproduction of "America"—a political project worthy of our deliberation, I think—is to insist on the absolute, static, meta-historical value of terms like Freedom, Community, and Success (those paradigmatic signifiers of "America"). We must develop a political framework that makes "America" neither its affirmative nor oppositional starting point, but rather, articulates a universality distinct unto itself. We should strive to reach the point at which it becomes possible to say: We are uninterested in America's symbolic hegemony one way or another—the new political community will be realized regardless.

Elizabeth's February post

Elizabeth Downing

Professor Suh

Asian American Lit/Crit

February 28, 2008

Making it just in time

Of our discussions, I have been most intrigued by the conflict and dynamic between first and second generation Asian Americans. More specifically, I am interested in the interaction of a more traditional outlook on life, self-comportment and the individual’s role in society (usually presented by the immigrated parent,) and the more individualist US¹ attitude and behavior that we see in some of the first generation offspring Asian Americans in the texts. The interaction of the two sides is made even more interesting and, in my view, challenging for these first generation youths by virtue of the generally large discrepancy between the two cultural understandings of the world. Most poignant is the emotional strife that these characters often go through when the collectivist cultural ideals of their parents (often involving filial piety and a generally authoritarian/patriarchal household) clash with the reality of living in a country that is at once more individualistic (e.g. one in which the parents support the children in their goals) and more community oriented (e.g. one in which it may be more important for an entire socioeconomic class to gain leverage/power rather than just the ethnic group to which one belongs.) It is especially rough on these characters since the tenants of their parent’s beliefs with which they were raised directly conflict with what the media, their US education and their non-traditional friends tell them they should value.

On an entirely different topic, the experience of Sui Sin Far as a biracial woman in Europe and the US is something that I cannot help but mention, because of its unique views as well as its personal pertinence to myself. Generally I have found that hapa accounts, when addressing the topic of race, tend to emphasize the Asian portion of the individuals heritage rather than the non-Asian half. This I suppose is logical since within race studies it is the “ethnic” portion of an individual that is focused on rather than the “non-ethnic” portion, even though by definition a biracial individual is equal portions of each and his or her experience may not necessarily be greatly influenced by one race half or the other. Ms. Far’s account of being able to “pass” for an ethnic background not her own (i.e. being able to pass for half Japanese, or simple going unquestioned about her race which would suggest an unmarked ethnic appearance,) as well as the peculiar scrutiny to which she is subjected when people discover the reality of her heritage both illustrate to me just how ambiguous race and the racialized experience can be, even as people often address race as something cross culturally uniformed in appearance and significance. Her desire to reconnect with her Chinese half after a childhood of identifying as predominantly white, expresses an almost opposite experience as characters such as Kiyo and Itchiro, which may simply be a desire to deviate from one’s up bringing.

¹ By US I do not necessarily mean Caucasian or white, but rather the attitudes and customs accepted by the US mainstream that have formed over the past few centuries of US existence, which are by no means “white” in their entirety. Though the assertion that said customs and attitudes are generally controlled by the dominant white majority is valid, I am reluctant to ignore the substantial contribution that this country’s ethnic minorities have made to mainstream culture.

Jenna's February post

This post is from Jenna:
Kyung-Jin Lee’s Asian Americans piece sheds light onto the intent of Okada’s novel, and through it draws out even more questions pertaining to the Asain American culture in America. As illustrated in the novel, the “state-sanctioned vulnerabilities” stemming from the internment experience, which was little more than a political exercise of racial subjugation by the threatened dominant race, forced Japanese Americans to abandon a part of their cultural identity and assimilate into the national culture(176 Lee). However, as Lee explains, only vertical assimilation into the socially powerful dominant races was catalyzed, and horizontal assimilation into other minority groups was inhibited further by the general practice of Japanese American disidentification with anything but white America. No-no Boy is an embodiment of this assimilation. At the time of publication in 1957, Okada could not have known that by 1966 Asian Americans would embody the “model minority” schema that America had created. Although the relationship between the identities of “yellow peril” and “model minority” is strongly linked to economic standings, the transformation between the two schemas was initiated by active conformation to American standards and values. However, Okada senses that conformity is the only method by which Japanese Americans could possibly survive, and reflects this belief in the symbolic nature of his characters.

The two key deaths in the novel symbolize drastically different ideas. Ichiro’s mother’s suicide was plainly representative of the necessity for Japanese Americans to ‘kill’ the part of them that linked them to Japan. Her astute and dislikable character already pitted her against Okada’s mainstream audience, and he cleverly conceives her faults as stemming solely from her Japanese roots. The embodiment of Japanese culture and fanatical loyalty, the mother’s suicide comes at a time when, in reality, hording these traits publicly would have resulted in immitigable persecution by the hands of America and the internal community. While her death mimics the cultural suicide committed by most Japanese Americans at the time, Kenji’s death represents the impossibility of an ideal America where democratic law is fully replicated in societal constructs. Kenji dreams of existing in a place free of “Japs or Chinks or Jews or Poles…” but instead inhabited solely of people(165). Far ahead of the time, Kenji’s colorblind ideal world is presented as a dying man’s bumbling words, not to be taken seriously but as wishful thinking. True to their nature, the words that construct the ideal world that, even today, cannot come into being without intensive struggle to overcome multiple social, cultural, and economical barriers, die with the loyal American Kenji.

By setting boundaries with mortality, Okada stipulates that Americanism must be embraced without question, and with it the American structurally founded practice of racism. He further enforces this solution with Emi and Mr. Carrick’s characters. Emi’s arguments with Ichiro seem manufactured to such a degree that the fakeness aids in drawing attention to the subliminal message that the Japanese American community must undertake the “often unspoken complicity with an Americanism which requires assent to white supremacy in order to survive” (177 Lee). The other solution she offers Ichiro, one of isolation and comfort in her arms, shows its own failure in solving anything from its total lack of means with which improvement of life can be attained. Ichiro, repenting for his lack of assimilation, struggles to take Emi’s words to heart, but he too realizes that assimilation is necessary in order to proceed in life. He firmly believes that a veteran that proved his worth and loyalty was better suited than he for Mr. Carrick’s offer, for no other reason than his own failure to cut himself free from his mother, his Japanese culture, in time to assimilate into the dominant race of America. Additionally, Ichiro subtly understands that Mr. Carrick represents an ideal that is much too good to be true, one where race, background, and social standing mean nothing. This is seen through Mr. Carrick’s construction of a snowplow that will never be put to use – the plow and his ideology may function perfectly, but both are inconsequential in changing the face of the world outside.

In the larger picture, Okada represents countless other Asian American authors that exploit the Asian American experience and transform it in such a way that Americanism is celebrated. Whether to get mainstream approval for the work itself, or to provide a way for Asian Americans to relate to the dominant culture, the embracement of American culture seems to be the only solution to so many problems. However, as seen in this book, the problem can never be truly resolved, for racism is ingrained into every fiber of this nation’s structure.