The connections I noticed from the Dave’ reading of chapters 1,2,5,15 is the notion that music is transnational. It can be used as a way to express oneself in a unique fashion and throw away pre-conceived notions of a culture and the stereotypes with which goes along with being associated with a cultural group. It can also be used as a tool to market stereotypes and create pre-conceived notions of cultural groups. Furthermore I noticed how it is a form of expression for artist who want to set themselves apart, or to do the opposite to link themselves to a place or culture which they are linked too.

For example we see in the rave culture the popularity of “Goa Trance” which is associated with India and South Asia while its origins really have nothing to do with South Asian culture. Furthermore these “Party goers” often dress up in costumes that are “Oriental” in representation, or are also subjected to advertisements for these parties that contain Hindu or Buhdist depictions. The marketing display and marketing of the exotic and the use of labeling is depicted in the essay regarding Cibo Matto a Japanese hip hop/ alternative girl band who can be seen as debunking the notion of Japanese female pop bands as exotic novelty. What is great about Cibo Matto is how they are shaking up these “racist and sexist lables” attatched to Asian American woman. From both of these chapters we see the images and labels created in regards to Asian Americans in the world of music, and also how artist like Cibo Matto can express themselves in a different light to shed the images that coincide with their race and their sex.

Music can also be a tool of connecting people to others or to a certain place. We see this in rave culture as this young group of individuals are using rave culture as a way to connect with others and has formed an international group who identify with this newly formed culture. Also this can be seen in the chapter on transnational Vietnamese music, which can provide feelings of nostalgia for those who fled Vietnam following the end of the Vietnam War. It connects them back to the homes they left behind and reminds them of elements of their country that they miss.

Overall I noticed how music can be seen as a way of creating stereotypes but also as a tool to undue those same stereotypes, as well as being an outlet for expression and connectedness with others.

Chapter 1 – Trance-Formations: Orientalism and Cosmopolitanism in Youth Culture

Never heard the term of “Goa Trance” until viewing this chapter. It could probably be because I’ve never gone a rave or that type of dance before, and probably never will. It was strange that they used all the Hindu imagery for these types of events, to impose a “trance” when entering these types of parties. Sure they might have involved some sort of transient meditation, but not in the form that includes loud music, drugs, and not-so-bright behavior. This thing apparently happens with young people, around the ages of teenagers and young adults, and is giving them a misconception of South Asian culture.

Chapter 2 – Making Transnational Vietnamese Music: Sounds of Home and Resistance

It seems as though the music of Viet Kieu has lost some of its appeal over the years. The main point I saw in this chapter was that regardless of your origin, either born in Vietnam or a Vietnamese American, as an artist one should just find an audience to entertain, even if they are the complete opposite of what you think. There was all this talk about the anti-Communists, mainly consisting of Vietnamese Americans, shutting down singers and musicians from Vietnam since they believe the music of Viet Kieu promotes Communism in some way. The same could be said for Vietnamese Americans trying out their musical talents at Vietnam. All these artists want to do is demonstrate their skills, but due to public pressures they don’t really get that oppurtunity. Fortunately it seems that as time progresses on, the pressures lessen and these musical artists are able to do what they originally intended to do: perform.

Chapter 5 – “Pappy’s House”: “Pop” Culture and the Revaluation of a Filipino American “Sixty-Cents” in Guam

I was born in Guam, but my memories of living there are a blur. My cousins still live there, so I guess I still have family over there. Anyways, this chapter was very confusing to me. The term “Pappy” kept popping up in the reading. I assumed it was intended for the father of the narrator, but as the author mentions at the end, this is a possibility. At least I know now why my family decided to choose Guam as a place to live in at the beginning. Never thought Guam reminded them about the Philippines, despite how much smaller it is. It took me awhile to understand the picture on p.106 with the “Guam” person and the American man on the “Advancement” stand. If I’m right, I think it signifies how Guam, this land populated by Chamorros and Filipinos, is finally “measuring up” to what the American mainland is like.

Chapter 15 – Cibo Matto’s Stereotype A: Articulating Asian American Hip Hop

This is my first time hearing about the band Cibo Matto and Shonen Knife. Never thought that food could be used as a way to represent life and culture. What kind of threw me off was how the bands recognized themselves. Though I’m not quite sure which exact band it was, one of them identified as not being feminists, but believing in feminist ideals while the other band was the complete opposite. After seeing a few songs they did, I must admit they did not turn out to be the kind of band I imagined. It seemed surreal, such as the chicken song, but others said that their genre of music has changed as of lately. Maybe it was the time that inspired their type of approach to music, such as social conditions or what was popular back then.

I’m not going to lie – I think that Shilpa Davé is a little full of it in her article, “Apu’s Brown Voice.” She expects way too much out of both a fictional character and ignores the realities of Indian emigration to the United States.

Davé argues that Apu’s accent – his ‘brown voice’ – is used to set him apart, to identify his outsider nature to Springfield. Well, duh. The character is defined as growing up in India, having moved to the United States as an adult. She also lays out clearly how Indian English is a different variant of English, similar to Australian English or British English. It’s natural that the character would speak the language of his birth country, Indian English, so I don’t know how that could be offensive.

Technically, I would concede that Apu’s character overshadows the diversity that encompasses Indian Americans and the Indian diaspora. That’s almost on par with saying John Wayne doesn’t represent the diversity of America or James Bond doesn’t represent the diversity of the United Kingdom. It’s also an impossible task. Let us remember that India today has a population of 1 billion citizens, with such a linguistic diversity that 22 languages have a legal status in the country. I think that it’s next to impossible to represent such a diversity through one character.

Davé makes a point to mention the political diversity of India and Pakistan in order to judge Apu’s accent:

[Azaria] learned his accent “from listening. In Los Angeles, going to 7-11s, hearing Indian and Pakistani clerks.” Interestingly, as Al Jean’s quotation shows, even the writers… cannot distinguish between India (a democracy that has a largely Hindu population) and Pakistan (a military-based government that is primarily Muslim).

She doesn’t, however, mention the linguistic commonalities that they share. Linguists, for example, would argue that India and Pakistan share a language in common with two different standards. Both derived from the same root language, Hindi is spoken in India, written with a Sanskrit-derived script, using Sanskrit roots to coin new words, while Urdu is spoken in Pakistan, written with a modified Arabic script, using Arabic and Persian to coin new words. It’s entirely possible, then, for Apu to have the same accent whether he be from India or Pakistan. (Davé also forgets to mention in this section, regardless of the slip up that a writer may have made in an interview, that Apu is clearly a Hindu, thus from India, as shown by the statue of Ganesha, a Hindu god.)

Davé laments the popular perception of Indians as well educated (329). What she leaves out is that Indian Americans, the class that most Americans are likely to encounter in their everyday life, are well educated. About 40% of Indian Americans have a post-graduate degree – a marvelous, and unique feat considering only 20% of Indians have graduated high school. Why is there the disparity? Money. It would take the average Indian one year’s salary, approximately USD 1000, to afford a one-way plane ticket from India to the United States. This means that modern (post-1965) Indian immigrants are self-selected in a manner based on who can afford to emigrate, and who cannot. In other words, as Indian American author Sukethu Mehta writes, “If India shared a border with the U.S. and it were possible for its poorest residents to cross over on foot, we would fast cease to be the model minority, and talk-show hosts would rail against us just as they do against Mexicans.”

So in other words, you can’t just leave out facts that aren’t supportive of your argument, Ms. Davé.

The biggest portion of reading that stood out to me from Tuesday was about Asian Americans and their association with the Online world. The section mainly covered alllooksame.com which involved categorizing Asians into either Korean, Chinese or Japanese based on one facial picture. Our seminar group discussed how even with race coinciding with geological factors that play into physical aesthetics, it is impossible to be certain of someone’s ethnicity based on a picture. The book further delved into this topic with race mixing of Asian population such as a Japanese-Korean or some one that is Chinese born in Japan etc etc.

With the general topic of internet culture at hand we talked about the anonymity of cyberspace and how people can choose to portray any kind of person they want without repercussions. Which could be a reason why the Asian population has the highest Internet usage of any other group, including whites. Any kind of societal pressure of stereotypes and model minority can be abolished in the online world where one’s identity is masked in order to have discussion with others based on content alone rather than race/sex.

The reading further provides examples of minorities who could point out which Asian race is which (That’s a Korean. That’s a Chinese. etc.) Though I agree that those involved with a group more so than others will notice things such as attire and style the pure physical aesthetics cannot be just tied to a race. Personally I scored an 11 out of 18 on the test which apparently is a high score which I found ironic due to my stance on the idea of racial categorization.

As reading this chapter, I thought that is was ironic. The idea of a popular TV show and one of characters of color, especially Indian American is played by a American actor and he is sounding just like an Indian, but some may not know this.  I didn’t know of this because I don’t watch TV that often, but now reading about it in a published book and that was a surprise itself to me. In the beginning of the chapter where it says,” Apu vents his frustration about falsely posturing in both dress and accent as someone who is culturally and stereotypically represented as American. Also in the book, “Although Indian independence was achieved over fifty years ago, the image of Indians in the world is that of the highly educated English speaking immigrant.” Who says that Indians can’t speak English just as well as a American English speaking person. Just saying that underestimating a nation is not always the best thing to do in general. Every nation I know have their own set of skills and talents that maybe some may not be able to accomplish and to have something as a TV show actor an Indian American actor at that is being played by a American. Just saying that everyone deserves a shot in this world even if its one part because he probably made a bundle on that show because its gotten popular in the world of TV. Everyone deserves a shot.

Similar to The Black Eyed Peas band, Cibo Matto also uses music to “reclaim subjectivity on their own terms” (Dave, p. 299).

“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” (Dave, p. 299).

For instance Cibbo Matto “attempts to negotiate the double legacy of racism and sexism in the American popular music industry” (Dave, p. 293). They combat the racism and challenge stereotypes through self-identifying as Asian American.

“By doing so, they challenge the traditional idea of Asian Americans as individuals born in the United States who have assimilated culturally and can speak English fluently. They point instead to a new kind of “Asian American” represented by the growing number of transnational immigrants from East Asia who seem to be able to negotiate and bridge more easily the “Asian” and “American” elements of their identity’s.” (Dave, p. 298)

Cibbo Matto also combats the sexist American popular music industry by identifying as feminists, never categorizing themselves as a female band, and verbally pointing out in interviews the sexism in which they face.

And as for the Black Eyed Peas, they fight against racism through their lyrics, music videos, and priding themselves on being a multi-ethnic band. For example, in ”The APL Song” music video, an older Filipino man is in an American nursing home grieving over the loss of his family and culture. In the Filipino culture putting a family member in a nursing home is considered un-loyal and should never even be thought of. However, in western culture it is seen as normal. Therefore, this man clearly lost a huge part of his culture and family.

Chapter15 -Cibo Matto’s Stereotype A

This chapter is so attractive for me that I enjoyed reading it. CM’s songs contains mixing different culture genre unlike SK in order to be unique and create new image toward Asian American female musician.

“CM members, on the other hand, are quick to identify as feminists and to recognize the sexist and racist stereotypes the press sometimes has conferred on them.”(Dave, p.295)

They dissented from image toward Asian American female such as  the expressions of female sexuality, power, and vulnerability. They wanted to be valued on the same level with male musicians or Americans.

In addition, Chibo Matto self-identified as Asian American even though they were not born in the USA.

“He defines hip hop as a social movement in that it ‘enable its participants to imagine themselves as part of a larger community’…..”(Dave, p.298)

By using hip hop that has diversity in the lyrics and styles and identifying as Asian American,  Chibo Matto tried to create different style outside the box unlike stereotyped Asian American female musicians’ image.

Chapter2 -Making Transnational Vietnamese Music

Click here to view the embedded video.

I found this music on You-Tube, which describes about Viet Kieu.

The story of Kiet Kieu music reminds me of the story of other Asian Americans because they sing about nostalgia. Vietnamese immigrants came to the US because the unstable society in Vietnam after the war like Chinese, Japanese and so on. It is interesting that Viet Kieu music is not only popular among both in Viet Nam and abroad but also be composed of historical and political messages. As Vietnamese government is afraid of  import of Kiet Kieu music, Kiet Kieu music has very important role to understand Vietnamese political and social situations.

“Considering the circumstances of the Viet Kieu departure from Viet Nam and their desire to hold onto their history and sense of nationhood, it was no wonder that music from the years continued to have a popular following long after the war had ended.”(Dave, p.36)

 According to this quotation,I understand that music is suitable tool to convey to next generations and easy to become widely used among all ages.

Chapter1 -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.”(Dave, p.13)

 Although Asian people are seen as strangers or “otherness” in America, Asian icons are thought as cool by white people. I’ve thought about this topic before. I wondered why there was Buddha at club even in America… The point of view toward Asian iconography as cool, cute, and psychedelic, and spiritual etc.. is different from previous image among the youth.

Chapter5 -’PAPPY’S HOUSE’

This chapter is really confusing to me… Anyway, I did not know there are some ways to call mother and father, which mean different from each other despite these sound similar for me….