...the U.S. Civil War began. The first skirmish at Fort Sumter (just outside the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina) resulted in the U.S. Army's surrendering to Confederate forces--and according to Ken Burns (renown documentarian of all things Civil War related) the only casualty was a Union horse who died during the barrage.
I live in the U.S. South, yet I also live in a liberal college town. And at Southern U. (a very liberal research I state university) there was nary a mention of the beginning of the Civil War. I didn't see it noted in the student newspaper, and I didn't see any evidence among my students that anyone was commemorating this event (in other words, no one was whistling Dixie or wearing confederate flag paraphanalia). But then again, my corner of the U.S. South is not mired in nostalgia for a plantation economy, say in the way that Charleston is.
When Southern Man and I spent a few days on the South Carolina coast in December (part of my post-mastectomy recovery and recuperation), one of the things I was really struck by was how SOUTHERN South Carolina felt--and how the greater Charleston area was living through a Gone with the Wind rosy-romanticized-lens of itself. There were subdivisions named after different characters from that film--and everything was named with either "Magnolia" or "Plantation" (as in a condominium called "Plantation Acres"--now why on EARTH would you want to live in a place called "Plantation Acres"??? How is that at all appealing to be associated with a system of servitude???). I imagine that if we were in Charleston now, just as we had been during the 150th anniversary of Secession (click here for an older post on this event), that we would inundated with various commemorations and celebrations and re-enactments and reminders of a Confederate past that is not really past but very present.
And one of the things that drives me slightly batty when hearing about all these commemorations is the revisionist history that people seem to want to engage in--to re-imagine that the Civil War was fought over reasons other than slavery. Indeed, if you google "cause of Civil War" the first entry you will find is this article in About.com "Top Five Causes of the Civil War" that insinuates that people have falsely believed that slavery was a main cause when in fact there were many other factors that led to the South's secession from the Union.
[Aside: If you have the stomach to go through the comment thread, you will find a very interesting cross-section of America that shows just how divisive this issue continues to be, and how much people are unwilling to look closely at race and specifically the form of institutional racism that slavery was as a leading factor in the divisiveness that was (and continues to be) the Civil War]
On the PBS News Hour last night (click here for the video) they did a segment on the Civil War that included notable historians whose expertise is in the Civil War, such as Harvard University president Drew Gilpin Faust. Apparently while U.S. historians are united in their agreement that slavery was the leading cause of the Civil War, a majority of Americans believe that the war was fought over "states rights."
Which is true...the right to own slaves.
Finally, let me leave you once again with the words of Larry Wilmore, who reminds us that it's not politically correct to say that the Civil War was fought over slavery, it's CORRECT, correct!
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Saturday link round-up
Well, my plans for blogging at least once a week have failed (sigh). But, I suppose it was good to at least have a goal. I could tell you about all the busy things that happened and my current adenovirus (just got diagnosed by my doctors yesterday).
Because my head feels like it's stuffed with cotton (making any original thought of my own nearly impossible--or at least I'm not confident I could articulate anything worthwhile in my state), I've decided that today would be a good day to put out some links to articles and blog posts that should give you ample food for thought:
*The New York Times has an article about how the number of young white Americans are decreasing faster than originally predicted (click here). Apparently the number of white children born in the past decade slipped 10% and it's now projected that by the year 2041 (not 2050 as originally believed) white Americans will be a minority in the U.S. overall.
*The news that white Americans are decreasing as a population may be one reason why Republicans in Mississippi desire a throwback to the days of anti-miscegenation laws. According to a recent poll by Public Policy Polling trying to gauge which candidate Mississippi GOP want to be their next president, a question about inter-racial marriage was thrown into the mix, with these results:
Click here for the original post on the Public Policy Polling blog and here on the original blog (sent to me courtesy of my brother "C") that led me to the PPP post.
*Of course, perhaps the Mississippi GOP are upset not just because of the decrease in white American births but because evidence of a mixed race America are abundant and apparent in their own backyards, as this New York Times article, titled "Black and White and Married in the Deep South: A Shifting Image" demonstrates--when you click on the article link, be sure to watch the video of the 2 families that the article talks about. They are visual proof that times indeed are changing, despite the 46% of GOP Mississippi-ians who want a return to the good old days of the government interfering in people's lives by telling them who they can and cannot marry. That's really what the Republican are all about, right?
*And now for something a bit lighter (but no less relevant or important), here's a piece by Jeff Yang on the anniversary of Ken's 50th birthday (as in Mattel's boy-doll Ken--Barbie's boyfriend or manfriend or maybe depending on whether your Ken was gay or not, her fabulous next door neighbor). Lamenting the lack of Asian male dolls, Yang imagines what it would be like to take some real life Asian American "Kens" to diversify Barbie's universe (click here). Personally I'd love to see "Poet Ken" -- because Ken Chen, poet and director of the Asian American Writer's Workshop, is an exceptional person--check out both his collection of poems, Juvenilia (which won the Yale Younger poet's award--one of the nation's most prestigious poetry prizes) and the Asian American Writer's Workshop website--if you are in NYC definitely check out some of the cool events they have going on.
Because my head feels like it's stuffed with cotton (making any original thought of my own nearly impossible--or at least I'm not confident I could articulate anything worthwhile in my state), I've decided that today would be a good day to put out some links to articles and blog posts that should give you ample food for thought:
*The New York Times has an article about how the number of young white Americans are decreasing faster than originally predicted (click here). Apparently the number of white children born in the past decade slipped 10% and it's now projected that by the year 2041 (not 2050 as originally believed) white Americans will be a minority in the U.S. overall.
*The news that white Americans are decreasing as a population may be one reason why Republicans in Mississippi desire a throwback to the days of anti-miscegenation laws. According to a recent poll by Public Policy Polling trying to gauge which candidate Mississippi GOP want to be their next president, a question about inter-racial marriage was thrown into the mix, with these results:
"We asked voters on this poll whether they think interracial marriage should be legal or illegal- 46% of Mississippi Republicans said it should be illegal to just 40% who think it should be legal. For the most part there aren't any huge divides in how voters view the candidates or who they support for the nomination based on their attitudes about interracial marriage but there are a few exceptions."
Click here for the original post on the Public Policy Polling blog and here on the original blog (sent to me courtesy of my brother "C") that led me to the PPP post.
*Of course, perhaps the Mississippi GOP are upset not just because of the decrease in white American births but because evidence of a mixed race America are abundant and apparent in their own backyards, as this New York Times article, titled "Black and White and Married in the Deep South: A Shifting Image" demonstrates--when you click on the article link, be sure to watch the video of the 2 families that the article talks about. They are visual proof that times indeed are changing, despite the 46% of GOP Mississippi-ians who want a return to the good old days of the government interfering in people's lives by telling them who they can and cannot marry. That's really what the Republican are all about, right?
*And now for something a bit lighter (but no less relevant or important), here's a piece by Jeff Yang on the anniversary of Ken's 50th birthday (as in Mattel's boy-doll Ken--Barbie's boyfriend or manfriend or maybe depending on whether your Ken was gay or not, her fabulous next door neighbor). Lamenting the lack of Asian male dolls, Yang imagines what it would be like to take some real life Asian American "Kens" to diversify Barbie's universe (click here). Personally I'd love to see "Poet Ken" -- because Ken Chen, poet and director of the Asian American Writer's Workshop, is an exceptional person--check out both his collection of poems, Juvenilia (which won the Yale Younger poet's award--one of the nation's most prestigious poetry prizes) and the Asian American Writer's Workshop website--if you are in NYC definitely check out some of the cool events they have going on.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Why Asian American studies matters
I've been in NYC for the last few days (it was spring break last week at Southern U) so I didn't get to see this video until today--but perhaps by now some of you are familiar with the racist rant from UCLA undergraduate, Alexandra Wallace in which she complains about "Asians" and all those awful things Asians do, like bring their families to the dorms, let their kids run wild, and talk on their cell phones in their "ching chong a ling long" voice (actual quote -- or perhaps actual paraphrase of her quote).
If you want to see the awfulness in its entriety, all you need to do is google the words "UCLA racist rant Asian" and up will pop the youtube video.
However, what I want to post is this vlog response from David So:
It's pretty funny and a MUCH better thing to watch than the actual video itself (which is just PAINFUL) but I do think that Ms. Wallace makes one thing clear, and that is the continued need for Asian American studies -- why people need to be educated about Asian American issues and about Asian American people. And Ms. Wallace is in the perfect place for such an education since the UCLA Asian American Studies department is one of the first such departments in the nation -- and the Amerasia Journal is one of the most pre-eminent journals on Asian American topics.
Also, a word to Alexandra Wallace and anyone else who think that (1) there is a single "Asian" language (2) that it sounds like people saying "ching chong ling long" -- I direct you to spoken word artist Beau Sia's "an open letter to all the rosie o'donnells" because he breaks it down and says it best.
Finally, I want to say one last thing about Alexandra Wallace. I think that A LOT of people have expressed a lot of anger towards her--but in some of that anger (including in David So's response above) people feel the need to make assumptions about her based on the fact that she is a blonde female student showing some cleavage--and so she's been called a whore and other disparaging names. While I confess that she sounds extraordinarily ignorant based on the content of her rant (and grammar is not a strong suit in her speaking skills), I think we need to be careful not to perpetuate another form of violence--misogyny and sexism--in order to decry Ms. Wallace's bigotry and racism. I think we can call her an ignorant idiot without calling her a slut.
[Update: The New York Times has now covered this debacle -- click here for the link to the article. Apparently UCLA officials are considering disciplinary actions against Ms. Wallace. So I decided to write an email message to the UCLA Chancellor--which I've reprinted below:]
March 16, 2011
Dear Chancellor Gene Block,
Forgive the intrusion—I recognize that you are a very busy man and that the last thing you need is more email to sift through regarding UCLA undergraduate Alexandra Wallace's viral youtube video. However, I just read an article in The New York Times that says you are considering disciplinary actions against Ms. Wallace.
As a professor who teaches Asian American literature and researches issues of race and anti-racism, may I make a suggestion? If you do decide to pursue some type of disciplinary action, I recommend requiring Ms. Wallace to enroll in an Asian American studies course. Any course will do. Given the level of ignorance about Asian Americans that Ms. Wallace demonstrated and given the illustrious history of Asian American studies at UCLA, I think it fitting to require Ms. Wallace to learn a little something about the people she is maligning.
Sincerely,
Jennifer
[Second Update: So I have been seeing a lot of video responses by folks, and I find it interesting that people (college-aged folks mainly) seem to be using YouTube as a platform to respond to Ms. Wallace. Now, a lot of stuff has been pretty misogynist--as a friend of mine put it (quoting from Audre Lorde) people have to learn that you can't dismantle the master's house using the master's tools--in other words, like I said above, resorting to sexist comments is another kind of violence that isn't helpful.
But humor is--and a friend send me a link to this YouTube video that showcases the humorous and most importantly musical talents of a guy named "Jimmy":
If you want to see the awfulness in its entriety, all you need to do is google the words "UCLA racist rant Asian" and up will pop the youtube video.
However, what I want to post is this vlog response from David So:
It's pretty funny and a MUCH better thing to watch than the actual video itself (which is just PAINFUL) but I do think that Ms. Wallace makes one thing clear, and that is the continued need for Asian American studies -- why people need to be educated about Asian American issues and about Asian American people. And Ms. Wallace is in the perfect place for such an education since the UCLA Asian American Studies department is one of the first such departments in the nation -- and the Amerasia Journal is one of the most pre-eminent journals on Asian American topics.
Also, a word to Alexandra Wallace and anyone else who think that (1) there is a single "Asian" language (2) that it sounds like people saying "ching chong ling long" -- I direct you to spoken word artist Beau Sia's "an open letter to all the rosie o'donnells" because he breaks it down and says it best.
Finally, I want to say one last thing about Alexandra Wallace. I think that A LOT of people have expressed a lot of anger towards her--but in some of that anger (including in David So's response above) people feel the need to make assumptions about her based on the fact that she is a blonde female student showing some cleavage--and so she's been called a whore and other disparaging names. While I confess that she sounds extraordinarily ignorant based on the content of her rant (and grammar is not a strong suit in her speaking skills), I think we need to be careful not to perpetuate another form of violence--misogyny and sexism--in order to decry Ms. Wallace's bigotry and racism. I think we can call her an ignorant idiot without calling her a slut.
[Update: The New York Times has now covered this debacle -- click here for the link to the article. Apparently UCLA officials are considering disciplinary actions against Ms. Wallace. So I decided to write an email message to the UCLA Chancellor--which I've reprinted below:]
March 16, 2011
Dear Chancellor Gene Block,
Forgive the intrusion—I recognize that you are a very busy man and that the last thing you need is more email to sift through regarding UCLA undergraduate Alexandra Wallace's viral youtube video. However, I just read an article in The New York Times that says you are considering disciplinary actions against Ms. Wallace.
As a professor who teaches Asian American literature and researches issues of race and anti-racism, may I make a suggestion? If you do decide to pursue some type of disciplinary action, I recommend requiring Ms. Wallace to enroll in an Asian American studies course. Any course will do. Given the level of ignorance about Asian Americans that Ms. Wallace demonstrated and given the illustrious history of Asian American studies at UCLA, I think it fitting to require Ms. Wallace to learn a little something about the people she is maligning.
Sincerely,
Jennifer
[Second Update: So I have been seeing a lot of video responses by folks, and I find it interesting that people (college-aged folks mainly) seem to be using YouTube as a platform to respond to Ms. Wallace. Now, a lot of stuff has been pretty misogynist--as a friend of mine put it (quoting from Audre Lorde) people have to learn that you can't dismantle the master's house using the master's tools--in other words, like I said above, resorting to sexist comments is another kind of violence that isn't helpful.
But humor is--and a friend send me a link to this YouTube video that showcases the humorous and most importantly musical talents of a guy named "Jimmy":
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
The post about adoption
As regular readers of this blog know, recently I've been writing about more personal (maybe intimate or private is the more accurate word to use) issues on this blog--my breast cancer diagnosis, for example. And I've been thinking of writing a post about adoption for a while, but for a variety of reasons I've held back. Mostly because I recognize that writing about adoption is a very emotional, fraught, and provocative topic.
But it's also a topic that needs to be talked about, from a variety of perspectives. Especially when it comes to transnational and transracial adoption. I'd be doing a disservice to this blog by not talking about these issues. And while I could write about this from a dispassionate or seemingly objective perspective, it doesn't seem like that'd be the honest way to approach this topic.
I guess I should re-name the title to be "A post about adoption" because I don't think that this will be the only post I write on this topic. But I do think that I want to start with the personal, because like that feminist mantra says, "The personal is political."
And the personal, in my case, is that Southern Man and I will not be having a child biologically. We will be adopting.
As many of you can guess, my cancer diagnosis played a large role in this decision. But it wasn't the main issue--my age was/is. I am post-35, that magic number that doctor's like to throw around to let you know that the biological clock is tick, tick TICKING away. Added to this was the knowledge that I gained, a year and a half ago, that the age of my ovaries and my chronological age were not in synch--that the age of my eggs are older than I am. So when I got the cancer diagnosis in April and realized that the chemotherapy would knock out my ovarian function, perhaps permanently, and that even if it did come back that the tamoxifen hormone treatment that I'm on precludes pregnancy (you definitely do NOT want to get pregnant on tamoxifen--there are serious birth defects and miscarriages associated with it).
So this summer, while undergoing chemotherapy, I made my peace with this piece of my life. Southern Man and I went through a period of grief and mourning over this, but the further truth of the matter is we had always planned to adopt one way or another. That even if I had been able to get pregnant, only one would come from the womb--a second child would come through adoption.
The complication that cancer has brought about in our adoption is that one of the options we had been considering--adopting from China--is no longer on the table because China is one of several countries that does not allow parents to adopt if one has received a cancer diagnosis.
[Aside: Actually, China also doesn't like their adoptive parents to be overweight or suffer from depression or have chronic health issues--the list of physical and mental ailments that would preclude one from adopting from China is quite daunting. Other countries, like Korea, do not let you adopt if more than 10 years separates you from your partner]
Now, we had not settled decisively on adoption from China, but this option seemed attractive to us for several reasons--most especially because I am Chinese American and my father (and a few other relatives) speak Cantonese AND Mandarin (yep, my family is multi-linguistic). So the violence and loss associated with transnational adoption seems like it would have, potentially, been mitigated through that cultural connection--and certainly in terms of the racial identity--of being Asian American, that this IS something I understand and know on a very deep level.
Discovering that China was no longer an option in terms of adoption has been fraught in many ways for me. In some ways I have felt deep ambivalence about international and transnational adoption. But on the other hand, this means that we may be adopting a child whose ethnic and racial identity does not match either of our own since we have decided to pursue domestic open adoption.
I recognize that this is a very VERY private thing to share in a very VERY public space. And I recognize that people have very VERY strong opinions about adoption--about international versus domestic. About transracial and/or transnational. About the loss attendant in any adoption process.
I know all of that--and I don't want to go in blindly or to be naive about any of this. But in the midst of a year that has brought about many MANY losses and changes in my life, there is a part of me that would like to think of this option as simply this: happy. That the uncertainty of whether I can get pregnant has been taken off the table and what we know is that we will begin the process of open adoption at some point in the future (I'd like to be at least a year post-surgery before even beginning paperwork since even with open adoption it's challenging to have a birth parent select us given my health profile). That we know that we will have a family--that adoption allows us that option still. And that at the end of the day, this is what will make us very happy, and in that way, adoption is a blessing for us.
There's so much more to say--but I think I'll just end here, on a happy note. Because future posts will be discussing thornier subjects that are too complicated and complex to be discussed in a single post--and that shade and shadow the kind of happiness that my previous paragraph declares. But even still, I stand by this declaration: I am happy to know that we will be adopting in the future and that we will have a family.
But it's also a topic that needs to be talked about, from a variety of perspectives. Especially when it comes to transnational and transracial adoption. I'd be doing a disservice to this blog by not talking about these issues. And while I could write about this from a dispassionate or seemingly objective perspective, it doesn't seem like that'd be the honest way to approach this topic.
I guess I should re-name the title to be "A post about adoption" because I don't think that this will be the only post I write on this topic. But I do think that I want to start with the personal, because like that feminist mantra says, "The personal is political."
And the personal, in my case, is that Southern Man and I will not be having a child biologically. We will be adopting.
As many of you can guess, my cancer diagnosis played a large role in this decision. But it wasn't the main issue--my age was/is. I am post-35, that magic number that doctor's like to throw around to let you know that the biological clock is tick, tick TICKING away. Added to this was the knowledge that I gained, a year and a half ago, that the age of my ovaries and my chronological age were not in synch--that the age of my eggs are older than I am. So when I got the cancer diagnosis in April and realized that the chemotherapy would knock out my ovarian function, perhaps permanently, and that even if it did come back that the tamoxifen hormone treatment that I'm on precludes pregnancy (you definitely do NOT want to get pregnant on tamoxifen--there are serious birth defects and miscarriages associated with it).
So this summer, while undergoing chemotherapy, I made my peace with this piece of my life. Southern Man and I went through a period of grief and mourning over this, but the further truth of the matter is we had always planned to adopt one way or another. That even if I had been able to get pregnant, only one would come from the womb--a second child would come through adoption.
The complication that cancer has brought about in our adoption is that one of the options we had been considering--adopting from China--is no longer on the table because China is one of several countries that does not allow parents to adopt if one has received a cancer diagnosis.
[Aside: Actually, China also doesn't like their adoptive parents to be overweight or suffer from depression or have chronic health issues--the list of physical and mental ailments that would preclude one from adopting from China is quite daunting. Other countries, like Korea, do not let you adopt if more than 10 years separates you from your partner]
Now, we had not settled decisively on adoption from China, but this option seemed attractive to us for several reasons--most especially because I am Chinese American and my father (and a few other relatives) speak Cantonese AND Mandarin (yep, my family is multi-linguistic). So the violence and loss associated with transnational adoption seems like it would have, potentially, been mitigated through that cultural connection--and certainly in terms of the racial identity--of being Asian American, that this IS something I understand and know on a very deep level.
Discovering that China was no longer an option in terms of adoption has been fraught in many ways for me. In some ways I have felt deep ambivalence about international and transnational adoption. But on the other hand, this means that we may be adopting a child whose ethnic and racial identity does not match either of our own since we have decided to pursue domestic open adoption.
I recognize that this is a very VERY private thing to share in a very VERY public space. And I recognize that people have very VERY strong opinions about adoption--about international versus domestic. About transracial and/or transnational. About the loss attendant in any adoption process.
I know all of that--and I don't want to go in blindly or to be naive about any of this. But in the midst of a year that has brought about many MANY losses and changes in my life, there is a part of me that would like to think of this option as simply this: happy. That the uncertainty of whether I can get pregnant has been taken off the table and what we know is that we will begin the process of open adoption at some point in the future (I'd like to be at least a year post-surgery before even beginning paperwork since even with open adoption it's challenging to have a birth parent select us given my health profile). That we know that we will have a family--that adoption allows us that option still. And that at the end of the day, this is what will make us very happy, and in that way, adoption is a blessing for us.
There's so much more to say--but I think I'll just end here, on a happy note. Because future posts will be discussing thornier subjects that are too complicated and complex to be discussed in a single post--and that shade and shadow the kind of happiness that my previous paragraph declares. But even still, I stand by this declaration: I am happy to know that we will be adopting in the future and that we will have a family.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Meet the Happiest Man in the U.S.: Alvin Wong
Gallup (yep, the pollster/survey people) decided that they wanted to figure out what makes Americans happy and, the New York Times asked Gallup for a composite picture of who the happiest person in the U.S. -- and what they came up with was
"he’s a tall, Asian-American, observant Jew who is at least 65 and married, has children, lives in Hawaii, runs his own business and has a household income of more than $120,000 a year."
[apparently men are happier than women--which is NOT surprising]
Now, if you are scratching your heads and wondering, could such a person, actually exist? The answer is: Yes and his name is Alvin Wong.
For a picture of Mr. Wong and a description of the Times piece, click here.
I'm not sure that at 5' 10" Alvin Wong can really be considered "tall," although I suppose for someone Chinese American, it's all relative.
What I want to know is, are Asian Americans supposed to be the happiest race of people in the U.S.? And also, are observant Jews the happiest religious practitioners? If I convert to Judaism, will this make me a happier person? Of course I still need the kids, owning my own business, and making over $120,000...and then there's the little problem of my gender and living in Hawaii. Oh well--I guess not all of us can be Alvin Wong.
"he’s a tall, Asian-American, observant Jew who is at least 65 and married, has children, lives in Hawaii, runs his own business and has a household income of more than $120,000 a year."
[apparently men are happier than women--which is NOT surprising]
Now, if you are scratching your heads and wondering, could such a person, actually exist? The answer is: Yes and his name is Alvin Wong.
For a picture of Mr. Wong and a description of the Times piece, click here.
I'm not sure that at 5' 10" Alvin Wong can really be considered "tall," although I suppose for someone Chinese American, it's all relative.
What I want to know is, are Asian Americans supposed to be the happiest race of people in the U.S.? And also, are observant Jews the happiest religious practitioners? If I convert to Judaism, will this make me a happier person? Of course I still need the kids, owning my own business, and making over $120,000...and then there's the little problem of my gender and living in Hawaii. Oh well--I guess not all of us can be Alvin Wong.
Monday, February 28, 2011
It still matters if you're black (or white)
Despite what Michael Jackson may have sung about once-upon-a-time, I believe it DOES matter if you're black or white.
Meaning, it matters, still, whether you identify as African American or as Caucasian. Meaning, it matters if you benefit from white privilege. Meaning it matters how others perceive you, especially depending on where you are, regionally and contextually (ie: are you in the U.S. South or the West Coast? In a cosmopolitan city or a rural township? Are you in a classroom where you are the only one, and is this a course on 20th Century American writers or African American poets?)
I guess I've been thinking about this question a lot, lately, because of a novel I'm teaching in one of my classes and because I've recently read two articles, one in The New York Times that discusses racial passing, tracing how three families changed their racial identification from black to white over a few generations through a combination of inter-racial marriage and consolidating wealth and status. And the other is in the Chronicle of Higher Education with the provocative title, "Does African American Literature Exist?" Both essays, in their own way, talk about the disappearance of African Americans from the public landscape and discourse-- or at least in the latter, that what we think of as African American literature during the Jim Crow era no longer matters since Jim Crow no longer exists in its legalized, institutionalized form (so sayeth the author, not me).
It's tempting to downplay the legacy of race. To talk about race and racism is wearying. It's like beating an old drum that many people have tuned out.
By now we should imagine that a month dedicated to black history, African American heritage, and reminding us of the contributions of black Americans to U.S. life and society would not be necessary in the sense that we have moved beyond a stage of needing to highlight the contributions of African Americans because they should be woven within the larger history of the United States.
Yet it's not. Moreover, I believe that we're still a pretty racially segregated culture. Perhaps I feel this more because I live in the U.S. South. But I must say that I was impressed with the honesty with which my students came to a writing assignment recently. I asked them to describe the racial climate at Southern University. This was in preparation for talking about the novel Caucasia by Danzy Senna (a wonderful coming-of-age novel and a trenchant novel to talk about issues of race and especially mixed-race identity). My students were pretty honest in their assessment of race relations, meaning that while they noted the diversity here at Southern U, particularly as compared with some of the more homogenous town that they have grown up in, they noted two things. First, that compared to other locations, Southern U is probably not all that diverse. And second, that despite this diversity, people still hang out within self-segregated friendship groups by race--something my students readily admitted that they participated in (albeit it sheepishly). In fact, only one of my students disclosed that s/he had a close friend who was of a different racial background to him/herself (this in-class writing assignment was anonymous, so I don't have a sense of who this was, at least by gender--since there are only 3 self-identified Asian American students and 3 self-identified African American students, it's a good guess that this student was white, and also because s/he identified as such).
Nearly all the students lamented the fact that they only had friends of the same race, but none of them really knew what to do about this fact--and a few mentioned that they noticed other races (Asian Americans in the business school, African Americans in the dining hall, Latino students in the dorms) congregating together as well.
Interestingly enough, no one brought up where the mixed-race person fit in--the person who is both black and white. Or black and Asian. I suppose we are still working on hypodescent rules, where the assumption is that you identify with the group you look like the most or that is the furthest away from whiteness.
I was glad that my students felt so free to be honest in their writing about the state of race relations at Southern U. Of course they were also quick to say that they did not notice any racial animosity--that there did not seem to be racial hostility between or among groups, as there may have been once-upon-a-time. But I did wonder about the lack of social mixing, racially speaking. I also wondered if this was a difference in location--because I had grown up, in my high school environment, having close friends who were black and white and Chicano--and when I mean close friends I mean the kind of friends that you have sleepovers with or that you go to prom with or hang out with at parties on the weekend. Not just friends you see in the classroom or chat with because your lockers are next to one another.
A friend recently told me that many white students will say that they have an African American friend but most African American college students don't claim to have any white friends (or friends of any other racial group). The disparity, a researcher noted, was that the white college students were counting, as friends, black students who sat next to them in the classroom or who lived in the dorm--people they chatted with and were friendly with. But the African American students counted as friendly only people they had significant ties to--whom they socialized with outside of a classroom or dorm environment.
And perhaps the last thing I'll end with in closing out this post is whether or not it matters. If, as my students said, there is no racial animosity between groups that they can discern, does it matter that students are self-segregating along racial lines? My gut says that it does--but at the same time I am also well aware of the power of having safe spaces and friends that you have absolute comfort with--and in an environment where you are a minority, being able to be with people who understand your experiences is psychically important.
Meaning, it matters, still, whether you identify as African American or as Caucasian. Meaning, it matters if you benefit from white privilege. Meaning it matters how others perceive you, especially depending on where you are, regionally and contextually (ie: are you in the U.S. South or the West Coast? In a cosmopolitan city or a rural township? Are you in a classroom where you are the only one, and is this a course on 20th Century American writers or African American poets?)
I guess I've been thinking about this question a lot, lately, because of a novel I'm teaching in one of my classes and because I've recently read two articles, one in The New York Times that discusses racial passing, tracing how three families changed their racial identification from black to white over a few generations through a combination of inter-racial marriage and consolidating wealth and status. And the other is in the Chronicle of Higher Education with the provocative title, "Does African American Literature Exist?" Both essays, in their own way, talk about the disappearance of African Americans from the public landscape and discourse-- or at least in the latter, that what we think of as African American literature during the Jim Crow era no longer matters since Jim Crow no longer exists in its legalized, institutionalized form (so sayeth the author, not me).
It's tempting to downplay the legacy of race. To talk about race and racism is wearying. It's like beating an old drum that many people have tuned out.
By now we should imagine that a month dedicated to black history, African American heritage, and reminding us of the contributions of black Americans to U.S. life and society would not be necessary in the sense that we have moved beyond a stage of needing to highlight the contributions of African Americans because they should be woven within the larger history of the United States.
Yet it's not. Moreover, I believe that we're still a pretty racially segregated culture. Perhaps I feel this more because I live in the U.S. South. But I must say that I was impressed with the honesty with which my students came to a writing assignment recently. I asked them to describe the racial climate at Southern University. This was in preparation for talking about the novel Caucasia by Danzy Senna (a wonderful coming-of-age novel and a trenchant novel to talk about issues of race and especially mixed-race identity). My students were pretty honest in their assessment of race relations, meaning that while they noted the diversity here at Southern U, particularly as compared with some of the more homogenous town that they have grown up in, they noted two things. First, that compared to other locations, Southern U is probably not all that diverse. And second, that despite this diversity, people still hang out within self-segregated friendship groups by race--something my students readily admitted that they participated in (albeit it sheepishly). In fact, only one of my students disclosed that s/he had a close friend who was of a different racial background to him/herself (this in-class writing assignment was anonymous, so I don't have a sense of who this was, at least by gender--since there are only 3 self-identified Asian American students and 3 self-identified African American students, it's a good guess that this student was white, and also because s/he identified as such).
Nearly all the students lamented the fact that they only had friends of the same race, but none of them really knew what to do about this fact--and a few mentioned that they noticed other races (Asian Americans in the business school, African Americans in the dining hall, Latino students in the dorms) congregating together as well.
Interestingly enough, no one brought up where the mixed-race person fit in--the person who is both black and white. Or black and Asian. I suppose we are still working on hypodescent rules, where the assumption is that you identify with the group you look like the most or that is the furthest away from whiteness.
I was glad that my students felt so free to be honest in their writing about the state of race relations at Southern U. Of course they were also quick to say that they did not notice any racial animosity--that there did not seem to be racial hostility between or among groups, as there may have been once-upon-a-time. But I did wonder about the lack of social mixing, racially speaking. I also wondered if this was a difference in location--because I had grown up, in my high school environment, having close friends who were black and white and Chicano--and when I mean close friends I mean the kind of friends that you have sleepovers with or that you go to prom with or hang out with at parties on the weekend. Not just friends you see in the classroom or chat with because your lockers are next to one another.
A friend recently told me that many white students will say that they have an African American friend but most African American college students don't claim to have any white friends (or friends of any other racial group). The disparity, a researcher noted, was that the white college students were counting, as friends, black students who sat next to them in the classroom or who lived in the dorm--people they chatted with and were friendly with. But the African American students counted as friendly only people they had significant ties to--whom they socialized with outside of a classroom or dorm environment.
And perhaps the last thing I'll end with in closing out this post is whether or not it matters. If, as my students said, there is no racial animosity between groups that they can discern, does it matter that students are self-segregating along racial lines? My gut says that it does--but at the same time I am also well aware of the power of having safe spaces and friends that you have absolute comfort with--and in an environment where you are a minority, being able to be with people who understand your experiences is psychically important.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Honoring the Legacy of Malcolm X
64 years ago yesterday on February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated. Many people know of Malcolm X after reading about his life's story in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Others have perhaps seen the Spike Lee Bio-pic, Malcolm X. And for a few others, they may have actually had the honor of hearing Malcolm X speak--or perhaps they even knew Malcolm X.
Although Malcolm X is often figured as a radical, particularly in opposition to the way we have sainted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the truth is, Malcolm X's message of black pride and black strength and black nationalism does not seem out of the ordinary at all--certainly not radical. The idea that an oppressed and disenfranchised minority would finally grow weary of mistreatment by larger institutional forces and would want to fight for basic rights and to assert their essential humanity. This is not a radical idea.
[Aside: One need only look to the recent uprisings in the Middle East to see that people the world over will always try to fight against tyranny when they have been pushed to a breaking point]
Yesterday on The Story with Dick Gordon (and NPR staple in my area) his special guest was Malcolm Shabazz, Malcolm X's grandson. I was, unfortunately, unable to hear the entire interview, but thankfully the entire show is available online (click here) and the part I did catch was apropos, for me, because Malcolm Shabazz recounted how, during his time in prison, friends of his grandfather reached out to him, reminding him of his grandfather's legacy and putting him in touch with other political prisoners--people fighting for justice. The first of his grandfather's friends to send him a letter was Yuri Kochiyama, a close friend of his grandparents and the first person besides Betty Shabazz to rush to Malcolm X's side after he was gunned down. In fact, she started CPR in an effort to keep him alive (this was recounted on The Story).
I had just been talking to my Asian American literature class that the field of Asian American literature and Asian American Studies owe a huge debt to African Americans, particularly those who took part in the Civil Rights movement. Asian Americans and African Americans have a history of shared struggle, which often gets ignored in more sensational and violent conflicts like the Red Apple Boycott or Latasha Harlins.
The legacy of Malcolm X--what his work and words meant--is larger than just his influence on African Americans. His words were for all of us--especially for any group of people who had been oppressed by a majority government and culture. And while it is fitting that I'm writing this post in his honor during African American Heritage and History month, we should be remembering and honoring Malcolm X's legacy every month of the year.
Although Malcolm X is often figured as a radical, particularly in opposition to the way we have sainted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the truth is, Malcolm X's message of black pride and black strength and black nationalism does not seem out of the ordinary at all--certainly not radical. The idea that an oppressed and disenfranchised minority would finally grow weary of mistreatment by larger institutional forces and would want to fight for basic rights and to assert their essential humanity. This is not a radical idea.
[Aside: One need only look to the recent uprisings in the Middle East to see that people the world over will always try to fight against tyranny when they have been pushed to a breaking point]
Yesterday on The Story with Dick Gordon (and NPR staple in my area) his special guest was Malcolm Shabazz, Malcolm X's grandson. I was, unfortunately, unable to hear the entire interview, but thankfully the entire show is available online (click here) and the part I did catch was apropos, for me, because Malcolm Shabazz recounted how, during his time in prison, friends of his grandfather reached out to him, reminding him of his grandfather's legacy and putting him in touch with other political prisoners--people fighting for justice. The first of his grandfather's friends to send him a letter was Yuri Kochiyama, a close friend of his grandparents and the first person besides Betty Shabazz to rush to Malcolm X's side after he was gunned down. In fact, she started CPR in an effort to keep him alive (this was recounted on The Story).
I had just been talking to my Asian American literature class that the field of Asian American literature and Asian American Studies owe a huge debt to African Americans, particularly those who took part in the Civil Rights movement. Asian Americans and African Americans have a history of shared struggle, which often gets ignored in more sensational and violent conflicts like the Red Apple Boycott or Latasha Harlins.
The legacy of Malcolm X--what his work and words meant--is larger than just his influence on African Americans. His words were for all of us--especially for any group of people who had been oppressed by a majority government and culture. And while it is fitting that I'm writing this post in his honor during African American Heritage and History month, we should be remembering and honoring Malcolm X's legacy every month of the year.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
R.I.P. Hisaye Yamamoto
69 years ago today, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which nullified the constitutional rights of every resident (alien and citizen alike) living on the West Coast of the United States. The military, under FDR's direction, interpreted the order such that only Japanese and Japanese American communities were evacuated, en masse, forced to relocate to concentration camps (the term used by FDR's administration) for the duration of WWII.
[Aside: It is true that Italian and German nationals, along with Japanese nationals, were arrested and forced to stay in special detention centers on the suspicion that these men (and almost all of the detained were men) were a threat to national security. However, the only community targeted through their racialized difference were Japanese Americans--no other ethnic community were targeted through exclusion in the way that the Japanese American community was during WWII.]
69 years ago, a young Nisei, Hisaye Yamamoto, and her family, prepared for their internment, eventually being forced into Poston internment camp. Ms. Yamamoto had her first short story published at the age of 14 and continued to write for the camp newspaper while interned at Poston. And upon her release from camp, she wrote for an African American L.A. area newspaper and also published her short fiction in such venues as The Partisan Review.
But it is the publication in 1988 of fifteen of her short stories, collected in Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories, that brought her to the attention of generations of college students who encountered Ms. Yamamoto's writing in their Asian American studies classes. The stories in this collection centered on the Japanese American community, before, during, and after the war, especially noting the racist tensions they faced in their post-war lives.
I was one of a lucky few who had the privilege of hearing Ms. Yamamoto read from her short story collection while I was an undergraduate at UCSB. She was down-to-earth and direct--and I was awed by the fact that a living writer was in our classroom talking about her work with us. I still have my autographed copy of Seventeen Syllables and still remember the good humor and patience with which Ms. Yamamoto handled our questions.
On January 30, 2011 Hisaye Yamamoto passed away in her sleep. She was 89 years old (click here for her LA Times obituary). She was a pioneer in Asian American literature. She was a woman who understood the necessity of being an ally in the Civil Rights movement. She was a witness to history, using her considerable literary talents to tell the stories of the Japanese American community. She will be missed.
[Aside: It is true that Italian and German nationals, along with Japanese nationals, were arrested and forced to stay in special detention centers on the suspicion that these men (and almost all of the detained were men) were a threat to national security. However, the only community targeted through their racialized difference were Japanese Americans--no other ethnic community were targeted through exclusion in the way that the Japanese American community was during WWII.]
69 years ago, a young Nisei, Hisaye Yamamoto, and her family, prepared for their internment, eventually being forced into Poston internment camp. Ms. Yamamoto had her first short story published at the age of 14 and continued to write for the camp newspaper while interned at Poston. And upon her release from camp, she wrote for an African American L.A. area newspaper and also published her short fiction in such venues as The Partisan Review.
But it is the publication in 1988 of fifteen of her short stories, collected in Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories, that brought her to the attention of generations of college students who encountered Ms. Yamamoto's writing in their Asian American studies classes. The stories in this collection centered on the Japanese American community, before, during, and after the war, especially noting the racist tensions they faced in their post-war lives.
I was one of a lucky few who had the privilege of hearing Ms. Yamamoto read from her short story collection while I was an undergraduate at UCSB. She was down-to-earth and direct--and I was awed by the fact that a living writer was in our classroom talking about her work with us. I still have my autographed copy of Seventeen Syllables and still remember the good humor and patience with which Ms. Yamamoto handled our questions.
On January 30, 2011 Hisaye Yamamoto passed away in her sleep. She was 89 years old (click here for her LA Times obituary). She was a pioneer in Asian American literature. She was a woman who understood the necessity of being an ally in the Civil Rights movement. She was a witness to history, using her considerable literary talents to tell the stories of the Japanese American community. She will be missed.
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