It's like the Quentin Tarantino of Asian-American Literature!

My dear brothers,

I have finally made it to America.  The journey was long and hard, but somehow, I managed to arrive alive.  I hope things are well at home.  I hope our dear mother is doing well.  Tell her I am sorry for leaving, but help her understand that it was for Prakash that I had to leave. 

I've been to many different countries with many different languages over the past months, but I'm finally settled in Florida.  A wonderful woman, Lillian, has helped me get on my feet.  She has given me food, shelter, and is teaching me how to act like an American so that I won't get caught.  You would hardly recognize me if you saw me.  Lillian has taught me how to walk like an American girl, to walk with pride and confidence.  She calls me Jazzy.  I admit, it isn't something I agree with, but it keeps me from being caught. 

Yesterday, she took me to an indoor market.  I couldn't believe how many shops there were.  There was a stairway that moved mechanically up or down with people on it.  She told me that the Americans look for people who are afraid to get off of this 'escalator' and ship them away.  I admit I was afraid, but I just closed my eyes and stepped.  It was such an invigorating experience.  I hope they get one in Hanaspur so you can try it someday. 

America isn't what I thought it would be.  When I arrived, it looked much like India.  But it is not like India.  At least at home I was safe from other men.  In America, there was no one to protect me.  The first night, a white man called Half-Face took me by force.  I tried to be polite and keep him off of me, but he kept advancing.  He tried to touch me, and told me to take off my garments.  I tried to keep him from touching me, but it only became worse.  When I resisted, he forced himself into me.  It felt like a rabid dog ripping apart my flesh.  I was so ashamed of what happened.  I wanted to end my life, but I knew I couldn't.  I did a terrible thing, brothers.  Instead of killing myself, I killed him.  I will not discuss by what means here, but I can tell you it was not clean.  I felt impure, but now all I can do is think that it was the right thing to do.  By killing him, I've righted the many wrongs he has done not only to me, but to countless others.  I have also kept him from shaming many more women who have no choice but to come to America in the dead of night. 

But do not worry, dear brothers.  I am well now.  Soon, I will go to New York, to find Professorji, and to make my own life in America.  I pray for your health and safety in these troubled times.  Please, look after yourselves and after mother, and keep faith that India will find peace. 

Your loving sister

Japanazis? Really?

Japanese internment during World War II was never really talked about in my high school history classes.  We always focused on what happened in the war overseas, not on the war going on here in America.  Of course, the internment camps were mentioned, but, being a high school student, I didn't know enough to really get fired up about what happened to the Japanese-Americans during this time.  After high school, I was given a closer look at what happened in the United States during the war, and what I learned was shaming.  I couldn't believe what had been done to Japanese-Americans and I felt ashamed at my country for knowingly discriminating against them.  Before beginning the partner project for this class, I looked at my archival resource, which was a group of photos from Japanese internment camps.  In most of the pictures, the people are smiling.  After seeing photos of their living conditions, I couldn't understand what they were smiling about.

Mitsuye Yamada's poem "Evacuation" from her book Camp Notes and Other Writings is about a photo similar to those I saw on the archival resource.  After reading this poem, I understand the smiling faces much more than I did before.  In the poem, the narrator said "the Seattle Times/ photographer said/ Smile!/ so obediently I smiled" (p.13, lines7-10).  The Japanese culture has a high respect for people who are in a higher position than them (and for people in general).  It therefore makes sense that a Japanese-American would smile when asked to, because it shows his/her respect for the other person by doing what has been asked of him/her.  Perhaps internees felt that, although they were being disrespected by being put in internment camps, they were to uphold their honor and respect for others.  Japanese people are very proud of their culture and who they are, and by disrespecting someone else, they are bringing dishonor upon themselves and upon their family. 

Even though the Japanese-Americans were 'obedient', they were considered criminals, even though they had done nothing wrong.  They were put into camps which were lined with barbwire fences, and were guarded by military personnel.  For innocent people who had done no wrong, they were well protected from doing harm to anyone.  I think one poem that shows how criminalized the Japanese-Americans were is "Curfew" (p.16).  In the poem, the narrator is reading under a blanket with a flashlight, and when curfew comes, the warden comes by and says "off with your lights" (line 16).  The description of how "the barracks boards/ in the hot sun/ had shrunk slyly/ telling/ bars of light" (lines 11-15) shows how prison-like the internment camps were.  After being respectful to the White-Americans, the Japanese-Americans were imprisoned for a crime that hadn't been committed.  The injustice is nauseating.

Interdimensional Travelers say What?

Disclaimer:  This post is a little conspiracy theorist and may bring you to laugh multiple times through your reading.  I do not necessarily believe all of what is said here, I just listen to the following podcast for entertainment purposes.  Please do not call me a crazy person, but instead, listen to the podcast (it's free and super fun!).


So, I've just started listening to this podcast called "Mysterious Universe".  It's done by two Australian guys named Benjamin and Aaron, and their topics range from scientific breakthroughs, to alien-abductions and habitual encounters with Bigfoots.  I know this sounds highly irrelevant and super corny and nerdy, but I promise you there is a point behind me telling you this.  I was listening to their podcast this morning, and they began talking about the idea of multiple dimensions.  Of course, they began with a story of a woman who saw a sabre toothed tiger who looked transparent, but the hosts began justifying her sighting by explaining that the tiger could possibly be in another dimension of space and time.  They went on to explain how theories suggest that ghosts and alien beings are actually just a part of a different time, either past or future, and their dimension becomes crossed with ours when we see them (please stay with me, I promise there's a point to all this).

The idea of interdimesional travel got me thinking about Homebase.  In this book, Shawn Wong travels from present to past, to present, and back to past, all within a hundred pages.  He explains his great-grandfather's days of working on the railroad (11-24), but his attention to detail makes us think this is a firsthand experience.  He then goes back to the present, and shares with us a story his father wrote, which takes us back in time again.  It is this constant travel between past and present that makes this novel so powerful.  Wong seems to travel between our dimension of time and that of his father, grandfather, and mother.  He even delves into his own past when he talks about working in the flower shop with his mother (35-37).

It is his seamless transition from past to present that is so consuming.  I think the most interdimensional part of the novel is in the final pages of Chapter Five.  Through pages 87-93, we see Wong and his grandfather become one and experience the terrors of Angel Island together.  These experiences are so vivid and real, as if Wong lived through this with his grandfather.  He recalls how men were separated from their wives and children, and how some hung themselves in the night because of interrogation or because the waiting was driving them mad (88).  Wong relives his grandfather interrogation, where he had to memorize someone else's family history in order to get back into the country (89-92). 

In the last chapter, Wong hears his father in "every canyon I've journeyed into in the West" (96).  After getting to his father's canyon near Gold Run, he says "we are old enough to haunt this land like an Indian who laid down to rest and his body became the outline of the horizon" (96).  While this is not an interdimensional cross of time like in the rest of the story, it does show Wong's belief that his family haunts him and their old stopping grounds.  Just like the sabre toothed tiger, Wong's father, grandfather, and great-grandfather are in another dimension of space and time. 


If this post has intrigued you, and you wish to know more about interdimensional beings/sightings of Bigfoots/Alien encounters, please visit http://mysteriousuniverse.org/

Clash of the Generations

We've all experienced some sort of disagreement with our parents at one time or another.  Just a few days ago, I had an argument with my mother about Kate Gosselin.  People fight with their parents over petty things, and also over very important philosophical ideas.  I think the clash of the generations that goes on in "Who's Irish?" is over a more philosophical idea.  Sure, there are petty differences showed between Natalie and her mother, but the big issue is the cultural difference between the two.  Natalie's mother was raised in China where the family values are quite different than in America.  Like she says, "In China, daughter take care of mother.  Here it is the other way around," (p. 178).  Natalie, who grew up in America, thinks in the American way about family.  Mama also has problems with the way Sophie behaves.  She doesn't act like a good Chinese girl should act, and Natalie says that it stems from the babysitter, Amy.  Amy was creative and allowed Sophie to 'express herself' by taking off her clothes letting her run around like a crazy person.  Their differences in opinion begin to clash here, but become elevated when Natalie and John find Sophie asleep in the foxhole with bruises all over her body.  When Natalie finds out that her mother has been spanking Sophie after explicitly telling her mother not to, she decides that her mother should move somewhere else.  It is this difference of opinion that pushes Natalie over the edge and changes her relationship with her mother indefinitely.  Mama doesn't understand what is so wrong with spanking, since it gets the child to behave, but Natalie believes it's not healthy for Sophie's self-esteem to be spanked.  Here is where we see the biggest clash of ideologies.  The Old School and the New School disagree with how to raise a child, and their inability to see the others point of view makes them unable to get along.  This shows how similar the two women really are.  They are both too stubborn to see the others point of view.

One person, however, does see things in the same way Mama does: Bess.  Although she and Bess come from two different cultures from opposite sides of the world, they find that they are more alike than what they thought.  Bess acts as a kind of medium between Natalie and her mother.  At the end of the story, when Natalie stops bringing Sophie over, Bess tells Mama "we should give Nattie time, we will see Sophie again soon," (p. 186).  The two women come from the same time period and share similar values.  Bess is understanding and cares about keeping the peace and listening to everyone's opinion.  It is Bess who changes Mama's opinion of the Irish, and gets her to see past their racial differences.  As she says at the end, "Of course, I shouldn't say Irish this, Irish that, especially now I am become honorary Irish myself, according to Bess. Me!  Who's Irish?" (p. 186).  I think it is this acceptance that gets the reader to see that the story is not about a difference between race or culture, but rather a difference between generations. 

Here's a YouTube video that talks about generational differences.  Although it talks about generational differences in the workplace, there are a few points in the video that show different problems that are in the story.

Oh, Chin-Kee, you racial stereotype, you!

Chin-Kee is quite the character.  I had to stop reading to clear the tears from my eyes when he pulled a William Hung and sang Ricky Martin.  But aside from his comic relief, Chin-Kee's presence in the comic has a much deeper, and more serious reason.  When we see Chin-Kee transform into the Monkey King, and we see Da-Nee transform into Jin Wang, we as readers see the change that Jin Wang has gone through.  In living his years in a predominately white neighborhood, Jin Wang has become white.  He speaks what we assume is American Standard English, and his cultural identity is American.  As the story continues, we learn that Wei-Chen has strayed from who he was and has transformed into a completely different person, much like Jin Wang.  We see how 'Americanized' Jin Wang has become when, on page 226, he attempts to order "Cash Only" on the menu.  When Wei-Chen rolls up in his ride, he looks like a thug, but decides to talk with Jin.  Although their meeting is only a few pages long, Wei-Chen makes a realization that he may want to transform back into who he used to be (that is, in human form).  We can also infer that Jin has made a realization about his life, too.  Jin realizes that it's alright to be different after all.  That embracing your history and your culture is what makes you who you are.
I think this is the reason Yang chose to make a character that reaffirms Chinese stereotypes.  He wanted to point out how different Jin had become, and the best way to do that was to show the most stereotypical side of both characters.  If you look at the character of Da-Nee, you'll see that he is also a stereotypical American boy.  He has problems with girls, and is completely frustrated by his foreign cousin.  While these characteristics may not seem as negative as those of Chin-Kee, the idea of Da-Nee being so frustrated at his foreign cousin that he hits him is not a positive stereotype of an American boy.  I think the stereotypes are there to emphasize what Jin has lost.  He's lost his ability to understand his own culture, and realizes it at the end of the story.  Yang is using this to help us understand something about ourselves.  When my family came here, they were criticized for where they came from and they lost parts of their culture in becoming 'Americanized'.  I myself have experienced a time in which I had transformed into something that wasn't me.  Of course, a diety monkey didn't help me realize the errors of my ways, but I did eventually come to the realization that the person I had become was someone I didn't even recognize, just as Jin wasn't recognizable to the reader until the Monkey King transformed him for us.
So, I suppose Chin-Kee is used to express the importance of embracing who you are, culture and all.  And Yang is saying it's good to be who you are, even if they don't let you into the party because you're a monkey and you don't wear shoes.

And for those who don't get the William Hung reference, or who just want to relive that glorious moment of history...

5 Random Things

1. Secondary English Education Rocks!
2. Harry Potter is freakin' SWEET!
3. Moving to Europe is a goal
4. Lego houses are really cool...

5. My nephew likes to sing this song...