Reading through Robert G. Lee’s book on Asian Americans in Popular Culture, I’ve been thinking a lot about connections. Some obvious, some less so– all filtered and framed through my love of music and film. Reviewing my reading log for the chapters three and four, there are several notes labeled “connections.”  Here then, is a sample of those notes along with some of the connections I made.

“The ethnic stratification of the labor market and the radicalization of class struggle resulted from the massive wave of immigration to America between 1840-1850, the emancipation of souther slaves in the wake of the Civil War” (pg53).

This Reminded of a similar situation be it on a smaller scale, of what happened in Germany when the USSR collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. I was stationed in the Benelux at the time, and witnessed the celebrations and contentions.  Initially nearly everyone in Germany celebrated the fall of the USSR and the wall with a warm acceptance of the East Germans as they flowed into the West. Shortly thereafter unemployment rates grew however, tensions flared and resentment festered for years after. Once the dust settled there was a clear sense of us and them.

Chapter Three talks a lot about “coolie labor” (menial) and “free labor” (craftsmen). The idea that the collie labor was reserved for the Chinese, while the crafts-type work became somewhat nostalgic and the realm of the white-worker. Considering this was in the mid/late 1800s, it is surprising to see these portrayals continue today in some rather unexpected ways. To connect it with my Rock subject, the world of guitars provides a good example of this. For instance, Gibson Guitars has two distinct product lines: US made Gibson guitars, and their imported Epiphone guitars.

The US line is presented as an “…ambitious quest to recapture the craftsmanship, performance and quality of an area that had passed…” Their vision is firmly fixed in the nostalgic (with rare occasions of exploration in modern technology) and their guitars– the Les Paul model for example– start at $2,000 and skyrocket from there. The Epiphone Les Pauls are imported from several Asian countries; China, Korea and Indonesia to name a few. The price of these new typically run between $200 – $600. The US made versions are hailed as the “holy grail,” of the craft, while their imported cousins are thought of by many as comparatively inferior, low-quality beginner guitars.

One last connection I’ll mention here was hard to miss:

“In the popular press, many a political cartoonist portrayed the stereotyped Irish Mike or Paddy as ape-like, with hideous low brow and jutting lower jaw. Such simian images of the Irish immigrant were as commonplace as similar subhuman images of the Chinese and the African American…” (pg86).

This reads like a page directly from the National Socialist German Workers Party of the 1930s; a title reminiscent of the Workingman’s Party of California the author mentions in this context on page 62; ideologies from 1876 mirroring those of the 1930s.

My notebook is filled with connections similar to those mentioned above; some more direct than others, but all are tied with one common thread; anytime groups of people gather, subgroups emerge, leaders rise, and injustice follows. Carl Marx had an optimistic vision of communism where the Proletariat and Bourgeoisie cease to exist:

“Following the proletariats’ defeat of capitalism, a new classless society would emerge based on the idea: ‘from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs’. In such a society, land, industry, labour and wealth would be shared between all people. All people would have the right to an education, and class structures would disappear. Harmony would reign, and the state would simply ‘wither away’” (British Library)

The fatal flaw of course as I mentioned above, is that of group dynamics. History provides example after example of Marx’s failed manifesto time and time again. Leaders will always rise up and assume power which eventually leads to history’s truth that, “Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.”