Asian Pacific Islander News:

Article Title- “Competing Hawaii minimum wage cross over to House, Senate”

“The Hawaii House has approved a bill that would raise the state’s minimum wage to $10 over the next four years, one of a flurry of bills that crossed over to the Senate this week.

House Bill 2580 would raise the minimum wage to $10 by 2018. Also included in the bill is a measure that provides for annual increases in the tip credit, to $1, if the gross amount an employee earns from wages and tips is at least 250 per cent of the poverty level. This means that restaurant owners can pay their servers $1 less than the minimum wage if they make enough tip money….

The House also passed H.B. 2529, which calls for greater oversight of the Hawaii Health Connector. It reduces the board of directors from 15 to 10 members, creates several advisory groups and a legislative oversight committee to review the financial and operational plans of the Connector, the state’s online health insurance exchange. It also establishes a sustainability fee.” (Article posted March 5, 2014)

(See full story here at: http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/news/2014/03/05/competing-hawaii-minimum-wage-cross.html)

Class Notes:

Cowboy Bebop: Moroccan street scene- is it orientalism?

Inspired question: Is fame harder or easier to achieve than it used to be?

Each year women become more sexualized in anime. Why?

Gary Locke-  American politician who most recently was the United States Ambassador to China from 2011 until 2014. (More information found from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Locke)

All Is by My Side- starring Andre 3,000 as Jimi Hendrix

Next Thursday morning bring all notes

 

 

Asian Pacific Islander News- Easter Island News:

Article Title: “Easter Island Diet Consisted Of Rats But Not Seafood, New Study Shows”

“To determine the diet of its past inhabitants, researchers analyzed the nitrogen and carbon isotopes, or atoms of an element with different numbers of neutrons, from the teeth (specifically the dentin) of 41 individuals whose skeletons had been previously excavated on the island. To get an idea of what the islanders ate before dying, the researchers then compared the isotope values with those of animal bones excavated from the island. [Photos of Walking Easter Island Statues]

Additionally, the researchers were able to radiocarbon date 26 of the teeth remains, allowing them to plot how the diet on the island changed over time. Radiocarbon dating works by measuring the decay of carbon-14 allowing a date range to be assigned to each individual; it’s a method commonly used in archaeology on organic material. The research was published recently online in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

 (Polynesian Rat)

The researchers found that throughout time, the people on the island consumed a diet that was mainly terrestrial. In fact, in the first few centuries of the island’s history (up to about A.D. 1650) some individuals used Polynesian rats (also known as kiore) as their main source of protein. The rat is somewhat smaller than European rats and, according to ethnographic accounts, tasty to eat.”

(Read full story at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/28/easter-island-diet-rats-seafood_n_3997363.html)

(Picture taken fromhttp://thewebsiteofeverything.com/img/Polynesian_rat.jpg)

Ozeki pages 109-203:

“That life with my family if the dream” he says. He gestures toward the ruined landscape. “This is the reality. Everything is gone. We need to wake up and understand that” p. 112

“From so high up, the whales looked small. They used them for target practice. “It was fun,” the man told Callie over the phone. “What did we know?” p. 117 Similar to kids bullying Nao.

“When he ran out of cigarettes, he would walk back again and sneak into the apartment. I always heard the clank of the bolt on the front door, because I waited for it. The bolt in the latch broke the spell. I couldn’t move until I heard it” p. 128

“In the shadows of the bathhouse, watching her pale crooked body rise from the steam in the dark wooden tub, I thought she looked ghostly- part ghost, part child, part young girl, part sexy woman, and part yamamba, all at once. All the ages and stages, combined into a single female time being” p. 166

“Feeling is the important part. You don’t have to make a big deal out of it” p. 167

p. 178-179: different versions of World War II.

Ozeki pages 204-304:

“The world of the diary was growing increasingly strange and unreal. She didn’t know what to make of the girl’s ghost story. Did Nao really believe what she was writing?” p. 227

“Well, maybe that’s the wrong way to put it, but I’m thinking that if everything your looking for disappears, maybe you should stop looking.  Maybe you should focus on what’s tangible in the here and now” p. 232 -Quantum element

“Missing things upset her. Missing price tags. Missing memories. Missing parts of her life” p. 222

“Jiko says that this is an example of the time being.  Sound and no-sound. Thunder and silence” p. 238 -Drum playing

“Falling Man” a time being p. 268

p. 272- What was waitress afraid of?

“Now, you did you say we are at war with?” p. 273- Ruth’s mother.

“They could break my body but they wouldn’t break my spirit. They were only shadows, and as I listened to them arguing, I felt my face relax into a gentle smile” p. 277

journal causing tension between Ruth and Oliver p. 295

Ozeki pages 305-403 (and appendices):

“know what?” “About why her dad got fired! She doesn’t know that he’s a man of conscience. We have to” p. 314

“My last thoughts, measured out in drops of ink” p. 317- Haruki #1 one letter for show, the other for truth.- Reminds me of how Ruth paces herself when reading Nao’s diary.

“Like her, we must keep our studies even as civilization collapses around us” p. 317- Haruki #1- I totally agree

“At one point in my life, I learned how to think. I used to know how to feel. In war, these are lessons best forgotten” p. 319- Haruki #1- Reminds me of how my grandfather would talk about World War II.

‘When I woke, my body must have hurt, but I couldn’t feel the pain. Instead, I was enveloped in a warm sensation of peace, which comes from the knowledge of inner power” p. 321- Haruki #1 -Similar to Nao’s sexual assault coping.

“I write this in the shadows. I write this in the moonlight, straining my ears to hear beyond the cold mechanical clock to the warm biological noises of the night, but my being us attuned only to one thing, the relentless rhythm of time marching toward my death” p. 322- Haruki #1

I have always believe that this war is wrong. I have always despised the capitalist greed and imperialist hubris that have motivated it. And now, knowing what I do about the depravity with which this war has been waged, I am determined to do my utmost to steer my plane away from my target and into the sea. Better to do battle with the waves, who may yet forgive me. I do not feel like a person who is going to die tomorrow. I feel like a person who is already dead.” p. 328- Haruki #1- waves part is similar to Nao beating up the waves.

Are Ruth and Nao somehow the same person?

“In the superimposed photograph, the tiger would appear to be a blur or smear. In a microscopic quantum universe, governed by the principle of superposition, the tiger is the smear” p. 414. -Like the “Falling Man”.

“The Moon and the Finger” p. 416- seen in Enter the Dragon film.

“Please burn me and Don’t File Me” p. 418- interesting…..

“I mean, if she stops writing to us, then maybe we stop being too” p. 344…”His voice seemed farther away now. Was it her ears or the storm?” p. 344- I don’t think Ruth’s world is real.

Did Ruth travel through time in dream? p. 353. Talked to father and put Haruki #1 letters in Haruki #1 box. Letters ended up there for real. Why did Nao’s ending go blank/her fate? Why was Ruth in charge of changing Nao’s fate?

Harry creates the Mu-Mu obliterator p. 382. Was Harry really in charge of Nao’s fate then, and he used Mu-Mu obliterator? Or maybe both Harry and Ruth were in charge somehow.

Was pesto meant to die as well?

Maybe answer to book is quantum mechanics?

“Maybe it’s possible that in one of these worlds, Haruki #2 figured out how to build his Q-Mu and get objects in that world to interact with this one. Maybe he’s figured out how to use quantum entanglement to make parallel worlds talk to one another and exchange information” p. 395. – Oliver talking to Ruth

“(For one crazy moment, I thought that monograph I found online might even be yours, but it vanished before I could discover who wrote it)” p. 402

Class Notes:

Halving the Bones: Narrator- Ruth Ozeki: “Over the years she had forgotten how to be a daughter”- Sounds like Nao with her father.

“In Japan people think I’m always American, and when I’m in America people always think I’m Japanese” -Ruth Ozeki

Ozeki interview: Doesn’t think of issues in her book as “issues.” “It’s not like you set out to write funny” -Ruth Ozeki-author of A Tale for the Time Being

Uganda News:

Uganda passes Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2014. Death penalty proposal dropped in favor of life in prison. Signed by the President of Uganda on February 24, 2014. The bill even makes renting an apartment next to an LGBT person and not informing on them to authorities a crime punishable up to five years in prison.  (Information found from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/20/uganda-anti-homosexuality-law_n_4478602.html)

Significant black population in Nova Scotia and England due to blacks escaping slavery and aftermath of fighting in American Revolutionary War. During War more blacks fought for British side than American side. British lost and many blacks went to Canada and England.

Asian Pacific Islander News:

“UCLA, USC student groups call for improved racial climate at town hall” – Article title (Article posted February 20, 2014)

“Leaders of Asian Pacific Islander student groups from UCLA and USC demanded that UCLA administrators improve campus racial climate by increasing funding for cultural groups and ethnic studies departments at a town hall meeting on Wednesday.

The UCLA Asian Pacific Coalition and two USC student groups, the Asian Pacific American Student Assembly and the Student Coalition for Asian Pacific Empowerment, hosted the meeting in response to racist and sexist fliers sent to Asian American departments on both campuses earlier this month. More than 150 people attended the event.

The student leaders also demanded that the UCLA administration introduce a diversity-related General Education requirement and give students a more direct input in hiring new UCLA administrators, including a vice chancellor for diversity, equity and inclusion.” – By Hee Jae Choi

(See full story here at: http://dailybruin.com/2014/02/20/ucla-usc-student-groups-call-for-improved-racial-climate-at-town-hall/)

Kato p. 113-169:

“That which instigates such a process of cognition is a cultural matrix of management (based on the imperialist cultural practices), which evokes the arrogance of the capitalists imprinted in the minds of the workers with the memory of unresolved agony and anger” p. 115

“Due to the thin screen that separates the language of the command in the factory and that of the colonial power, the agents of transnational power could effortlessly take the position of power. By so doing, they in effect reduce worries to the level of working animals, or “coolies,” for the colonial master” p. 116

“It is kung fu, and more precisely the “kung fu dialectic” that would offer the idiom of collective resistance” p. 117

“Accordingly, the expression of the extras in this scene unmasks the emotive actions rooted in the real antagonism in the production process” p. 123

“Although the kinetic narrative enunciated by the flow of Lee’s combative action holds thematic continuity with the path to freedom in his works, there’s a marked dissimilarity from Lee’s previous choreographic pieces” p. 127

“When Ohara descends into the spiral of destructive aggression, his rigid kinetic movement and expressions exhibit disharmony with Nature” p. 129

“Both Lee and Hendrix’s artistic expressions open a direct channel with the crude reality of colonial and imperial contradiction in its historical and ever-present form, while creating a sphere of transcendental reflection” p. 132

“A careful dissection of the scheme of the antagonist and the mission if the protagonist will inform us of the “trans nationality” or “globality” of the official narrative of Enter the Dragon that evolved out of the imperialist mode in which those two conventional genres are anchored” p. 136

“Whereas Doctor No in the novel symbolizes the anomaly produced in the context of colonization at the end of classic imperialism, Dr. No in the film allegorizes the deviant path of the semi-autarkic neo-colonial regime at the dawn of globalization” p. 138

“Sontag explains: To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed. Just as the camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is sublimated murder— a soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened time” p. 148

“Thereafter, the body of the Caucasian actor/actress had become a “landscape” upon which the “essence” of the exotic was constructed, like an “Oriental palace” built in the studio back lot” p. 148

“Moreover, by turning the Caucasian into the “Oriental,” Hollywood could retain the horror effect of becoming “Oriental” (of Caucasian women, in particular) cultivated in British literary “Orientalism” p. 148

“At this juncture, therefore, Hollywood “Orientalism” enters a symbiotic relationship with two of the main industries of late capitalism: the war/military industry and the tourist industry, both of which are buttressed by the development of the communication and transportation industries” p. 148- 149

“If war if the ultimate form of consumption of the Other by the imperialist subject, tourism can be viewed as a “sustainable” consumption of the Other that nurtures the health of the imperialist power” p. 150

“Accordingly, what tourists look for is no longer the experience of a chance encounter, but preprocessed sight objects organized and packaged for their convenience” p. 150

“Although caged birds are found in the street of Hong Kong, their concentration was a pure invention of the director: “I couldn’t remember seeing anything like it and was certainly exotic enough for Han’s perverted tastes” p. 152

“In this sense, the infinite reflections in the room, as seen from the gaze of a camera (representing transnational power) symbolically demarcate the realm of transnational Orientalist aesthetics, which is contested by the insistence on the real over imagery” p. 155

“Due to what the name represents, “Brusli” pertains to both singular and collective identity. The collective desire and aspiration for decolonization and freedom, represented by a name among the oppressed, therefore overflows the boundaries demarcated by time, space, and identity” p. 169

“It is only when the kung fi cultural revolution and hip hop came to interface that the meaning of the film began to unfurl” p. 169 -About Enter the Dragon film

Kato p. 171-207:

“Although Lee’s legacy had a direct relevance to the hip hop aesthetics, the L.A. ghetto youth were hooked onto narcissistic materialism and self-destructive nihilism articulated through the media of hip hop aesthetics called “gangsta rap” p. 173

“…Bruce Lee utilized all ways but was bound by none” p. 177

“In both Jeet Kune Do and hip hop culture, creativity arises from the autonomy of self-expression” p. 177

“The first commercial recording of rap was produced by Sugar Hill Records, a New Jersey- based all Black independent label…” p. 178

“His writing has lent street aesthetic from to “their otherwise contained identities” (…) on the space that duly belonged to them” p. 186

“The shift of a paradigm in the ghetto brought by the gang truce inspired Bambaata and others to reorient gang activities “from a negative thing into a positive thing” p. 187

“The emergence of Jamaica’s sound system culture, which goes back to the 1950s, came as a result of Jamaica’s encounter with R &B through Black radio stations from the U.S. continent which could be caught in Jamaica” p. 188

“Since the 1930s, there emerged a spiritual, social and political movement in the ghetto sufferer’s communities, which came to embrace Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia as Jah Rastafari, the Almighty God prophesized by their national hero Marcus Garvey” p. 188

“As Sally Banes sums it up: “Breaking is a way using your body to inscribe your identity on streets and trains, in parks and high school gyms” p. 191

“With high-speed kinetic action without any adherence to styles and rituals, the battle between Hai-tien and Kareem turns into a fest of kinetic expressions in competitive spirit, much like freestyle battle in hip hop culture” p. 198

“The concept of a groove is the convergence and harmonization of rhythmic, kinetic, and social elements of human expressions” p. 198

“The groove, as Malcolm X insinuated, can be conceived as a force of social transformation” p. 198

 Ozeki p. 1-108:

“I swear, sometimes I think the main reason she’s still alive is because of all the stuff I give to her to pray about” p. 18

“One of her vows was to save all beings, which basically means that she agreed not to become enlightened until all other beings in this worlds are enlightened first” p. 18

“I never asked her where that elevator is going. I’m going to text her now and ask” p. 19

“I don’t know anything important, but something worthwhile. I want to leave something real behind” p. 22

“Jiko said that Haruki got bullied a lot in the army because he loved French poetry, so that’s something else that runs in the family: an interest in French culture and getting pick on” p. 68

“You can life by completely taking it away” p. 88- Harry

p. 88 Why high suicide rate in Japan? answer by Harry

“No matter what I choose to do, for this one moment I owned Daisuke and I owned his future. It was a strange feeling, creepy and a little too intimate, because if I killed him now we would be joined for life, forever, and so I released him” p. 98

Class Notes:

“Take what is useful and develop from there” -Bruce Lee

John Donne- “Negative Love” sonnet

Frances Scott Key wrote “The Star Spangled Banner”

Hindu- Muslim riots- 1983

November 27, is both Bruce Lee and Jimi Hendrix’s birthday

 

 

 

Asian Pacific Islander News: Hawaii

Article Title: “Waikiki shop removes dead bottled baby sharks for sale after protests”

On February 6, 2014, a Waikiki gift shop called Nani Aloha Street, across from the Kuhio Beach, removed bottles of dead baby sharks it was selling after an environmental group protested.

“Accordingly, what tourists look for is no longer the experience of a chance encounter, but preprocessed sight objects organized and packaged for their convenience” (Kato, p. 150).

(Photo taken from: http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/24668601/waikiki-shop-removes-dead-bottled-baby-sharks-for-sale-after-protests)

“The store had posted a sign below the sharks that said in Hawaiian mythology, sharks are believed to be aumakua or spiritual guardians. 

“It was thought that keeping these aumakua in their homes will keep (them) safe from harm,” the sign said. 

“I was horrified and I was infuriated at the fact that they had used our cultural traditions, they had used our aumakua as a way to make more money,” Kalama said. 

(See full story at: http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/24668601/waikiki-shop-removes-dead-bottled-baby-sharks-for-sale-after-protests)

Kato p. 1- 112:

“The one armed swordsman reflects the life, history, and social relationships of the common people” p 16

“Mandarin cinema’s adaptation of kung fu in the 1970s seemed an opportunistic denial of the importance of Cantonese contribution to Hong Kong pictures because the kung fu genra was identified as primarily Cantonese, not because of its long-running Wong Fe-hung series but also because many of its real-life practitioners were Cantonese. Even the term “kung fu” is derived from Cantonese” p. 17

Lee attempted to bring as much realism to the film screen as possible.

“On December 7, 1941, Japan invaded the Philippines, Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, and Hong Kong simultaneously with their bombing of the American base in Hawaii known as Pearl Harbor. On “Black Christmas Day,” as it is remembered by the peoples of Hong Kong, the British colonial forces finally ceded Hong Kong to Japan. Following a period of widespread, indiscriminate killing and looting, Japan installed a totalitarian military regime in Hong Kong,  where the military and civilian police (known as Kenpeitai) maintained the reign of terror.” p. 18

p. 19- Description of Japanese terror.

“Wing Chun kung fu, allegedly invented by a Shaolin nun specifically for a woman’s self-defense, bestowed Lee with a solid foundation in Chinese ancient philosophy (Confucianism, I Ching, and Taoism)” p. 19

“Thereafter, the controversy over the ignominious pages of Japan’s history was stirred up and intensified periodically by the Japanese governments attempts to revise the standard school textbooks and by remarks by high-ranking government officials aimed at whitewashing their imperialist history” p. 33

“The triangular image complex-bu, judo, and Katanta deployed in Fist of Fury thus captures the fundamental aspects of the culture of Japanese imperialism with sobering accuracy from the viewpoint o Chinese and Asian people in general” p. 38

“Fortified by this shaved image, his conscious portrayal of himself as a “common folk” hero in his films not merely affirmed the existence of the Asian masses, but also opened up an allegorical link with the mass movement toward decolonization in Asia” p. 41

“The pursuit of freedom in action-expressed through the mind and body in their totality- thus became the paramount agenda of Lee’s artistic expression” p. 49

“In other words, transcendence of the dualistic mind is a necessity for overcoming an unequal relationship” p. 56

“It marks the pinnacle of the Jeet Kune Do philosophy, in that with a creative flexible, and rhythmic approach to movement, one can overcome the opponent by leading him/her to the path of self-destruction” p. 58

“…Lee’s philosophical system, which views combative art as a means to realize selfhood. The ultimate combat, therefore, is with one’s ego or institutionalized selfhood” p. 58

“… Watch, but don’t stop and interpret, “I am free” then you’re living in a memory of something that has gone. To understand and live now, everything of yesterday must die” p. 60

“As alluded to earlier, what separated him from other figures of the countercultural scene was his realism based on the shamanic articulation of his historical and cultural existence” p. 88 – About Jimi Hendrix. Similar to Bruce Lee.

“Through their engagement in the primordial sound, both Hendrix and Coltrane were able to demonstrate the possibility of reconstructing our perception of reality by removing the boundary that separates the spirit world and material world” p. 92

“The artistic expressions of Coltrane and Hendrix could indeed be seen as the return of the spirit Palongawhoya at the dawn of global capitalism, as they too are caretakers of the new mode of consciousness sprouting on earth where Nature is under incessant attack by capitalist development” p. 92- similar to Shaolin monks

“In the scene where Han “offers” great martial artists what he calls “gifts,” Golden Harvest had no choice but to hire real prostitutes, as it was explained to the director: “If a Chinese woman was not considered a whore, she couldn’t be cast as one. It would be a terrible disgrace…In Hong Kong, if you’re going to write a prostitute, then you had to cast a prostitute for the part” p. 105

Class Notes:

Shaolin Gong Fu: The Original Five Animal Styles

Tiger- extensive footwork, acrobatic kicks, low, wide stances, and unique fist position.

Leopard- Speed and angular attack. Does not rely on strength, as does the tiger, relies on speed and outsmarting its opponent.

White Crane- Deep rooted stances, intricate hand techniques and fighting, mostly at close range, imitating a pecking bird.

Snake- Strikes the opponent from angles in which they wouldn’t be expecting.

Dragon- attacks with low yang; quick movements that originate from the feet, guided by the waist, flows through the body and exits through the fist.

(More information found from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Kung_Fu)

 

 

Asian Pacific Islander News: “Are Race and Socioeconomic Status Related to Outcomes in Thyroid Cancer?”- Article Title

“The California Cancer Registry was probed, and 25,945 patients in whom well-differentiated thyroid cancer was diagnosed between 1999 and 2008 were identified.

The study found significant discordance in several relevant areas. Ethnic minority patients (black, Hispanic, and Asian/Pacific Islander) presented more frequently with metastatic disease than white patients. Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander patients were also noted to have a higher chance of presenting with regional disease.Patients who were poor, were uninsured, or had Medicaid insurance had a higher likelihood of presenting with metastatic disease than individuals who had private insurance.

When survival rates were adjusted for relevant variables, overall survival was lower for black patients. In contrast, Asian/Pacific Islanders had enhanced overall survival.”

What do people think of this article? Any thoughts or opinions about this? Do you think it’s true; not true?

Quote and information taken from:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/820042

Dave Notes:

Chapter 4: “Model Minorities can Cook”

“If fusion is heralded as the democratic melding of cuisines, it is largely because it is a type of culinary multiculturalism that seems to challenge the rigidity of national boundaries and fixity” p. 72

“Successful East-West cooking finds just the right harmonious way to combine distinct culinary approaches” p. 75. The word harmonious makes me think of assimilation

“To this end, selling Ming Tsai as a model minority is a crucial ingredient in making Tsai successful. Eric Ober, president and general manager of the Food Network, begins his afterword to Tsai’s book by asking, “How many Yale graduates with engineering degrees and professional squash careers go on to win an Emmy award? Then again, how many of them have their own award winning restaurants?” as if to suggest that Tsai is the model minority extraordinaire, or as A. Magazine put it, “The Asian American poster boy of cooking.” p. 77

“In this way, Ming Tsai emerges as the model minority Chef who inhabits a newer stereotype- that of the hyper assimilated, attractive, and yuppified Asian American who seamlessly integrates into American cultural life” p. 78

“Padma’s Passport”- “Like the food she prepares on the show, she herself is commodifiable, consumable, and desirable” p. 80

“Thus while the rampant but private consumption of pornographic images is accepted, public discussions of sexual fantasies are strictly prohibited” p. 82 -about Padma.

“What are the terms on which Asian American subjects such as Padma Lakshmi and Ming Tsai are represented in the popular media? And would either Lakshmi or Tsai enjoy such levels of popularity without their youthful “exotic” good looks?” p. 84

“The language of entertainment pervasive here, the notion that “we” pick and choose what “we” want to eat also blurs the distinctions between fusion, assimilation, and appropriation” p. 84

“They suggest that a knowledge of the range of Asian cuisines seeps through  their pores merely by virtue of being Asian” p. 85. Reminds me of how so many people assume someone of “100 % non-mixed heritage” knows their ancestral home’s language, culture, or/and food.

“The impossibility, until very recently, of imagining black-Asian fusion cuisine in the cookbook market suggests that in many cases fusion is only acceptable when it incorporates cultural markets of whiteness” p. 90

Chapter 13: “Alllookthesame?” Mediating Asian American Visual Cultures of Race on the Web”

“Asian Americans use the internet more than any other ethnic group in America, including whites” p. 262

“alllookthesame.com is produced by an Asian designer for an Asian and Asian American audience which debates national and ethnic identities rather than simply affirming them” p. 265

“Most important, the low scores that most users get confirm that seeing is not believing- the “truth” about race is not a visual truth, yet one which is persistently envisioned that way” p. 266

Chapter 17: “Secret Asian Man”

“Currently, dismay over Halloween costumes such as Urban Outfitters “Chinaman” mask, the widely marketed “Kung Fool” costume, and most recently, the Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirt designs have given rise to more expressions of rage and grievance- and their public expression” p. 339- Do many Americans see these commodities as racist? Are they too blind to? Or do they see it as racist but just don’t care that it’s wrong?

racial grief- combination of rage and grief.

Chapter 1: “Trance-Formations”

“Asian icons are often used by white (or other) American youth to signal their “alternative” approach to mainstream popular culture, as with neohippie subcultures that have reinvented the sixties’ fascination with India” p. 13

“Goa trance is the faster, “fiercer” version of trance music (140 bpm and up), first popularized by raver-tourists re-creating the Ibiza paradise on the beaches of Goa, India- historically a sixties’ hippie haven- and later circulating as a “viral, ‘virtual’ presence across the Western world” p. 15

electronic dance music is a largely white, middle-class youth subculture.

“In this subculture there are two ways to gain subcultural capital and advance in the social hierarchy: skill as a dancer or connections to a drug dealer” p. 17

“Tribal techno and trance offer white American youth a way to reimagine themselves through racialized, and even globalized, notions of otherness” p. 19

“Clearly, the responses if youth to Asian iconography very by ethnicity, gender, and class, and are contingent and controversial” p. 20

Chapter 2: “Making Transnational Vietnamese Music”

“Heavily influenced by exile and anticommunism, Viet Kieu music has a special blend of nostalgia that appeals not only to the members of the diasporic communities but also to the residents of Viet Nam” p. 32

“Even fifteen years after the demise of Sai Gon, the music of the pre- and war periods evoked fond memories of their lives back in Viet Nam. Music that evoked nostalgia was seen accompanied by new music about a lost nation, patriotism, and the refugee experience” p. 36

“It seems, then, that the thing that comforts the community in exile is also what keeps it from creating new sounds.  The dependence on the old pre- 1975 songs in musical repertoires persists to this day, and few venture to write and sing new songs” p. 37

Chapter 5: “Pappy’s House”

“According to Christian, the recurring figure of the nurturing, caring, black Mammy, is what enabled narrativization of such archetypical white identities as chivalrous southern gentlemen and debutante bells, and their epic romance and tragedy set in the deep south” p. 106

Chapter 15: “Cibo Matto’s Stereotype A Articulating Asian American Hip Pop”

“The audience base for these bands seems to differ little from the critics in their attraction to the “exotic” element of the band’s representation” p. 297

“Through its musical and visual style, hip hop gives these Japanese youth a tool with which to critique the dominant culture and to construct a future wherein they might reclaim subjectivity on their own terms” p. 299

Norma Coates- “Sliding even further down the slope, “authentic becomes “masculine” while “artificial” becomes “feminine.” Rock, therefore, is “masculine,” pop is “feminine,” and the two are set in a binary relation to each other, with the masculine… on top” p. 300

Class Notes:

gentrification- When an urban/lower-income area is taken over by wealthier residents or businesses.

Race- is still related to the body

ethnic tourism…Reminds me of when white American designer Tommy Hilfiger in the 1990s came out with a line of “Hip-Hop” clothing.  He said in multiple interviews something along the lines of “I’ve always loved the African American community.” I’m pretty sure it was also the first time he used African American models. If I remember right, I don’t think this specific clothing line did so well….

Hip Hip genre and Chinatown both were developed from poverty and subcultures.

Many Japanese zombies are females

vernacular- refers to local language

 

 

Since we are learning about how racism affects American society, I thought this was an important story/article to read. In short, it’s about…

“On a hillside in the rolling, tall-pine forests near the Alabama-Georgia border, a team of more than 50 searchers from nine agencies last year dug up the graves to check out local legends and family tales of boys, mostly black, who died or disappeared without explanation from the Dozier School for Boys early in the last century.

The school, infamous for accounts of brutality told by former inmates, was closed by the state in 2011.”

See the full story here at: http://news.msn.com/us/fla-reform-school-excavations-find-unrecorded-bodies

Wikipedia also has good information on the school’s brutal history and story:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dozier_School_for_Boys

Lee through p. 105:

“Oakland” or Oshkosh” is never the acceptable answer, and its rejection reveals at once the question is not about hometowns. The repeated question always implies, “You couldn’t be from here.” It equates the Asian with alien” p. ix

“Constructed as a race of aliens. Orientals represent a present danger of pollution. An analysis of the oriental as a racial category must begin with the concept of the alien as a polluting body” p. 2

“This representation is quite recent; Asians have been cast as an economic, social, and sexual threat to the American national family throughout their history in the United States” p. 8

“Six images-the pollutant, the coolie, the deviant, the yellow peril, the model minority, and the gook-portray the Oriental as an alien body and a threat to the American national family” p.8

“This representation of the Asian as pollutant originated in mid-nineteenth-century California” p. 9

1870′s and 1880′s idea of Chinese coolies began. Portrayed as un-free and servile.

Model minority idea originated late 1960′s and 1970′s in the racial logic of Cold War liberalism of the 1950′s.

“California As It Was And Is,” published in 1855 in Put’s Original California Songster, laid the blame for the passing of California’s “golden” era squarely on the arrival of immigrants from China. “Put” was the pseudonym of John A. Stone, who wrote the largest number and most popular of California Gold Rush songs, including “Sweet Betsy from Pike” p. 16

“In the pastoral image of “California As It Was And Is,” the Chinese immigrant represents the entering wedge of disruptive capitalism” p. 16

“Like “California As It Was And Is,” a score of popular songs published between 1855 and 1882 portrayed the Chinese immigrant as an agent of economic decline and social disorder for free white working-men ad their families” p. 17

“Popular songs were not meant to be passively consumed in the listening, but were intended for singing around the campfire, in the boarding house parlor, in the saloon and music hall, and at the political rally” p. 17

“Not all foreign people are objects or pollutants, only those whose presence disrupts the narrative structure of the community. Pollutants are anomalies in the symbolic structure of society, things that are out of place and create a sense of disorder” p. 31

“Chinese immigration became a metonym for the collapse of time and pace produced by a transition to industrial capitalism, a collapse that constituted a boundary crisis within the symbolic or ideological structure of American society. This boundary crisis demanded the transformation of Chinese cultural difference from exotic to pollutant” p. 32

“By the 1870′s, capitalists were attempting to rationalize and reduce the cost of production, ushering  a second of accumulation. The long-term decline in economic activity brought about by the erosion of the 1st phase and the secular decline of the business cycle produced the devastating depression of 1873″ p. 54

“In the 1850′s, the use of immigrant labor in American industry soared, representing fully half of all factory workers in the country” p. 55

“Particular ethnic groups tended to coalesce in certain industries, as a result of both discriminatory hiring practices and the traditional skill mixes and settlement patterns of these groups. For example, native born Anglo-Saxon men maintained their privileged position in such industries as iron-molding, furniture making, and make spinning (rope making), where craft guides still dominated, while in the textile and clothing factories, for example, immigrant women and children replaced native-born women. In shoemaking, immigrant men, particularly Irish and French-Canadian Catholics, entered the shoe factories of western Massachusetts displacing Yankee protestant women” p. 55

“Despite the powerful and sustained efforts of Chinese to establish solidarity with white workers, the white workers remained convinced that the Chinese must be expelled because they were a naturally subservient people who could neither participate with white workers in any sort of common working-class consciousness nor be organized  effectively into a coming resistance movement”. 67

“Because more women survived the Irish famine than men, and because the marriage prospects for Irish immigrant women (at least for finding a suitable Irish man), were not goof, many of the white women who married Chinese men were Irish. Tchen reports that at least half one quarter of all Chinese men who lived in New York between 1820 and 1870 were married to, or lived with, Irish women” p. 75

“Despite his intelligence and beauty, his half-breed racial status makes him a permanent outcast and dooms him to a life of criminality. Of the terrible product of “miscegenation,” Beck concludes, “In all fairness, such a man is better dead.” p. 82

“To describe the West as homosocial is not to deny its sexuality. The land itself was feminized in the metaphor of the virgin land, and the westward movement was imagined in terms of masculine penetration and conquest. In western frontier imagery, whether the Davey Crockett narratives or the songs of the California gold rush, the land may have been a woman, but it was a place where boys could be boys” p. 88

“The huge profits involved in this illegal but low-risk trade created a web of exchange between Chinese merchants, brothel owners, and tong members on the one hand and white sea captains, immigration officials, policemen, and politicians on the other.  The exchange was not limited to the merely economic, but extended to a shared sexual desire for the bodies of Chinese women” p. 90

“The presence of Chinese men on the sphere of domestic labor, once naturalized as “women’s work,” required a new formulation of the separate spheres” p. 105

Class Notes:

“Orientals,” and “Wilderness,” are both Eurocentric terms.

“Black face,” developed 1830′s-1840′s, as a way to justify slavery.

1850′s- “American freak shows,” begin. Many times people with disabilities or people of color were put on display.

 

 

 

1986 Space Shuttle disaster:

On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle disaster occurred. Several crew members died when the Space Challenger Shuttle broke apart 73 seconds into flight. These crew members included Christa McAuliffe, Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith Resnik. One of the crew members, Ellison Onizuka was the first Asian American to reach space.

(Information found from: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/onizuka.html)

He was also an Air Force colonel, aerospace flight test engineer, pilot, and served as Mission Specialist on mission STS-51L. In 1978, he was selected as astronaut by NASA.

(Information found from:  http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/03/shuttle.challenger.widow/index.html)

Paul Shin:

Paul Shin is the first Korean American to be elected to the Washington State Legislature. He is also a member of the Washington State Senate, Democratic Party. He was born in Korea and orphaned at the age of four, living on the streets of Seoul begging for food. Then in 1950 when the Korean War broke out, he became a houseboy to a group of U.S. Army officers. One of the officers named Ray Paull, adopted Shin and then they moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. There he completed his G.E.D, despite knowing little English and never having been educated in Korea. In addition, he later earned a bachelors degree in Political Science, an MPIA , and an MA and PhD.

(Information from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paull_Shin)

On January 13, 2014, Paul,  announced he is leaving the Legislature. “Shin, 78, had already announced he was not seeking another term.  The senator moved up his departure, in Shin’s words, because “age, memory problems and a recent diagnosis of Alzheimer’s make it impossible for me to represent my constituents in a manner they deserve.”

(Quote taken from: http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2014/01/07/state-sen-paull-shin-resigns-from-legislature/)

“How I Met Your Mother” TV show:

“How I Met Your… uh oh! CBS’ hit series How I Met Your Mother angered the Asian community this week after the sitcom re-casted three of its white actors in yellowface and had them dress in stereotypically Asian garb, in a controversial episode that aired Monday, Jan. 13.”

(Quote taken from: “http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/how-i-met-your-mother-creators-apologize-for-racist-asian-episode-2014161)

The episode was titled “Slapsgiving 3: Slapointment in Slapmarra”. The episode starts out with one of the main characters, Marshall Erikson, sitting in a bar explaining how he was in Shanghai, China, a year in order to learn how to accurately deliver a slap to the other main character Stinson. To make matters even worse, three “masters” that included cast members, Alyson Hannigan, Cobie Smulders, and Josh Radner, then taught the character Marshal Erikson the “art of the epic slap.” The thing is, this TV show is hugely successful. Now what does that say about American culture and what we view as ok/normal?

What is the Asian American connection to World War Two stragglers: Even though Japan surrendered on September 1, 1945, World War Two did not truly end for many Japanese until years later. As a reminder, during World War Two the Japanese Empire was more than 20 million square miles long, including land and sea. In isolated areas soldiers continued fighting unaware that the war had ended, with others reusing to believe in Japan’s defeat. They either fought in groups or conducted guerilla warfare. The name for these men was “Japanese Holdouts, or Stragglers”.

(Information found from: http://www.wanpela.com/holdouts/)

Hiroo Onoda, the last Japanese imperial soldier died on January 16, 2014, at the age of 91. He hid in the Philippines jungle for twenty-nine years after World War Two had ended. Onoda was an intelligence officer who came out of hiding in March 1974, on his 52nd birthday. Only when his former commander flew to the Philippines to reverse his 1945 orders to stay behind and spy on American troops did Hiroo surrender.

 

(Information found from: http://news.msn.com/obits/japans-last-wwii-straggler-soldier-91-dies?ocid=ansnews11)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strangers from a Different Shore book notes:

“A year later, lawmakers abolished the national origins restrictions and reopened the gates to Asian immigrants. Finally, racial restrictions had been removed from immigration legislation, and the Statue of Liberty had become a symbol of hope for all people” p. xiv

“As Asian American told an interviewer: “I am a second generation Korean American without any achievements in life and I have no education. What is it you want from me? My life is not worth telling to anyone” p. 9

-Grandchildren/great grandchildren feel like guests in America.

-Justified using Chinese labor in Hawaii by believing it was duty to cultivate land.

“Managers hoped the Hawaiians would be “naturally jealous” of the foreigners and “ambitious” to out to do them” p. 25

“Diversity was deliberately designed to break strikes and repress unions” p. 26

1929- Filipino farmers replace Mexican’s in California

“Most Japanese migrants came from the farming class and were not desperately poor” p. 46

“In the exclusionist imagination, however, the “strangers” from Asia seemed to pose a greater threat than did blacks and Indians. Unlike blacks, the Chinese were seen as intelligent and competitive; unlike Indians, they represented an increasing rather than a decreasing population. As an industrial army of aliens from the East, they threatened to displace and force white workers into poverty” p. 103

1869- transcontinental railroad complete. Chinese move into cities.

“Many planters did not want the children of plantation laborers to be educated beyond the sixth or eighth grade. They wanted the schools to offer vocational training, not literature courses” p. 172

Oct. 11, 1906- San Francisco Board of Education directed school principles to send all Chinese and Korean children to oriental school.

April 18, 1906- earthquake fires destroy almost all of the municipal records and opened the way for a new Chinese immigration. Chinese men could now claim they had been born in San Francisco and as citizens they could bring their wives to the United States. p. 234

“Koreans thought of themselves as exiles not immigrants” p. 285

“The war had given them the opportunity to get out of Chinatown, don army uniforms, and be sent overseas, where they felt “they were part of the patriotic United States war machine out to do battle with the enemy” p. 373. Chinese are now seen as friends/accepted by America.