Tag Archives: Lee

Week 4, Tuesday. Film representations & Lee.

**Note: For my other thoughts on the end of Lee’s Orientals, go here!**

One of the reoccurring themes throughout the end readings in Lee’s Orientals, the 1988 documentary Slaying the Dragon, and 1993 film Joy Luck Club was the theme of opportunity. There are the opportunities perceived to be had in America, influencing immigration, as well as the opportunities that existed and were created by the Asian immigrant and Asian American community. But even the triumphant success of creating new opportunities in a past time can now be looked at with a more critical lens. Because the opportunities now have grown and because the relationship between Asian Americans and representation has changed (albeit, arguably not enough) we look at the past through eyes that have only known the future.For example, when there were no other starring roles for Asian American women it would be an achievement to play a role that, in hindsight, was problematic and stereotypes Asian women. We saw this through Nany Kwan’s characters Suzie Wong in The World of Suzie Wong and Linda Low in Flower Drum Song. Both of these characters were discussed and analyzed as negative representation these roles created in Orientals as well as Slaying the Dragon. However, in Slaying the Dragon Nancy Kwan speaks out about how there were no other starring roles for her as an Asian American actress; her defense comes from the success of any representation. With this in mind, it is important to consider how activism changes for the time and  when creating a relationship between theory and history to balance our modern, critical lens and our understand-of-the-past lens.

Another theme that I found was that of requiring a white person in a film as the lead so the “audience can identify with them [the white lead]“. (This was influenced by the reference to Farewell to Manzanar.) This is very telling about who movies are made for– if the audience needs someone to relate to and that relatable person must be white, then who is assumed to be the audience? Who is it meant to be consumed by?

This reminded me of a current, popular series that has been released through on Netflix’s original network, Orange is the New Black. For those who are unfamiliar, here is the description of the show from Netflix:

“From the creator of “Weeds” comes a heartbreaking and hilarious new series set in a women’s prison. Piper Chapman’s wild past comes back to haunt her, resulting in her arrest and detention in a federal penitentiary. To pay her debt to society, Piper trades her comfortable New York life for an orange prison jumpsuit and finds unexpected conflict and camaraderie amidst an eccentric group of inmates.”

What this description does not reveal is that the majority of “eccentric inmates” are Women of Color. The creator, Jenji Kohan, talks a little about why she uses white Piper Chapman as the focal point of the show:

“In a lot of ways Piper was my Trojan Horse. You’re not going to go into a network and sell a show on really fascinating tales of black women, and Latina women, and old women and criminals. But if you take this white girl, this sort of fish out of water, and you follow her in, you can then expand your world and tell all of those other stories. But it’s a hard sell to just go in and try to sell those stories initially. The girl next door, the cool blonde, is a very easy access point, and it’s relatable for a lot of audiences and a lot of networks looking for a certain demographic. It’s useful.”

The importance of this quote is that it allows us to see how those who are making the popular shows feel: they can sell a stereotype or a body but without a white vehicle, they cannot sell a voice.

I thought of Joy Luck Club as a good example of allowing Women of Color to use their own voice in telling their stories and a good example of differing opportunities. It also showed us a brief example of the influence that Sayonara and Flower Drum Song had and have on both the western lens of Asian American women and the internalized feelings Asian American women have of themselves. In the beginning, during the piano receital scene, there is a brief clip where another young girl is singing “I Enjoy Being A Girl” from Flower Drum Song (a scene shown more than once in Slaying the Dragon). The Asian/ Asian American casting of the main women (while not all Chinese) allowed for us to look at a certain kind of representation, the influence of other representations, and the total possibility to have an all Asian leading cast to tell a beautiful, heartbreaking story.

Also, fun fact: Nancy Kwan is said to have “replaced” France Nuyen (Ying Ying in Joy Luck Club) in the film The Life of Suzie Wong. I fond this to be interesting because it shows us the “small world” of Asian American roles and actresses/actors.

Class Notes 1/31

bound·a·ry

[boun-duh-ree, -dree] noun, plural bound·a·ries. 1. something that indicates boundaries or limits; a limiting or bounding line.

In class today we related Slanted Screen, Orientals, and Saving Face together by relating them to the term “boundary.” Above I gave Dictionary.com‘s definition of boundary  and in class, we defined boundaries as a division, borders, or lines. All three relate to boundaries of sexuality, opportunity, traditions, interracial boundaries and more.

We eventually moved onto East Main Street and the different chapters. Each chapter has a different topic, but they all have the same theme of having these boundaries given to them.

The first chapter we covered was chapter 6, “Within Each Crack/A Story.” This chapter covers the “political economy of queering Filipino American pasts” (117). The title can mean various things, like the cracks in our hans, or cracks in a story, or even a butt crack.

queer

[kweer] 

adjective, queer·er, queer·est.

1. strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint; unusually different; singular: a queer notion of justice.

2.of a questionable nature or character; suspicious; shady: Something queer about the language  of theprospectus kept investors away.
3.not feeling physically right or well; giddy, faint, or qualmish: to feel queer.
4.mentally unbalanced or deranged.
5. Slang: Disparaging and Offensive.

a. homosexual
 b. effeminate; unmanly.

Queer has many different meanins; however, in today’s society, most people only understand “queer” as the derogatory term. In this chapter, though, queer is actually used in both the strange or odd conventional viewpoint and the homosexual meaning. On page 125 it states, “‘They like you because you eat dog,’” obviously this is a queer view of it being something that would seem mentally unbalanced in the American culture;  furthermore, this essay tries to use “‘queer domesticity’ to characterize pre- 1965 communitities of Filipino laborers”(119). In a sense, some habits of Filipino culture can be seen queer to the American eyes, yet what Filipino had to go through is quite queer itself insofaras to America sees the Philippines as “little brown children” (124). As the Filipino community tries to assimilate to America, America has set this boundary in which they cannot cross.

The second chapter we covered was chapter 10 “Miss Cherry Blossom Meets Mainstream America.” This chapter covered Japanes American second generation (Nisei) beauty pageants and how they tried to assimilate to American cultures. There was a boundary already set up against the Japanese-Amreican culture to prevent them from being part of the American culture so creating pageants that “mimiced” mainstream America (208). Their way of mimicing the American culture was their way to prove to the whites that they were trying to assimilate, “by dressing the queen in western garb and promoting her keen and usually native-born ability to speak English, the community highlighted the “Americanness” of Japanese Americans…They too could claim to be ‘All American Girls’ by mimicking and adopting hegemonic American cultural values such as innocence, sexual purtity, honesty, and caring” (207). Instead of being able to cross this boundary of beauty pageants, Nisei pageants ended up making a new boundary to acceptance of a new kind of beauty pageant of Japanese American culture.

The last chapter we covered for the day was chapter 14, “How to Rehabilitate a Mulatto.”

mu·lat·to

[muh-lat-oh, -lah-toh, myoo-] 

noun, plural mu·lat·toes, mu·lat·tos.

1. Anthropology . (not in technical use) the offspring of one white parent and one black parent.
2. Older Use: Often Offensive. a person who has both black and white ancestors.
adjective
3. of a light-brown color.
As most people know, Tiger Woods is a “mulatto” and a famous golfer. Golfing is seen as a rich, “white” sport, Woods has already crossed that boundary by just being part Black. He does not call himself that; instead, he calls himself  a “‘Cablinasian,’ Black, Indian, and Asian” (222). He does not refer to himself as just one race, though most people see him just as a Black golfer. He crosses the boundary of identifying himself as an “African American” or “Asian American” he instead, refers to a combination of his ethnicities. There was also an exerpt in the book about Nike and the commericals they aired. Tiger had an ad where a group of children of all different races stated, “I am Tiger Woods.” Instead of having one person wishing to be that idol of a certain race or ethnicity, Wood’s commercial has portrayed a variety of cultures. This erases the lines created by racism and instead of categorizing the races, the races are all together as one.

Week 4, Thursday II. Crisis within Films

The Midlife Crisis.

Slanted Screen: the crisis lies in stereotypes and the negative portrayals of Asian American men in films. However, like Slaying the Dragon, hindsight is 20/20, especially when the opportunities for Asian Americans in lead roles were nonexistent. At the birth of the movies these artists were groundbreaking in their contributions to the films. And while the racism, sexism, and other discrimination existed it isn’t until later, during it’s “midlife” when people begin to take these roles and plots apart, analyze them closely, compare them to history, and then critique them. Orientals is in, itself, an example of this midlife crisis. With Lee’s descriptions of movies such as Year of the Dragon and Rising Sun he illustrates the ways in which Asian American men are still misrepresented, underrepresented, and in need of a midlife crisis.

Saving Face: this movie moves past and breaks other stereotypes, such representing Asian American male sexuality (the many dates that Wil’s mother goes on, Cho’s attraction, and Little Yu’s surprise role) and the role of two queer Chinese American young women. While Wil’s character is a hard-working surgeon (at the beginning of the film the head surgeon says she will be Chief of Surgery by the time she is 45- five years before he stepped into the role) she is also seen as a multi-layered, complex woman. Other than the few, quick scenes in which she is seen in scrubs or her beeper is going off the majority of the film is focused on her as a daughter and a lover. This film also pushes back against the stereotype that women need to be put in physical danger or pressured situations to find love and be saved.

So here it is. The midlife crisis of Asian American films; without forgetting the contributions that Sessua Hayakawa or Bruce Lee made in showing other Asian Americans that representation is possible, it is now time to look at how those representations are limited and how the presence of Asian Americans on screen can (and needs to) still grow. Likewise, in Slanted Screen one of the people interviewed (the only women-who was white-) said that “there aren’t any good roles for Asian men in film.” I had a problem with this because it assumes that Asian men only have specific roles and unless those specific roles are written there is no part for them. As Lee points out in Orientals, the roles written for Asian American men were roles that subjected them to embodying the stereotypes that white America had projected onto them. Similarly, by writing “Asian roles” the projection of what an Asian role is and what the lead hero role is, recognizing the pattern in both of them to influence our acceptance of these stereotypes. On page 220 in Lee, there is an analysis of film Falling Down‘s main character and how his excessive reactions become comical.  Lee comments the audience is prompted to laugh at his reactions which becomes comedic despite his obvious, unnecessary rage. By “writing these roles” for white men and then writing the role for his antagonist and casting an Asian American man we are training the audience to desensitize themselves and accept the protagonist as funny. (See: Gran Torino.)

Saving Face

Click here to view the embedded video.

Today we talked about CRISIS and what role it plays in Asian American culture. Overall, I feel like there is a crisis within the Asian realm of media. For instance, in today’s movie earlier, we watched The Slanted Screen: Asian Men in Film and Television. In the documentary, there was a typical stereo-type of Asian men being either being a bad guy or some sort of “kung-fu” master. There was a famous actor, Sessue Hayakawa, who was the first Asian-American actor to incorporate himself in interracial relationships. Though it was a ground-breaking move for Asians in media, it still has not helped too much in today’s society. Keep in mind that these films were made many decades ago; however, movies today in 2014, are still very similar. Yes, there are Asian protagonists, yet there are still typical Asian stereo-types portrayed. In Romeo Must Die, Jet Li is Asian and he is very good at martial arts and the main female role, Aaliyah (African-American) does not end up with Romeo who essentially saves her. The title says ROMEO, so it implies a Romeo and Juliet sort of a tone, but they do not fall in love. Though that it just an implication, there are still stereo-types of Asian American men with knowing karate and being the bad guy in today’s society, creating a crisis of Asian American identity within media.

In addition to the stereo-types, there are also different standards that Asian-American men are held up to in America. There was a snippet of one of the Actors from The Slanted Screen about Bruce Lee and how in America, he had to keep his mask and clothes on to do his physical scenes; however, in China, he can reveal himself and take his shirt off to do his fighting scenes. I thought that this was a crisis in a way that, Lee’s films ended up being famous here in America anyways. Also, it sets up this standard that Asian’s cannot reveal their true-selves in a way. So again, a crisis with who Asian American’s are.

We also watched a movie, Saving Face, which is about a lesbian Asian woman who takes in her mother who is pregnant and will not tell who the father is. Their two roles already are seen as “disgraced” in a typical Asian culture. In this movie, this also creates a crisis again with identity. The characters do not stand as stereo-typed Asian women in a crisis with playing cheesy stereo-types, but a crisis in which they do not fit within typical Asian cultures.

Thinking about the title of the movie I see it relating to keeping the “face” or reputation of both Ma’s and Wil’s family. First off, Ma marries someone who she does not truly love and ends up having Wil. She marries this man to make her father happy and to keep the family’s successful reputation up. So he ends up dying and she somehow gets pregnant! Who is the daddy? Throughout the movie she does not say a thing. Ma ends up getting herself in this arranged marriage to, again, make her father proud of her and to keep his reputation up. However, Wil finds out that her mothers first marriage was not out of love, but business. At the end, we find out it was Little Yu that she had an affair with. And the mother accepts that she must follow her heart instead of instructions and orders.

Wil is a lesbian. Her mother, in the past, found her with a girl but did not say anything about it. Her mother ended up pushing Wil to find a man and get married. Her mother tried to cover up the possibility that Wil could be gay. This causes Wil to be very timid around her  mother about her social life. For instance, when her neighbor, Jay (who is black), comes over her mother makes really racist remarks against him in Chinese, very subtly though. This causes Wil to be aggravated. Then when Vivian pushes Wil to let her meet Ma, Ma accuses Vivian of not liking black people because she did not want to date Jay. When Ma acts up about Vivian dating Jay, it was as if Ma knew they were dating, but did not want to admit it to herself. Wil eventually comes out to her mother and tells her that that was who she was.

In this film, there was also some graphic nudity and identity crisis. I feel like this movie breaks a lot of ground as to having both leading roles to be disgraces to typical Asian cultures. This again, is like an identity crisis within their own culture. Both Ma and Wil cannot truly be themselves because it is not what their family wants to see. As for the graphic nudity, I find it amusing how before, Bruce Lee could not show himself without his shirt on here in the U.S., but now there are movies with lesbian sex scenes. Thus, there is media progress, but still identity crisis.

Overall, the films we had talked about today related to this crisis of stereo-typing and breaking ground in media.  In Slanted Screen there was discussion on both stereo-typing and making media history for Asian-American’s with interracial relationships and breaking the “bad guy” view of Asians. In Saving Face there is lesbian acceptance from her family and Ma’s father accepting her decision to be with who she truly loves. There is a lot of different scopes to see crisis; for instance, identity crisis within the media sphere and the identity crisis within one’s own culture. In the end I feel they all relate to identity and being able to make it within each individual environment.

Relating this all to Lee’s Orientals I would have to bring it back to stereo-types. So in Slanted Screen the Asian actors could not be “sexual” they can be romantic, but that’s it. So in Slanted Screen we saw Asian men as romantics, flirts, or sexual-less. Opposed to Saving Face Ma is a woman who has sex with someone, ends up getting pregnant, and does not share who the father is; thus, giving the stereo-type of Asian women has sly, secretive, and hyper-sexual. Wil, too, gets intimate with Vivian a few times, but acts very timid in public; therefore, leaving the audience to see both Vivian and Wil as these secret sexual beings.Then none of the men in the movie are scene as coming off as promiscuous in any way. This relates to the crisis of Lee introducing the sexual views that American’s have put on Asians. It still lives on in today’s media. So, how do we, as a society fix the media? I suppose that question is a crisis within itself.

The Perfect Woman

 

 

She would be exotic, mysteriously sensual, obedient, and pamper her man like a real woman should. In Slaying the Dragon: Asian Women In U.S. most of the Asian women were seen in that tone. Whether the character they played was evil, good, or a stand-by character, they definitely got the attention of the white man. One of the few things that was introduced at the beginning of the movie was how many men commented on how Asian women were “exotic” and in movie clips the women were wearing fitted dresses with slits half way up each side. Then, there was this clip about Suzy Wong and how she was seen as this very sensual being that created this trend of the long haired, party Asian girl. I feel like she portrayed the mysterious sensual role that most Asian women have in most movies. Lastly, Sayonara portrayed the image of Asian women having this role of pampering their husbands and being obedient to them. Overall, all these qualities create this image of the stereo-typed Asian woman.

In 47 Ronin there were 2 main women who played the different sides of the Asian woman stereotype. The woman that Kai fell in love with, Mika, portrayed the obedient, quiet, and polite role; on the other hand, the Witch was sensual-like with her graceful movements, she was very exotic, and pampered her master. In Joy Luck Club the June’s aunties, Ying Ying, An Mei, and Lindo, were young Asian girls who broke the stereotypes that were presented in Slaying the Dragon. For instance, Ying Ying married a man who was a cheater and could careless about him, yet she stayed in the relationship and did what he asked. An Mei and Lindo were like the outspoken ones. An Mei spoke out against her Father and “Big Mother” at her mother’s funeral and Lindo lied to her mother-in-law and everyone else present to get out of a marriage. They were all obedient; however, none of them grew up to still be obedient (in a way to roll over and do what they were told), they all became independent women.

Lastly, in Orientals I feel like the stereotypes of Asians in general, were created by the media. For instance, the “Third Sex” was a suppressing label for Asians. How this relates to the stereotypes of women, is how media affects the views of people. Everyone now has an expectation for Asian women to be sexual deviants, for pampering slaves, or Asian men to be this weird in-between sexual being. Overall, stereotypes have shaped peoples view of Asians in today’s society.

 

Week 4, Monday: Lee pg 1-179

The first 179 pages of Lee’s Orientals repeated some information for me and I found that there was a bit of repetition (like how there was an ENTIRE PARAGRAPH, word-for-word, repeated on page 66 from page 65…?). Some of the repeated information felt more like reiteration, especially when it came to Acts or laws and dates and I appreciated that, because I feel very confident in explaining a certain Act or situation but am not always as confident on the exact title or year. However, even with the repeat information (whether appreciated and less personally needed) I found myself wanting to highlight and add marginalia to basically half of every page. The idea of organizing all of my ideas for these six chapters is daunting and overwhelming but also exciting. I doubt I will be able to include everything (and some of it my be fragmented and frantic) but here it goes…

Immediately, Lee introduces the book with a modern example of yellowface and quickly explains the “six faces of the Oriental” (page 8) as well as begins to grab hold of the purposeful difference between Oriental and Asian. This was a difference that I have never encountered in depth. In fact, a lot of the ideas and history that was brought up in the reading was more in depth because it focused on the Asian American Representation history instead of the immigration, day-to-day history.

For example, I have most definitely heard of Barnum and Bailey’s circus but have never thought of the origin or how it could have been developed through discrimination, especially racism and ableism (nor was the term “Siamese Twins” ever analyzed in previous readings). The discussion about the history and development of minstrelsy in relation to multiple People of Color in America was also an in-depth first. This history of yellowface, blackface, redface, and brownface is so deeply apart of American culture that it continuously pops up in our modern media and entertainment. Here’s a video I found by searching “fake Asian accent [TW: yellowface, racism]. In the video a non-Japanese/ non-Asian man dresses as a geisha and uses a fake accent as a promotional vehicle. And while the book clearly gives evidence to how yellowface has had much acclaim and was widely accepted (illustrated through the song in the 1880s as seen on page 37 and into the 1900s, page 70; then into 1957′s Sayonara Cuban actor dons yellowface for character who dons “whiteface”; and finally into last week’s analysis on How I Met Your Mother.) The difference now, one may argue, is that people are more critical of this and don’t accept it nearly as readily. There is more push-back and more the dynamic of racism has definitely changed. However, people are still using yellowface to be comedic. People are still viewing it as an acceptable thing to do. Even if they know it will “get a rise out of people”

Part of this is explained in the racist excerpt from March 1867′s edition of the Springfield Republic, “Nature seemed to have furnished them [Chinese immigrants] with that particular appendage [braided queue] for the benefit of the Anglo-Saxon” (page 39). Another way to look at is the entitlement of white consumption (which is later illustrated through the changing of True Womenhood into New Womenhood and how the New Women was defined not by her Victorian motherly traits but by her desire and capitalist consumption as seen on page 177. This also touches on the male-centered homophobia and homoerotica that the Oriental eventually stood for). White consumption which not only is seen through the appropriation and aggressive stealing of culture but also in the entitlement to consume citizenship, land, jobs, and women.

We see examples of consuming citizenship and land in the history of not allowing immigrants to own land unless they become citizens but denying any Asian immigrant the right to naturalization through the Naturalization Act of 1790. Likewise, we see the consumption of land through the villainous depiction of created-space, such as Chinatowns. This is seen in Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu series (page 114).

We see the example of consuming jobs through the rivalry of Irish immigrants and Chinese immigrants. As two minorities (of the time) that were pitted against each other, there was high tension for Irish immigrants to prove themselves as white and reclaim the jobs they were not given based on discrimination. On page 65, Lee explains how white workers and Chinese workers worked together but there was still major steps taken to expel the Chinese workers.

And we see the consumption of women (both Asian and white) through the Page Act of 1870  which interrogated Chinese women who wished to immigrate yet there was an illegal trade happening which forced Chinese women into sex work (page 89). Media such as Poor Ah Toy or magazines (page 97) influenced white women to view their interactions with Chinese men (which- at the time- would still be mostly in house) as service workers as something to be weary and suspicious about. On page 129, Lee explains how the “dirty old man” trope was created with Asian men in mind and how the seemingly-innocent stranger became the one true fear for women (whereas domestic violence and abuse of all types were overlooked). Because white women who married men of color would lose their citizenship this effectively kept white women single for white men but also internalized the idea that there was something unnatural or wrong about marrying an Asian man.

Also noted: the TESC faculty Stephanie Coontz reference (page 86).

Readings 1-105 Lee

“Race is a mode of placing cultural meaning on the body. Yellowface marks the Oriental as indelibly alien.” (2)

“This early definition of “alien” emphasized the unalterable nature of the foreign object and its threatening presence” (3)

For me I feel as though these two quotes go hand in hand together, the reason being is that because of the way Asians look, they are always going to be viewed as an alien no matter how assimilated they may become to White America. It shows that even back in the 1920′s and further, the Asian race has always been objectified, and viewed as a threat. Yet even now, in the year 2014, Asians are still being objectified and seen as a threat especially with the recent rise of the nation of China and the threats of North Korea. When Kim Jong-Il passed away in 2011, I heard from Korean Americans and read blogs from Korean Americans who were asked if they felt sad by the passing of Kim Jong-Il, even though they had no relation to him what so ever, but because they look Korean or because they have Korean blood in them, some people have tended to assume that they are related to a corrupted leader.

“Food habits, customs, and rules are central symbolic structures through which societies articulate identity; you are, symbolically at least, what you eat.” (38)

In this section, Lee discusses about how minstrel shows caricaturize  the Chinese. From what I gathered from it, I felt like it was a way for White Americans to mock the Chinese and others who were more unfamiliar to them such as African Americans as well. Luke Schoolcraft wrote a song titled “Heathen Chinee” and not only does it satirize the Chinese language, but it also makes gross assumptions about the Chinese diet.

I see this connection to the modern day culture with Asian cooking because not only am I still asked by dense people about whether or not I have tried dog but also there’s been this incredible rise in the popularity of Asian food such as sushi or pho. Even though most people come from a place of appreciation for the food, I have noticed that they tend to make assumptions about my everyday Japanese diet and am asked if sushi is something I eat on a daily basis with my family. There was one time in particular when I was riding the bus with a friend from Japan and someone on the bus noticed we were speaking Japanese, he began telling us that some years ago he had traveled to Japan and when he went, he visited Kyoto which is well known for their grilled foods like Takoyaki (octopus dumplings) and Okonomiyaki (savory pancakes), instead this young man tells us that he ate sushi every single day while he was in Japan including while he was visiting Kyoto. After that gentleman got off the bus, my friend and I turned to each other and said “mottainai” which roughly translates (within our context of use) “what a waste”. I make this connection because even though what Lee describes in the book as a terrible assumption, in 2014, those sorts of assumption aren’t too far off from what they were back in those days.

“Chinese workers were not the ideal, docile labor force the employers had hoped for.” (66)

“Within a few months, forty-three of them were summarily dismissed after rioting and attempting to murder their Chinese foreman…”(66)

“Chinese workers were themselves engaging in strikes and that many had left the plant.” (66)

Perhaps it’s the fact that I live in 2014 but so far anytime we have read historical texts about the experience of immigrants

Lisa, Bill and Ted's Not So Excellent Kind of Awkward Adventure Slapping People

Lisa, Bill and Ted’s Not So Excellent Kind of Awkward Adventure Slapping People

rioting at their jobs, I feel as though I have to throw my hands up in the air and yell: “Well what do they expect? If they keep treating human beings like garbage, regardless of what they look like on the outside, they are going to start a riot and get angry!” I just can’t wrap my brain around the idea of someone back in those days saying “well we need to fire the Irish because they are rioting towards unfair treatment in the factory so instead we will just bring in a different set of humans, treat them the same way we treated the Irish and then cross our fingers and hope that all bodes well.”

The logic of seeing those who were not white and equating them to not being humans is so preposterous because at the end of the day,  we all have a heart that beats and we all have emotions and we all have boundaries that can be crossed.

I wish I could go back in time with Bill and Ted and slap some of these people across the face for their logic in workers rights.

 

“Both mark the racial parameters that simultaneously created and constrained new possibilities for relations of desire, conflating the sexual with race, class, and gender formations.” (103)

I really appreciated the discussion in the book comparing and contrasting the stories of “The Haunted Valley” by Ambrose Bierce and “Poor Ah Toy” by Mary Mote. I was mostly appreciative of it because “The Haunted Valley” was about the murder of Ah Wee who was female whereas “Poor Ah Toy” was about the suicide of Ah Toy who was male. So reading about how the two compared with each other on how the controversy with love was more problematic because of their race rather than the fact that the relationship in and of itself is problematic.

I really loved that Lee points out that “…Ah Wee has neither voice nor agency while alive.”(95) Mostly because films in this day and age still have a hard time showcasing the inner conflicts within women and only giving them the choice of wanting a man’s love, when really women or human beings in general are just more complex than that.

I also questioned whether or not Fanny’s maternal love for Ah Toy is one of the first incidences in media where white people are portrayed as the white savior. Yet it’s also interesting that after Ah Toy is adopted by Fanny, he “…symbolically shifts him from an object of exchange, a commodity, into an imagined family member.” (100) I think it’s really sad that until someone who is white takes you in as their own, then that is when mixed raced people are no longer viewed as an object. However, with our current times, there has been an issue of interracial couples, primarily between whites and other ethnicity’s, that receives criticism because the person of the different ethnicity is seen as a trophy to their white partner. So even with Fanny adopting Ah Toy into the family, he isn’t really a part of the family especially when Fanny gets disgusted by his gestures.

 

 

Orientals ix-105

The first few chapters of Robert Lee’s book Orientals was very informative as to define the names that Asians were labeled. It reminded me of Walt in Gran Torino and how he would call his neighbors “gooks” all the time. It was, of course, meant to be very derogatory towards the Asians; however, later in the movie Thao ends up doing these chores for Walt. As Walt gets comfortable having Thao doing a few things for him I think Walt begins to see Thao as the “model minority” type, the perfect worker. The further I read, the more I understood that having Asians in that time was like a double-edged sword for the U.S.

I understood that having Asian was useful to the economy by labor getting done, but also threatening to the superior white race of the country. Asians were needed to work the fields, railroads, mines, and other various work places to build the U.S. However, the immigration of Asians gave the whites nostalgia. They felt intruded and that the Chinese ruined the nice “tone” of California (28). Thus, having the Asian immigrants come to the U.S. was bittersweet.

Asians eventually began to gain their rights to citizenship; however, this was like an invitation to the whites to study the Chinese culture. This lead to U.S. white citizens to make assumptions about the Chinese and their appearances. “Oriental sexuality was constructed as ambiguous, inscrutable, and hermaphroditic; the Oriental (male or female) was constructed as a ‘third sex’” (85). The term “third sex” was constructed specifically for the Chinese. “Sexuality does the political work of defining and regulating desire as well as the body, determining whose bodies and what body parts are eroticized…what privilege, rewards, and punishments accompany sexual behavior”(86).  Defining one’s sexuality was just another political vehicle to categorize racial identities. This tactic, I have never thought of, or read of before.

Unfortunately, some of these terms like “gook” and “model minority” are still used in today’s society. However, the new way to refer to someone as a model minority is to simply ask, “You’re Asian, right?” Implying that when asking an Asian that that they are good at math, know “kung-fu,” for eat with chopsticks. After reading this first part of the section, I realized how some things might have changed, but how some things are simply altered to modern day communication.

Orientals

The Coolie and the Making of the White Working Class

COOLIE: cheap Chinese labor. In 1970 and 1850 has been called the “period of proletarianization” Prices were set by craftsmen which gave way to wages set by employers.  Artisans and independent small producers still represented a large portion of the economy.pg. 55  women, children, and immigrant labor. immigrant labor was being introduced into factories as well as new machinery. This new machinery obviously reduced the need for skilled work, but opened up sho doors to immigrant workers with minimum training and apprenticeship.

Though immigration employment in factorys was big, the spread was uneven among jobs. native born anglo-saxon men maintained their privilegded position in such industries as iron molding, furniture making, and ropemaking. Immigrant women &children worked in textiles and clothing factories and replaced native born women. Irish and French canadian catholics entered the shoe making factories. HOWEVER, machinery threatened the need for these skilled workers. (55) Different kinds of work for different wages & payments. Chinese  v. Irish. anti-chinese groups prominent in those groups, chinese saw irish and short-tempered and undisciplined. The 200 whites that worked with the 600 chinese attacked their neighborhood killing 15 and wounding more. This act barred many Chinese from entering the country. Chinese later tried to mend things with white workers, but whites resisted.

White men worried that chinese will be married to white women. (72 &74) Many women who did marry Chinese men were Irish. These interracial marriages disrupted the Irish men community…(76) Half-breeds (82).

The Third Sex

(85)third sex is  oriental sexuality constructed as ambiguous, inscrutable, and hermaphroditic. male or female Oriental (the third sex). pg 86 [family is more depicted]. Sexual/questionable ones are where? Different ways they see thier sexuality presented. Chinese prostitutes are bound to corrupt the minds of young white men. 94- women & families=racial questions if interracial.

 

Orientals

The “Heathen Chinee” on God’s Free Soil

California as it was and is: False claims in the song. Chinee miners in the mining districts of Cali had NTHING to do with the decline in gold prices. The song created a nostalgiz pastoral vision of CA for nineteenth-century American audiences.Popular musc offered a powerful medium for an ideology of nostalgia. Many of the songs were not ethnological and pirated.(17) Goes over mining, steamer days and how great it was (18-19). Between 1848 and 1851 some 22000 chinese had arrived and doubled within the next two years. The arrival of the Chinese ruined the nostalgic tone for California. TRADES: fur trade, hide trade, CA merchants developed a near-monopoly on the HI and Philippine trade, built a respectable trade with Japan and shared the China trade with NY. Chinese immigration was part of the global working class migration that fuled SF’s explosive population growth in 1850s and 1860s. CA also attracted immigrants from the hinterlands of Europe, Latin America, and Asia. (ENTIRE WORLD-WIDE WORKING CLASS MIGRATING TO ECON CORE)(22-23). in 1850′s erratic economy (24) Many Chinese settlers in CA undermined the definition of Oriental difference which relied on distance…construction of racial different as present at threatenin. FEW V THE MANY(28) PAGE 31 [p 2 china not jus for trade, but for workers...museum in china vs. ordinary chinese stuff in US]. Chinese is to blame for the past and having it go away. (32) MINSTREL show became an entertainment for the new urban working class. minstrel was seen as the construc to Chinese polluting the racial other in the popular imagination. (siamese twins) (32). the show contained and displayed a line up of raceial and ethnic characters. Minstresley can be understood as the ritual response to boundary crisis. Zipcoon represented freedom w/o self control needed for republican virtue. the ideological representation of chinese immigrant as racial other relied on trope insurmountable cultural difference.  CULTURAL DEGREGATION. made fun of pidgen, hair, food, syntax, vocabulary, symbols. pg 43- yellowskins get out! free persons of color v 5 broad positions. (47) LASTLY, there is like a revenge from the whites by cutting pay, labor, and resources