N*W*C - For Share

N*W*C

N*W*C, when I first look at the title of the show, I came up with a felling that it would be a fancy, gorgeous theater which introducing the New York City life or the like. After done of research, however, I realized that it is the shortage of N*GGER WETB*CK CH*NK.

A: “Wait, what is this? Come on…! “

B: “Nigger”

C: “Wetback”

D: “Chink”

A: “OH-MY-GOD!” well, right and right, poor A.

            B, C, and D are close friends, former debate team champions who together attended community college and they the University of California, Los Angeles, and who set out to tell the story of race in contemporary America through their own life experiences with intolerance, immigration and integration. N*W*C show is their creative work, and it invites audiences to experience the catharsis of laughter while, presenting an inspiring vision of the world they’d like to see.

B, C and D are the three main actors in this show, all originally coming the third world, representing Asian, African-American, and Latino respectively. One of them said, “If we’ve been called these words, then we have the right to confront them. That’s what the show is about.” However, it’s hard to believe that after the show coming out, the three friends could realize those they’d all had experiences with these racist words. Of course, it’s their own painful, which would never want others to notice about. “No-no!” they don’t agree with me, and one said, “It’s the racism behind them,” rather than painful.            

I feel like they are further greater than me. The same like both coming from Asia, the Asian actor, Allan Axibal and I have difference points of view towards ethical racism. Allan Axibal created this show, and confronts issues of racial discrimination in a way that is personal, thought provoking, moving and insightful.

           While before studying abroad, my father had told me not to speak out in the United States. He also said that it would no longer be your country, and you should be careful to say anything, especially in the public. My father used to come to the US for business travel for numerous times, and it did last for at least 2 months for each time. So I think he would say those to me because he must have been offended by racial slurs in the past when he was in America. Therefore my father was protecting me away from the discrimination, something he had suffered. In China, some old Chinese people would tell their children living abroad that, the further you stay away from racial discussion, the saver you will be. This is about what my father had told me, and I have always been like that. But those words like “Chink, Chink” are substitutes for our cultural identity. I used to think that I am this and then maybe self-hated. While it wasn’t until I watched this show that I started to appreciate my own culture. Like N*W*C’s main actors, if we’ve been called these words, then we have the right to confront them. I am not an actor, nor I can’t debate upon immigration issue. But I am now writing my reflection after watching the show. Later on, I will also post it on my blog to share it with my friends. I want N*W*C would really make their dream come true to bring their show to Broadway or parts nearby, and to spin it into a television show. In that case, more people will realize the importance of this social racial problem, and act to protect the only human race.

              No matter where I come from, what color my eyes are, how skinny and short I am, what language I usually speak, what the outfit I am in like, my hair color, my living habits…I am a man and you are a man too. We are humans, in one world, and will be together forever, for sure! 

We Murder Who We Were

Ms. Jasmine

“Lifetimes ago, under a banyan tree in the village of Hasnapur, an astrologer cupped his ears – his satellite dish to the stars – and foretold my widowhood and exile. I was only seven then, fast and venturesome, scabrous – armed from leaves and thorns.”(Page NO.1) Given the traditional Hindu belief in the accuracy of such astrological forecasts, this is a grave moment in the young girl’s life. (At least it was proven by her first husband’s death and even her move to the isolated Iowa farm town of Baden.) As the title of this story “We murder who we were”, Jasmine, our title character and narrator of Bharati Mukherjee novel, again and again killed herself deliberately. She must have done something very bad and wanted to spoil that. And in this case, that something was always herself, and she might think that she murdered who she was so that she would be another Jasmine, who she expected to be like at that moment.


So have you ever thought about why she would complain about her life all the time? After reading some parts of her life, I realized that Jasmine had a very different life from others that her odyssey encompasses five distinct settings of two murders, at least one rape, a maiming, a suicide, and three love affairs. Additionally in chronological order, Jasmine moves from Hasnpur, Punjab, to Fowlers key, Florida, to Flushing, New York, to Manhattan, to Baden, Iowa, and lastly is off to California as the novel ends. She went through almost half of the earth during her life, and it’s not hard to imagine that her life shouldn’t be peaceful but with danger, unexpected curves, discouragement, and hopelessness. So applied to my question set at the beginning of this paragraph, she complained about her life and murdered who she was time and again because she wanted to find hope in despair about her life.


Jump to the next four chapters of this novel, our narrator provides details about her current situation. Jasmine describes her introduction to Bud and their courtship, introduces her would-be mother-in- low, Mother Ripplemeyer, and Bud’s ex-wife Karin. She hints at sexual tension between her and Du, and her Darrel. When Jasmine makes love to the wheelchair-bound Bud, it illustrates the reversal of sexual power in her new life. Desire and control remain closely related throughout the novel. Du's glimpse of the lovemaking adds another dimension to the sexual politics: there are those in control, those who are helpless, and those bystanders waiting to become part of the action. As we know that Jasmine is originally from India, and this resonates with ideas later chronicled about Indian notions of love and marriage. And here, you must know that whenever we talk of Indian wedding, we try to associate it with arranged marriage. Due to the social structure (in India), the concept of arranged marriage is prevalent in the Indian wedding scenarios, since ages. On the other hand, love marriages were considered as a taboo among many Indian people who do not have a modern outlook of life. For them, two people should tie the wedding knot only with the consent of their parents and the blessing of their relatives.

A scene of a Punjabi village in India. Jasmine's title character, a widowed Punjabi peasant, creates a new life for herself in the United States.

It's 21st century arranged marriage, with an American twist. Tradition meets technology as young Indian singles log on to matrimonial websites like Shaadi.com to find a mate who might meet their parents' expectations. I would like to share a video about Indian wedding traditions and it talked about its relationship with social class. Please enjoy ~

Akiko: what happened to you?

The story “Beccah” is very interesting to me, especially, to many American people who don’t have too much knowledge about the Asian style of “communicating with ghost or spirit”. I wanted to address the first question that you suggested, which is about Akiko’s behavior. Before even starting to comment on this question, I wanted to say it is nearly impossible to answer this question because it involves certain unexplainable or mysterious aspects that I don’t want to judge for.



So, what I think about Akiko? Psychic, crazy, traumatized, or maybe all? I guess she could be categorized into all these descriptions, but in addition to that, I actually think she can be considered as normal sometimes.



Let’s look at her normal side, she actually able to act and think like normal human being. The author said “my mother did well, despite the oil burns on her arms and face” (p.195) , so it seems to me that she used to be a normal, hardworking lady. She is very independent, that she is able to take good care her daughter alone after her husband past away.



Unfortunately, tragedies always happened in an unexpected ways. Akiko started to act weird when the so-called “Spirits”, that the author mentioned, took over her. Beccah said “Then the spirit –Saja the Death Messenger and Induk the Birth Grandmother –descended upon her,…” Their lives started to change after that, and Akiko turns into a stage of “psychic” and “crazy” behavior. Akiko acted as psychic when “she’s sit and watch me do my homework, as if I were the TV, and mumble about how smart I was, so smart that could could I [Beccah] could really be her daughther?...”(p.194) She will do things that normal human wouldn’t like to do and her mind of thinking is very different at this point too. Then sometimes, Akiko acts like crazy when the so-called spirit took her body, which is what Beccah described “a spider‘s line of spittle swung from my mother’s gasping mouth as she swayed from the top of the coffee table.” (p.196) This kind of weird action can definitely defines a person as crazy or at least lunatic. Beccah even nervously said “She’s not crazy” (p.197) when she heard Reno said “Wow, I never seen that before.”(p.197) The reason that Beccah is over reacting is because in her inner mind, she agrees that her mother is a crazy woman, but she doesn’t want to admit to that, so she became panic when Reno said that line.



We never know what went wrong that caused Akiko suddenly changed into a totally new character or characters, psychologically it could probably be explained as a person creating several characteristics to disguise something that he/she doesn’t want to think about or face with, and this could possibly caused by the trauma of losing her husband.



The story could make more sense if we know more about Beccah’s father, since Beccah lost her father when she was five and she barely have memories of her father, so in this story, she describes him as an angel that can saves her mother and herself. However, I was confused why Akiko would want her husband to die? Please feel free to shoot out some assumptions.

No Gun smoke, but it was a battle

"Evacuation"

As we boarded the bus

bags on both sides

(I had never packed two bags before

on a vacation

lasting forever)

the Seattle Times

photographer said

Smile!

So obediently I smiled

and the caption the next day

read:

Note smiling faces

a lesson to Tokyo.

-       Camp Notes (Pg.13)

Mitsuye Yamada is considered a remarkable and courageous Asian American poet. She is a writer, whose personal emotional evocative rendering of her experiences as a prisoner in a Japanese American detainment camp during World War II contributed to her reputation in late 20^th century America. Her poems mainly focus on racial discrimination and multicultural identities. Her earliest and most famous works should be the “Camp Notes” section, which detail the daily degradation of concentration camp life, and the hardship of discrimination faced by ethnic minorities.

In “Evacuation”, Yamada was told to “smile” (line 9) for a photographer. She described her reaction as obedient to smile. Afterwards, the caption the next day read that “Note smiling faces/ a lesson to Tokyo” (line 13-14). First of all, by reading this part, I think the poem capture the experience of internees, like Yamada, as subordinate, or even to say criminal.  Here, for better understand this poem, I want to refer one paragraph of “All-out Victory” from “Only what we could carry”, the Japanese American Internment Experience introduction. It said that, “We have lived long enough in America to appreciate liberty and justice. … and we have the courage of our convictions to back up our words with deeds of loyalty to the United States government!” By reading this, I strongly believe that those Japanese American Internees love their country of the U.S.  However, because of their ancestral country and their similar in facial characteristics to the enemies, the American government ruthlessly neglected of their patriotism and regard them as prisoner. Yamada described her reaction as obedient because including herself; all of the internees had been all forever traded without respect. It also reflects that the experience of internees were tough and never free.

Additionally, the newspaper runs the photo with a caption reading “note smiling faces/ a lesson to Tokyo” (line 13-14) seems to show off their victory of carrying out “Executive Order 9066”, which authorized the “relocation of Americans of Japanese descent. ” However, at the same time, Yamada accented of her smile might also mean that she despised the treatment from the US government to the internees.

"A young evacuee of Japanese ancestry waits with the family baggage before leaving by bus for an assembly center in the spring of 1942." by Clem Albers, California, April 1942.

http://www.archives.gov/research/japanese-americans/

By publishing Camp Notes and Other Poems, Yamada wanted to increase the public awareness of discriminatory treatment suffered by Japanese Americans during World War II and in the ensuing decades. And after doing online research, I’m happy to notify that since “Camp Notes and Other Poems” first released, it generally elicited critical praise for both its culturally significant content, and for Yamada’s adept balance of personal source material with her poetic evocation of emotion.

Writing poems is Yamada’s weapon, and she evoked people to be against of the racial discrimination to they Japanese-American. It was a battle. However, there was no fire, no smoke, but Yamada’s poems.

Now let's look at these 2 pictures about  Executive Order 9066:

...................

However...U.S. Closes Final WWII Internment Camp

Brotherhood

Buddy and Rico used to be really good friends. Like I titled of my diary, they were tight like brothers, and there might be better getting going. However, before “Rico” being told, our narrator Buddy thought that Rico ruled their bros. More specifically, Buddy held that it was Vietnam killed him; it was Vietnam made their Fantastipo die the death. Why would Buddy say like this about his best friend? What had happened related to Vietnam (the name of a country) and Rico (the name of a person)? What’s more, if the “Brotherhood” is still there?

In my view, the conflict rose between Buddy and Rico may mostly due to Rico and Buddy’s various individual characteristics and their different standpoints of life. As Buddy elaborated himself, “I was more the thinking type unlike Rico” (Pg. 20). For example, Buddy would think of his future more. He mapped his future through getting an education and finally going to college. By contrast, Rico’s rarely thinking characteristics and little caring about his future were described in this story through a boxing guy named “Tommy”.  Tommy said Rico had “pro” on boxing. As a pity result said by out narrator that, “He (Tommy) was the first one to point him to a future, but the map, it turned out, was Tommy’s.” (Pg. 20) Once Tommy yelled at Rico, and people counted that “it wasn’t the first time Tommy had yelled at Rico for losing control for fighting instead of sparring. “ (Pg. 21) Although as a fight manager, Tommy was seemed to make a lot of money from this; Tommy loved Rico’s talent more than he loved pork chops. Tommy yelled at Rico because he thought Rico himself had decided it was over, and he chose his way without thinking seriously, and left with a bang.

Here why he left with a bang? I’m not sure but I guess it should be something related to the Vietnam. Yes, the war happened early in Vietnam. Rico admitted to Buddy that he would go to Vietnam for the war. Again, without caring about himself and his friends, Rico made this decision. What was worse, Rico realized that he wasn’t that necessary one to go for the war. But he just wanted to go out of town to make his future happen, or he even didn’t have future at all. One sentence, I think may prove this. Rico said, “For us, Vietnam had no moral ambiguities; the government called, and we went, Simple as that.” Well, since it was simple, there should be ways to solve that problem. …Silent…(.?.)

Like what I said, Rico could only make his future and value by leaving out of town. The reference resources are numerously available on page 26 of “Charlie Chan is dead 2”. Although Buddy tried to stop him for many times, Rico’s persistence eventually made Buddy rise and begin to take the first steps of his backward shuffle towards the door.

Lastly, are Buddy and Rico still good friends? Of course Yes! As Buddy described himself in the story that, “He (Rico) must have known I’d surrendered, and that giving up wasn’t easy.” Rico also reacted kindly by regarding themselves as, “you know, tight like brothers” (pg. 26)

Rico’s decision of leaving was set up yet and would not change at all. Buddy cared about his safety or even say his everything. Nobody knows that how long would Rico set apart from Buddy- the best friends, tight brotherhood. Maybe a couple of months; maybe a couple of years; maybe never ever… With and without hoping, Buddy backed through the doorway and imagined Rico as a picture in a frame. Henceforward, Rico has been a seam of Buddy’s memory - motionless, wordless, leaning forward, and head bowed.

That is about my brotherhood story. I hope you like it.

HOMEBASE

In today’s blog, I wanted to be creative by representing myself as another student who will support Shawn Wong’s point that his story, Homebase, is definitely a story about mother and father, at least for the most parts.  Personally, I can see that Rainsford’s mother plays a huge role in Rainsford’s growing.

In the story, the author mentioned his mother several times and how much she affects his life. For me, I think the biggest role that his mother plays in Homebase is her influence to Rainsford, especially, within those seven years.

Rainsford admires his father pretty much like a hero and we can see it when he describes his father as his “love and hero” (p.40) On the other hand, another big role that his mother plays in the story is being the only woman that his father loves. Even though Rainsford didn’t actually see it while his father is still alive, he can still feel it from the letters his dad wrote to his mom. He felt exactly how much his father loves his mother when he saw the “Dear Darling” (p.20) in the letter headings, along with the scenario in “The Great Waltz” (p.29) As the most important woman of his “idol”, this could be an addition to the love of his mother.

Rainsford’s mother is being characterized as a very independent, traditional, and strong woman. For instance, after Rainford’s father died, “she did not want to be the object of everyone’s pity, the mother of a fatherless child…” (p.34) Think about it, how hard is that for a Chinese woman to independently raise up her child in a foreign land without the help of anyone? Also, how many women would take all the pain herself and leave as little pain as possible to her son. She supports her husband as a wife and protects her son as a mother.

Mother knew that one day she will leave her son, so she tried to teach him how to be independent and make sure he is ready to face his world at anytime. Rainsford recalled that his “mother taught me[him] how to iron clothes” (p.32) , “she taught me flower business until I was able to assist…”(p.34), “She always let me make those floral arrangements”(p.35), “Three mornings a week she had sent me with the driver…”(p.35) she even taught me how to “shake hands” (p.44) She taught Rainsford from doing household stuffs to operating flower business to meeting with new people.

Rainsford’s mother also strongly influenced his manners and conducts. For instance, she keep saying “cobbler’s son has no shoes” (p.36), and this is a very traditional Chinese story, similar to “Meng Mu San Qian”, the one that I mentioned from my response of “American Born Chinese”. What she have done is more than the above, besides teaching him knowledge, survival skill, manners and conducts, she also arrange him to live with his uncle and aunt after she died (p.34)

Lastly, I personally believe that Rainsford’s mother has a very significant position in his heart. He used his mother to compare with other ladies, such as his aunt. For example, he compares “my[his] aunt is somewhat like my[his] mother.”(p.45) Without his mother, he would have learned a lot of things and that will strongly affects his life now, so I still think his mother plays a very significant role in his life.