This morning I went running in my old neighborhood. First of all, no one in the California suburbs walks, so as I was walking home during my cool-down phase plenty of morning commuters slowed down to stare at me. Second, it wasn't until I walked home that I realized I had seen a total of two white people. I can't exactly estimate how many people I saw while running this morning, but since I headed to my old high school and ran on the track, I'd say I passed a fair number of kids and parents, who were about evenly split in terms of ethnicity: Asian and Latino.
And it made me realize, in part, why I do get so uncomfortable in largely white settings--it's not what I'm used to. I mean, sure, the demographics have changed since I was in High School--it was about 50% white and 50% people of color. Apparently the lone white family on our block has the house up for sale and soon it will be a mix of people whose families originated in Puerto Rico, Mexico, China, Yemen, and Viet Nam among other Asian and Latin American countries.
Is there an opposite to being racially paranoid? Because I have to say I was completely comfortable running today in my old neighborhood.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Back in the land of all things Asian
I'm here in California--it's been about a year since I've been back. It occurs to me that writing that I'm here, there may be people I know in California who are going to say, "Hey, Jennifer, how come you didn't let me know?" The answer can be found a few blog entries back--my Uncle Frank's memorial service is this Friday, so this is a strictly family visit. Folks are coming from all over North America (and London) for the service. My Uncle is being cremated and wishes to have his ashes scattered back in Jamaica.
It's funny, the affiliations we have with certain lands. For example, I realize that I will more than likely spend more time outside of California than within it--and yet, California will always be home. And for my Uncle, I think even though he spent more of his life outside Jamaica than in it, Jamaica was where his heart was. I mean, it is telling that Jamaica is where he wants his remains placed, even while his wife and children continue to live in California.
And so I wonder, will I also want to return to California. It's not the land of my birth (I was born in Flushing, NY), but it is the place I grew up--and it continues to be a place that resonates with me. Is it because this is where my racial consciousness was born? Is it because there is a critical mass of Asian Americans--where Asian American studies as a discipline took off? Or, as I am often heard to recite, is it because if California were its own nation it would have the fifth largest GDP in the world??? Or is it really because of the people--my family and friends--that makes me forever drawn to this place?
It's funny, the affiliations we have with certain lands. For example, I realize that I will more than likely spend more time outside of California than within it--and yet, California will always be home. And for my Uncle, I think even though he spent more of his life outside Jamaica than in it, Jamaica was where his heart was. I mean, it is telling that Jamaica is where he wants his remains placed, even while his wife and children continue to live in California.
And so I wonder, will I also want to return to California. It's not the land of my birth (I was born in Flushing, NY), but it is the place I grew up--and it continues to be a place that resonates with me. Is it because this is where my racial consciousness was born? Is it because there is a critical mass of Asian Americans--where Asian American studies as a discipline took off? Or, as I am often heard to recite, is it because if California were its own nation it would have the fifth largest GDP in the world??? Or is it really because of the people--my family and friends--that makes me forever drawn to this place?
Monday, October 29, 2007
Airport Anxiety
I'm leaving today for California and since I'll be flying I'm bound to experience a fair amount of anxiety. I'm not *exactly* afraid of flying, but I also don't like the sensation. And in a post-9/11 world, it becomes more cumbersome to negotiate the airport.
I also feel a certain amount of anxiety about race--a type of racial paranoia not based in anything "real" because I don't even think I get targeted at airports (unlike other friends, who I believe ARE singled out, because they are of Muslim/Middle Eastern descent and/or look like they are of Arab ancestry I really can't say I have been taken out of line too often--of course now that I write that, I'm sure to be on the list of suspicious characters on this trip).
No, I think my anxiety is just due to the reality that you don't see a lot of people of color at airports--perhaps this is in correct proportions to the US racial demographics, but I'm always struck by how few people of color, esp. Asian Americans I see at airports outside of the West Coast.
And really, I just don't like to fly.
I also feel a certain amount of anxiety about race--a type of racial paranoia not based in anything "real" because I don't even think I get targeted at airports (unlike other friends, who I believe ARE singled out, because they are of Muslim/Middle Eastern descent and/or look like they are of Arab ancestry I really can't say I have been taken out of line too often--of course now that I write that, I'm sure to be on the list of suspicious characters on this trip).
No, I think my anxiety is just due to the reality that you don't see a lot of people of color at airports--perhaps this is in correct proportions to the US racial demographics, but I'm always struck by how few people of color, esp. Asian Americans I see at airports outside of the West Coast.
And really, I just don't like to fly.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
The Politically Correct Halloween Costume
Last night I had a party in which Halloween costumes were optional. You could either dress up, come as you are, or come as you are and wear a nametag with the costume/disguise you would have donned if you had been so inclined to dress up.
Among the abstract disguises were Fred Thompson, Spider Woman, and Regret (my personal favorite of the night). Among the actual costumes were people in crazy wigs, the 5th Bee Gee brother (who knew there were even 4???), Bloody Mary (the cocktail), and then me, a 50's Housewife.
It dawns on me that perhaps going as a 50's Housewife is not the most politically correct thing to do. After all, women in the 50's who stayed at home weren't, in many cases, given other options--and it isn't as if all of them were miserable robots who slaved away in a domestic arena without agency or access to pleasure, or the ability to have independent thoughts and actions. And yet, as I parodied a 50's housewife, those qualities were the ones I played up, acting as the consummate host to my guests.
I suppose you could say I'm overthinking it--it's not as if I went dressed as a Chinese coolie, a geisha, or a dragonlady--all actual costumes I had seen at one time or another at parties I've attended. And yet, it does strike me as judgmental to say that a 50's housewife can be a source of parody. Or is it that women have achieved to a degree unprecedented since that time that we can look back on that era and say thank goodness we have choices--that women who stay at home can choose to do so without social restrictions that tell them otherwise.
Of course, that's just my circle of friends, who really knows what is going on in the rest of America outside my ivory tower.
Among the abstract disguises were Fred Thompson, Spider Woman, and Regret (my personal favorite of the night). Among the actual costumes were people in crazy wigs, the 5th Bee Gee brother (who knew there were even 4???), Bloody Mary (the cocktail), and then me, a 50's Housewife.
It dawns on me that perhaps going as a 50's Housewife is not the most politically correct thing to do. After all, women in the 50's who stayed at home weren't, in many cases, given other options--and it isn't as if all of them were miserable robots who slaved away in a domestic arena without agency or access to pleasure, or the ability to have independent thoughts and actions. And yet, as I parodied a 50's housewife, those qualities were the ones I played up, acting as the consummate host to my guests.
I suppose you could say I'm overthinking it--it's not as if I went dressed as a Chinese coolie, a geisha, or a dragonlady--all actual costumes I had seen at one time or another at parties I've attended. And yet, it does strike me as judgmental to say that a 50's housewife can be a source of parody. Or is it that women have achieved to a degree unprecedented since that time that we can look back on that era and say thank goodness we have choices--that women who stay at home can choose to do so without social restrictions that tell them otherwise.
Of course, that's just my circle of friends, who really knows what is going on in the rest of America outside my ivory tower.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Repeating History
There is something, for me, about the stories of the Japanese American Internment that makes me get choked up. Or angry. Or both.
And I feel a similar sense of pain in hearing about stories that have emerged post-9/11 about the Arab and Muslim American community.
The convergence of these two issues, Japanese American Internment and Detention of Arab and Muslim Americans, esp. issues at Guantanamo Bay, converge in our contemporary political discourse, but perhaps one of the most moving examples is in this short film Day of Remembrance, which was produced by Cynthia Gates Fujikawa (who also has an excellent film called Old Man River)
Day of Remembrance is an 8 minute film clip--if you go to the website below and click on film #9, you can watch it:
Day of Remembrance (film #9)
Please, take 10 minutes to look at this clip. It's powerful. I've seen it at least half a dozen times, and I cry every time. And I get angry. And I want to act. What we need is organization and leadership for our actions, a place where we collectively can shout NO to the kinds of injustices happening around the world. Can someone please tell me where that place is...
And I feel a similar sense of pain in hearing about stories that have emerged post-9/11 about the Arab and Muslim American community.
The convergence of these two issues, Japanese American Internment and Detention of Arab and Muslim Americans, esp. issues at Guantanamo Bay, converge in our contemporary political discourse, but perhaps one of the most moving examples is in this short film Day of Remembrance, which was produced by Cynthia Gates Fujikawa (who also has an excellent film called Old Man River)
Day of Remembrance is an 8 minute film clip--if you go to the website below and click on film #9, you can watch it:
Day of Remembrance (film #9)
Please, take 10 minutes to look at this clip. It's powerful. I've seen it at least half a dozen times, and I cry every time. And I get angry. And I want to act. What we need is organization and leadership for our actions, a place where we collectively can shout NO to the kinds of injustices happening around the world. Can someone please tell me where that place is...
Monday, October 22, 2007
My Uncle Frank
The first person to really talk to me seriously about race--about the way race really is--the trickiness and stickiness of race, the things that seem so difficult to talk about and explain, beyond a rhetoric of multicuturalism and "racism is bad"--is my Uncle Frank.
My Uncle Frank pushed me to think about race and racism, about what it means to be Asian American (and not just Chinese American). He encouraged me to take classes in chemistry and physics BECAUSE I was an English major and wasn't taking those classes--and he wanted me to stretch my mind in a different way--to have the feeling of discomfort and of being challenged in a discipline where I'd really have to work. My Uncle loved arguing--certainly he seemed to enjoy the times we would spar, verbally, about a variety of things: Frank Chin, inter-racial relationships, whether college was really important, politics, class, gender, race.
My Uncle pushed me to do better--he was the guy who pointed out the single B+ on a report card full of A's. He is the one who wrote me a humorous poem congratulating me from graduating from college as a magna cum laude but chiding me for not getting summa. And throughout graduate school he mailed me articles about all things Asian American--scraps from newspapers and magazines and postcards and newsletters. I don't know that he ever told me that he was proud of me, but I know he was, from the reports I got from others and from the things he did rather than said--the many kindnesses he showed me in his own way.
My Uncle died last night a little before midnight after struggling with cancer for four years. I offer the above words as a small memorial to what I owe my Uncle--what he gave to me--how he made my life richer--how he helped me become the person I am--how my interest in race and anti-racism developed, in large part, due to his influence. May you rest in peace, Uncle Frank. You were loved ... you will be missed.
My Uncle Frank pushed me to think about race and racism, about what it means to be Asian American (and not just Chinese American). He encouraged me to take classes in chemistry and physics BECAUSE I was an English major and wasn't taking those classes--and he wanted me to stretch my mind in a different way--to have the feeling of discomfort and of being challenged in a discipline where I'd really have to work. My Uncle loved arguing--certainly he seemed to enjoy the times we would spar, verbally, about a variety of things: Frank Chin, inter-racial relationships, whether college was really important, politics, class, gender, race.
My Uncle pushed me to do better--he was the guy who pointed out the single B+ on a report card full of A's. He is the one who wrote me a humorous poem congratulating me from graduating from college as a magna cum laude but chiding me for not getting summa. And throughout graduate school he mailed me articles about all things Asian American--scraps from newspapers and magazines and postcards and newsletters. I don't know that he ever told me that he was proud of me, but I know he was, from the reports I got from others and from the things he did rather than said--the many kindnesses he showed me in his own way.
My Uncle died last night a little before midnight after struggling with cancer for four years. I offer the above words as a small memorial to what I owe my Uncle--what he gave to me--how he made my life richer--how he helped me become the person I am--how my interest in race and anti-racism developed, in large part, due to his influence. May you rest in peace, Uncle Frank. You were loved ... you will be missed.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
He's Here, He's Queer, He's a Wizard???
To a packed house at Carnegie Hall, JK Rowling (author of the Harry Potter series) announced to everyone that Albus Dumbledore, the revered headmaster of Hogwarts (and uber-wizard) is gay. The outing came in response to a question from the audience of whether Dumbledore ever finds "true love" to which Rowling replied "He's gay."
Now, this seems not to answer the question at all, because of course he can find true love AND be gay--it's not as if the two are mutually exclusive conditions.
What's interesting is that Rowling invented this whole "off-page" past romance for Dumbledore (stuff that never comes up in any of the books and isn't really hinted at, although you could analyze and deonstruct the language to believe that he's gay--apparently that's what has happened with the "fan fiction" that has sprung up around the series--that the lack of Rowling mentioning any female intimacies caused fans to speculate (and others to openly pen) their belief that Dumbledore is queer.) I won't go into the specifics in order not to ruin it or confuse those who have not read the books, but it is an intriguing backstory, and helps, in part, to explain Dumbledore's motivations for some of his actions.
Apparently her parting words at Carnegie were that she believed the Harry Potter series to have an ultimate message about tolerance--and that she wanted everyone to walk away with the inspiration to "question authority." I do think that is a strain that runs throughout the books--that the issue of purity and blood, between wizards and non-wizards, those who can do magic and those who cannot, is the major plot device on which the series pivots. So I wonder, will the Harry Potter readers of the world be able to transfer the message of tolerance for non-magic people into tolerance for any group in the real world who are oppressed and marginalized? Does reading Harry Potter make you more likely to take up an anti-racist agenda? To be queer friendly?
Now, this seems not to answer the question at all, because of course he can find true love AND be gay--it's not as if the two are mutually exclusive conditions.
What's interesting is that Rowling invented this whole "off-page" past romance for Dumbledore (stuff that never comes up in any of the books and isn't really hinted at, although you could analyze and deonstruct the language to believe that he's gay--apparently that's what has happened with the "fan fiction" that has sprung up around the series--that the lack of Rowling mentioning any female intimacies caused fans to speculate (and others to openly pen) their belief that Dumbledore is queer.) I won't go into the specifics in order not to ruin it or confuse those who have not read the books, but it is an intriguing backstory, and helps, in part, to explain Dumbledore's motivations for some of his actions.
Apparently her parting words at Carnegie were that she believed the Harry Potter series to have an ultimate message about tolerance--and that she wanted everyone to walk away with the inspiration to "question authority." I do think that is a strain that runs throughout the books--that the issue of purity and blood, between wizards and non-wizards, those who can do magic and those who cannot, is the major plot device on which the series pivots. So I wonder, will the Harry Potter readers of the world be able to transfer the message of tolerance for non-magic people into tolerance for any group in the real world who are oppressed and marginalized? Does reading Harry Potter make you more likely to take up an anti-racist agenda? To be queer friendly?
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Sublime
One of my favorite pieces of music is Yo Yo Ma's recording of J.S. Bach's Prelude from Suite 1 in G Major. The opening strains make my heart sing--the resonant sound of the cello fills my soul--it is sublime.
That's it. After a series of very long and very philosophical musings about race, all I want to leave you with, today, is to go and listen to this recording. Or listen to your own favorite piece of music. Sometimes, we need to remember the sublime.
That's it. After a series of very long and very philosophical musings about race, all I want to leave you with, today, is to go and listen to this recording. Or listen to your own favorite piece of music. Sometimes, we need to remember the sublime.
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