Speaking as an "Other"

I'm teaching Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 by Anna Deveare Smith this week. Last night I re-watched the film with my class and was once again struck by how Smith so completely embodies the various interview subjects of her piece. Her work is a type of documentary theater known as "verbatim" theater. Actors recite the precise dialogue of real interview subjects, including all of the stutters and stammers and "ums" and "uhs." Smith uses minimal props--transforming herself within a 10 minute time span from an African American attorney to an African American church-going woman, to a Korean American store owner by either putting on or taking off earrings, jackets, a watch.

One of the writing exercises I did was to have my students describe a time when they felt like an "other," which I thought was relevant since this is essentially at the heart of what Smith is trying to convey through her embodiment of these various people and personas and in the exact recitation of their speech mannerisms, accents, intonations, and tone. She wants us to see, not her, but the people she has interviewed. To see all these "other" people not as "Others" but as individuals with their own stories--one's we may relate to intimately or feel revulsion towards or sympathy. Or in the best cases, empathy--empathy with someone who seems to be such an "other" on the surface but whose words move us to see who they are--to at least get a small glimpse of who they are.

Yet I was also distinctly uncomfortable watching Smith portray these people. Because some of her portraits almost verged on parody and stereotype--an accusation she has weathered from her various performances like Fires in the Mirror (actually, the review I'd linked to does not lambast Smith but others have in the past). How could audiences, especially ones unfamiliar with different ethnic and racial communities and the ANGER and RAGE associated with being a person of color in the U.S. (and in the case of Twilight: Los Angeles, the specific condition of black rage) understand the depth of emotion conveyed--what lies behind black anger instead of just being witness to the anger itself?

I think what audiences should keep in mind while watching Smith is that she is trying to really honor these people in all their flawed humanity and not to interpret them but to really convey them as they are. And, of course, she has no control over what audiences will take away from her performances.

Perhaps, in thinking about how I will talk about Smith and her performance in my class, I should rely on the tools of my trade. Because what Smith is doing in Twilight: Los Angeles is acting out the simile rather than performing metaphor. She is acting "as if" she were these various people--sharing with us their stories, rather than becoming or being these people--she can never be any of these people. But she can try to speak "as an other" if you will. And in doing so, to try to convey part of the pain and suffering and sorrow but also the sense of redemption and hope and justice that all emerged in the aftermath of the Rodney King trial.

Finally, if you have 25 minutes to watch this clip, you can actually see Anna Deveare Smith enacting verbatim theater and explaining why she performs barefoot!

Growing Up on Sesame Street

If you have been following the changing Google characters this past week you know that something has been coming. Big Bird. Elmo. The Cookie Monster. Oscar the Grouch. Bert and Ernie. And then this morning, the entire cast of Sesame Street. Because 40 years ago today, the Children's Television Workshop aired the very first episode of Sesame Street. And people of my generation, a little bit older and a little bit younger, grew up on Sesame Street. Actually, that's inaccurate; almost everyone younger has grown up on Sesame Street. If you are over 45 you probably missed the phenomenon of watching it in the mornings (and am I incorrect in thinking it may have come on in the afternoons when I was a kid), counting along with the Count, watching Oscar the Grouch be crabby and the Cookie monster be ravenous. And, of course, all those people who thought that Big Bird was delusional for making up this imaginary elephant, Mr. Snuffulpugus (and when was it, exactly, that the producers decided that everyone could actually SEE him? There was a certain magic to knowing that the adults were wrong--that Big Bird was NOT inventing him--that he was real. It was reassuring, to me, because I also had conversations with people no one else could see as a child, and I was sure they were real and that adults just lacked the imagination to see).

Anyway, Happy 40th Birthday Sesame Street! I was also going to write about how this was a really breakthrough show on PBS and in the world of Children's TV programming because of its urban center (NYC), because of its diverse cast of character (Luis, Maria (I think they eventually marry on the show), Gordon, Mr. Hooper), because of the way it embraces difference and change. But I think I'll just let you all see for yourself with this clip celebrating the 40th season, especially since none other than First Lady Michelle Obama starred in the season premiere this morning:

It's in the air or is it kismet?

Just a brief post to highlight a New York Times article this morning that discusses the findings of a study on Korean-American (and I use the hyphen self-consciously to indicate international adoptions from Korea into the United States) transnational/transracial adoptions. Click here for the link.

It's odd to find this article because in my Asian American women's writing class, my students have been doing presentations. On Friday one group presented on the subject of transracial/transnational adoptions, focusing largely on Vietnamese adoptions into the U.S., especially the historic phenomenon of "Operation Babylift" (they also showed a clip from a documentary of that same name that almost had me in tears--which I fought off because it seemed unseemly to cry in my class or perhaps I just don't want them to know what I softie I am inside). Today's presentation is on Korean American women, but one of the excerpts that they had us read was from Jane Jeong Trenka's Fugitive Visions--and for those not in the know, Trenka is a dominant voice in describing and detailing her own and others' transnational/transracial adoptee experiences.

And on a personal note, I had been having some conversations with friends about transracial adoption. So it just seems like there is something in the air or maybe a sense of kismet that has aligned to bring this issue to my attention.

Is someone, somewhere trying to tell me something?

I don't want to represent

Yesterday I guest lectured for a colleague on a book I'm very familiar with, Maxine Hong Kingston's Woman Warrior. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the book is hard to categorize--part memoir, part fable, part coming-of-age novel, definitely part fiction. It's hard, at times, to figure out how much Kingston is describing about her life as a Chinese American girl growing up in Stockton, CA in the 1950s and how much is embellishment. The students were very interested, concerned and confused even, in their inability to distinguish the "real" from the "fake" of her storytelling. When I pressed them to explain why it was so important to know the difference, one student said that knowing the difference between the "real" and the "fake" would help her understand what is authentically Chinese American culture since this book is a representative of Chinese American life and only by knowing the difference between the facts of her life and the fiction she creates would the student be able to determine what is authentic about being Chinese American.

Which is a lot to ask of a single book or a single author. It's a lot to ask of anyone--that they be an authentic representation of an entire culture. I pointed this out to the class--that it's a tall order and one we usually only make of "ethnic" American writers or artists. That their works get to stand in for an entire culture or ethnicity. We KNOW what it's like to be black because Langston Hughes' poems tell us about his black experiences. We UNDERSTAND what it means to be Chicano because we watch Stand and Deliver and watch Edward James Olmos portray the real math teacher, Jaime Escalanate. We COMPREHEND the complex history of American Indians when we read the novels of Louise Erdrich.

But the truth is, these works, whether based on one's real life experiences or a fictionalized version of the lives of various "others" in America can't really stand in for the millions of stories of a group/culture/ethnicity. And it's a LOT of pressure to ask people/authors/filmmakers/artists to "represent" their culture.

Of course, we do this all the time. In fact, some of the biggest pressure comes from within an ethnic community--we hold ethnic artists responsible for portraying their ethnic community with respect and accuracy. Of course, it should go without saying that "ethnic" is meant to suggest the "non-white"--the minority in America. In other words, white American playwright David Mamet isn't asked to "represent" white American respectfully but black American playwright Suzanne Lori-Parks may get push back on the black bodies which populate her plays.

I am especially struck by the idea that a single individual can represent an entire group after hearing the tragic news about the Fort Hood Army Major, Nidal Malik Hassan, who went on a shooting rampage, killing thirteen soldiers and civilians and wounding thirty others. It's horrific and tragic. And immediately American Muslim groups (because Hassan was Muslim) have been decrying his actions and pleading with average Americans to understand that his actions are not a reflection of the values of Islam but an isolated and individual act of violence.

And I am sad that there may be those in our country that look at Hassan's violence and believe that he represents all American Muslims. He does not represent the face of American Muslims or Palestinian Americans. Yet there will be people pointing at him and taking him to be the face of Muslim America. Which is another sad and tragic aspect to this already sad and tragic story.

Something fun on the fourth workday

In honor of Thursday being the fourth workday of the weekday, I bring you something to make you smile--at least it made me smile:

Cruelty and Empathy

There are these public service announcements on cable television that I hate--because they prey on my conscience and tug at my heart. Most of you have probably seen these--they feature dogs and cats who have been abused or abandoned. They look up into the camera with scarred faces and look out from cages in which they sit waiting for release--through either adoption or euthenasia. A celebrity's voice implores people to give voice to the voiceless and to adopt or give money or speak out against animal cruelty. There's usually background music that swells and adds to the pathos of the animals' suffering.

And it hurts my heart to look at these images because the thought of being cruel to a dog or cat is unfathomable to me. And because I've adopted shelter dogs for the last few years--my current dog "B" was found wandering on the side of a highway -- they believe he was abandoned by owners after discovering he had heartworm because the shelter said that he looked cared for (he was not malnourished or mangy) but he did test positive for heartworm, and apparently some owners will abandon their dogs to the elements rather than treat them or seek other owners for them. So when I look at "B" and try to imagine what he had to go through wandering around in the woods, let alone what he may have faced in his home environment, it hurts my heart.

Yet I am also reminded of the fact that suffering and cruelty towards humans has gone on and happens every minute of every day somewhere around the world. And perhaps if I saw pictures of abused children and abandoned orphans my heart would be tugged in the same way. But I'm not sure. I don't want to sound like a monster, but I think I have become numb to that kind of pain or willfully choose to ignore the kind of suffering that I KNOW must happen every minute of every day. I don't even have to go very far to imagine this--in our own neighborhoods there are more than likely abused children and malnourished people.

I suppose I bring all of this up because I recall reading in The New York Times a story about a man who threw a puppy off his apartment building's roof. The pupppy sustained major injuries but survived and folks wrote into the comment section OUTRAGED (as well they should) and calling for this guy to be thrown off the roof of a building and really decrying animal cruelty. And someone commented on the fact that while this is awful--what happened to the puppy--all these people were feeling outraged on behalf of a dog when there were kids facing similar types of abuse and neglect, some dying as a result, in the various boroughs of New York City and why aren't we getting outraged by that?

I don't have an answer. But I think it has something to do with the nature of empathy--that for dog owners/cat owners or animal people, the idea of animal cruelty and the empathy they have with animals--who are voiceless and without agency--runs deep. And yet, I think children are placed in very similar situations--of being vulnerable, voiceless, and without agency.

A bit off the topic of what I normally write I suppose, but I have been thinking about my own sense of empathy and wondering why tears can appear in my eyes when I see these images of animal abuse but I don't feel this same pain knowing that there are children undergoing similar horrors at this very moment.

What's in a name?

I was catching up on my blog reading (which I've let lapse in the midst of all the craziness that is called my professional life) and was astounded by a tidibit of info on What Tami Said regarding Americans' opinions on the subject of women taking their husbands' last names when they marry. Apparently 70% of those polled believe that women should give up their last name in favor of their husband's, while 50% of those polled believes it should be legally MANDATED--which means if these 50% had their say, then any woman choosing to marry a man would be forced to take his last name.

The study was done through the University of Indiana at their Center for Survey Research. Which means, I have no idea who they polled and where these people live in the nation and what their political or religious affiliation is. The article only states that 815 people were polled. And according to one Indiana researcher, only 5-10% of women keep the name they were born with.

Now, there are several thoughts I have about this. My first is that I know several women who have kept their last name--many but not all of them are academics. So I wonder if, in certain populations or professions, the tendency of women keeping their names is stronger than in others. Second, although the article gestures towards talking about lesbian couples in the last paragraph, it does beg the question about how we are to treat same-sex couples, be they male or female. I suppose if this is all a gender question, then we would not care about men changing their names upon marrying another man--yet same-sex couples really throw a wrench into all of this, it would seem. Because part of the internal logic of name-changing has to do with subordinating oneself, linguistically at least, for your partner. In same-sex couples, how would that subordination be determined?

Clearly, the gendered implications in these statistics are clear. What is far less clear and unspoken within the article is the implication for inter-racial couples. I know two couples in which the wives, both white American women, took the surnames of their husbands, both Asian American men with discernible Asian surnames. Both women said that their choice was born out of a desire to support their husband's racial and ethnic heritage, and in one case in particular, to shake-up people's preconceived notions of what a "Mrs. Wong" [not the real name] looks like.

Similarly, I have Asian American female friends who have insisted on keeping their last names as a point of ethnic and cultural pride. Especially when these women have married white men, they feel it is important for their heritage not to be whitewashed out by being called "Mrs. Smith." And for friends of mine in inter-racial relationships in which their respective ethnic ancestries and racial identities is very strong, the challenge has become how to preserve the sense of ethnic ancestry within each name and yet find a compromise when choosing a name for thier children, particularly when hyphenation proves unwieldly/cumbersome/a tongue twister. I know one couple in particular who both have hyphenated names (a commonality with people with Latin American backgrounds) who want to maintain gender equity in their marriage and with their children, but find it difficult to come up with a compromise that maintains ethnic integrity while combining concision and precision in their names.

I'm not vociferously advocating for women changing their names to their husband's if he happens to be "ethnic" (whatever that means) or that women must always keep their names as a sign of feminist solidarity and identity. I think one's name is quite personal, especially in the rare instance where you get to make a choice--since none of us chooses the names we are born with. Even if we choose different names for ourselves once we are out of the infant stage, whether legally or as a nickname, the chance to actually re-name yourself through a union with another is a powerful act. And I think that there are complicated reasons to either change or not change.

However.

I also think that there should be real equity and that a very progressive movement may be to consider either gender (or in the case of same-sex couples, either partner) electing to change his/her name or to create a new name for the sake of this union. This strikes me as being a small and simple yet radical idea--that we no longer take it for granted that women will change their names to reflect their husbands' families but rather that each couple will decide whether they want to make name changes and in which direction to have that change flow. Perhaps, in the case above with the two white women who married Asian American men, such a choice could reflect the status of being racial allies in the fight against white supremacy and hegemony, even if it appears,on the face of it, to be a blow against women's autonomy.

After all, what's in a name is actually quite important and would certainly go a long way to shift notions of family and community, perhaps in a progressive and positive way.

Life catches up to you then WHAM!

Since it has been a full week since I've written a post or sent you a link or uploaded a video, the title of this post seems pretty self-explanatory. Although should I give you a full accounting of why I've been slammed? I think it'd be pretty boring because truthfully it's all about grading, which means I'm doing my day job and my students are happy (well, maybe *happy* isn't the right word since they just got midterm and papers back this week). I gave all my classes a speech about the educational goals that I have for them, meaning I don't care about the grade they get, I care about what they learn. Which means when they ask me what I'm "looking" for (which some invariably do because the kids at Southern U really care about doing well since many are high achieving, academically competitive egg-head types), I tell them I'm not looking for a single RIGHT answer or in them giving me the answer I want. I'm looking to see how they are engaging with the question or topic and what they've learned.

I also give them A LOT of feedback--and I don't pull punches. I'm fairly direct, although I try to phrase my feedback in ways that are constructive and shows students how they can improve their papers. Yet I'm all too aware that receiving feedback on your writing is hard.

Case in point: I just received the final round of editorial comments on an article I have coming out in a journal. In this round it was the journal editors (and not the people who solicited the articles for a special issue) who responded to my piece and they were CRITICAL. I'm sure all of it is valid--in skimming the comments I felt slightly embarrassed by a few points that I should have caught on the multiple drafts I've written. But there were other comments that made me pause and wonder about whether I was receiving these comments because the editors were not familiar with issues related to Asian American literature and/or race and cultural studies. In other words, this is not an ethnic studies journal--it's a mainstream, for lack of a better word, literature journal that has a special issue out on issues of race. Hence the special issue editor. It made me realize that it's easy to convey your ideas when you are talking to someone else familiar with your terminology and existing ideas, but much harder when the person is looking at your work from a completely different perspective.

And there are two things that came to me in this experience. First, that it is humbling to read criticism--and hard. I am going to have to go back through this article with a fine-toothed comb, and it will be better for it, but I know that it will be painful, in terms of my ego and pride, to read through these and feel like I didn't get it "right" the first time. And now I have to remind myself of my own advice to my students--that it's about the process and not just about the final product--although in my case I got the ideal outcome I wanted, acceptance into the journal. Still, the feedback is hard. And I will share this with my students because I want them to understand that I really DO understand.

The second realization is the difficulty of trying to convey ideas about race to people who aren't thinking about this 24/7 (am I thinking about this 24/7? Maybe 16/6--after all, I have to sleep and I should have one day off). My guess is that most folks reading this blog come here because they have an interest in issues of race and share a common attitude and value system about race. But I, supposedly, want to have conversations with those who disagree with me--who will challenge me and, in turn, be challenged by me.

I say supposedly because I have often been frustrated by push-back, not so much on this blog but on others I frequent where there's that one person who doesn't seem to be on the same page as the other commenters and I think "WHY DOESN'T THIS PERSON GET IT!" And assuming that this is someone who comes in good-faith, I have to remind myself that this person is at this site because s/he has things to offer and wants to engage and simply comes from a different perspective than everyone else, and isn't that good that s/he is pushing us to clarify our terms and points?

Anyway, this is long and rambling and aside from the apology at the top I mainly wanted to just get something out in the world because I feel like I'm neglecting this space (and will more likely continue to do so as I have a new batch of writing assignments coming in today). But don't worry, I will be back--hopefully sooner than I think (maybe even tomorrow!)