Final Paper Blog #11
30 Nov 2010 1 Comment
So I pegged down my paper for the most part and have a very good idea on what my paper shall consist of. So basically I am looking at The Woman Warrior and All Over Creation in terms of the mother daughter relationships to the power of speech. I am especially interested in how Momoko uses her voice and her silence to obtain power in the novel and how Ozeki has Momoko on the surface seem as though she is slowly losing her mind. I will be arguing that instead Momoko uses her dementia to explore her power and authority.
In my research I have found it interesting that there is a separation between immigrant mothers and their Asian American daughters. I have been exploring this idea with both pieces and looking at why it is so easy for the mothers to keep their power through both the use of speech and silence. When the daughters try to obtain power through silence they are often oppressed by this silence. I haven’t gotten to work too much with Ozeki’s novel yet but I can give you one example that I found in Kingston’s memoir.
While Brave Orchid does not struggle with her speech or identity, Kingston does. She does not know how to maneuver through two different cultures and in order to become American she resorts to silence. According to Duncan, whispering is a way to become “American-feminine” (22). By learning how to whisper and be silent, Kingston learns how to attain what she feels is status as an American girl (Duncan 22). While Kingston believes that silence will afford her power as an American girl she instead learns that this silence is oppressive. She describes her first silent year where she spoke to no one at school and failed kindergarten (165). At first this silence is a blessing, “I enjoyed the silence… I talked at home and to one or two of the Chinese kids in class” (166). Kingston feels safe in this silence and while she may not fit in with the “American” children at school she finds solace with her Chinese classmates. She feels as though she has gained power and authority through her silence but she learns that her lack of speech is working against her.
Kingston describes this fall to silence “It was when I found out I had to talk that school became a misery, that the silence became a misery. I did not speak and feel bad each time that I did not speak” (166). Kingston uses repetition of the word and speech and alliteration of the “s” to highlight the idea of speech and silence. She is explaining to the reader that she once found solace in silence but now that she is being forced to speak she must hide under a heavy weight of silence. She is unable to find her voice in either speech or silence. It is almost as though Kingston is trapped in silence.
Right now I am really getting into the bulk of my paper and I can’t wait to start focusing fully on Ozeki. I did have some problems with research on All Over Creation and I am solving that issue by looking at the research on Kingston’s piece and tying them together. Over all I am feeling pretty good about my paper so far and am really excited to explore All Over Creation.
So Many Questions – Sin Nombre Blog 10
13 Nov 2010 6 Comments
Wow! This movie left me feeling just sad and I feel as though that the connection with all of the readings for this semester. Don’t get me wrong because I have really enjoyed the readings but at the ending of the movie I felt like what the F*** there was no closure. Casper/Willie my favorite character died, Smiley is officially part of the gang and do we really know if Sayra makes it to New Jersey. And then trying to find how this movie can be post-racial has been very tough.
After thinking about this for a while I found some connections to the readings but earlier as the movie progressed I just couldn’t see the connections. Casper/Willie is struggling to find his identity, for so long he was part of a very powerful gang and suddenly he finds his world and his identity shaken. I think one of the worst parts is that Casper will never be able to experience life without the gang. Then there is Smiley, you can’t help but feel sorry for the kid.
He is just about as lost as everyone else and perhaps even worse because he has no one to safe him from his fate as a gang member. He is forced to confront Casper and murder the guy that introduced him to the gang. He basically kills his only father figure and tell me that won’t result in daddy issues!
Like Anne and Brianna I found connections with Woman Warrior in regards to the names within the movie. I found that there was an importance of knowing someone’s name. Sayra comes right out and introduces herself to Casper and he in turn makes a point of saying his name is Willie. The only ones that ever call him this are Sayra and his girlfriend. This is important, the power of names. This power is suggested in Kingston’s works and a few others that we have read over the semester. And one more thing about names: why is Willie called Casper? This bugged me throughout the entire film. How did he get this name? throughout the entire movie all I could think of was the ghost and Willie/Casper cannot be considered a “friendly ghost.”
Is this a post-racial work? I don’t know. I can agree with the arguments that this could be a post-racial work but I can also see the arguments against this. Over all this film was beautifully done and while I was left feeling a lack of closure I felt that Cary Fukunaga created a beautiful and moving film.
Blog 9- Ramblings on “Edinburgh”
31 Oct 2010 2 Comments
So I couldn’t put this book down. The writing was beautiful and also horrifying. Throughout the first half of Edinburgh I would read part of the book and then put it down because it upset me though. Chi’s descriptions and imagery were beautiful and horrifying.
The last part of the book I didn’t exactly care for, nearly all of the book is told from Fee’s point of view and then suddenly it goes into Warden’s view-point. I thought that it was interesting but I didn’t see how it really fit with the rest of the novel, perhaps if Chee went to on to go into other characters’ points of view it would make more sense. I love how the first paragraph of the novel, “the time that I think will be the last time I see Peter, isn’t, as it happens. There’d be one more to come” (1) ties into the very last half of the novel. It is sort of ironic how Big Eric who was obsessed with young boys with light blond hair ends up having a son who looks almost exactly like Peter the boy who he molested and the boy that Fee loved.
I thought it was a little to convenient though that Chee has the novel skip ahead to where Fee is now in his 30′s and living back in Maine to teach at a private school that just so happens to be the school that Big Eric’s son goes to. It was almost as though Chee decided that the novel had to be tied up in one neat bow. I was also disappointed that Chee jumps so far ahead at this point. We follow Fee through so much of his life but suddenly the book jumps ahead about tem years and we don’t exactly know all that has happened to Fee during this time. I mean Chee focuses so much on Fee’s adolescence and college years and suddenly we jump ahead and I am left wanting to know what happened after college. Why does he end up in San Francisco? What happened to his grandparents? So many questions and Chee doesn’t give me any answers for this.
I find Chee’s form in this novel to be very interesting, I like how he does not put quotes around the dialogue but leaves them as though they are merely another piece of the dialogue. I found Fee to be intriguing for not only is he an Asian American who has trouble accepting that he is half Korean but he is also gay and was molested as a child. If that doesn’t make for dysfunction and issues with relationships I don’t know what does! I find it so heartbreaking that Fee blames himself for the eventual molestation of his best friend Peter. This also leads him to blame himself for Peter’s death. It is easy for me to say that of course it isn’t Fee’s fault that he didn’t tell anyone. Guilt and shame are typical when being molested or raped, but to see Fee’s side of it and to see what is happening in his mind is so very interesting. Chee gives Fee a voice that is so lyrical that you can’t help but be dragged into the novel.
Draft Revision
29 Oct 2010 Leave a Comment
While I enjoyed reading American Woman I feel that I would be better off looking at Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior and Ruth Ozeki’s All Over Creation. I would like to look at how these two works represent Asian American women. I would also like to look at the mother-daughter relationships between these Asian American women and the role of their voice in regards to identity and power. Do these women gain power through their silence or do they lose it?
An interesting depiction of a daughter describing a mother occurs in All Over Creation when Yumi describes how her father brought her mother back from Japan after the war. She states how, “no one said much either when Lloyd brought my mom home from Japan after the war, at least not to his face. Just that she was the cutest thing they had ever seen, so delicate and fragile looking, like a China doll, and how was she ever going to handle the work of running a farm?” (Ozeki 5). It is interesting that in this passage Yumi describes Momoko in terms of a porcelain doll. The reader sees a woman so small, delicate and exotic looking that one would think that she needs to be placed high on a shelf to be looked after and gazed at. Yet while Ozeki creates such a stereotypical image she then goes on to shatter it in the next paragraph when Yumi discusses her mother’s farming. Momoko is now a farmer who is able to create a garden that will eventually support her family, “as it turned out, Momoko was a born gardener…Over the years Momoko’s kitchen garden grew into a vegetative wonder, and she planted varieties of fruits and flowers that no one had ever seen before in Power County” (5). Ozeki purposely has Yumi describe Momoko first in terms of a China doll so that it can be proved that this image is false. In an article, Sau-ling Wong states that Asian women were often viewed as a meek “lotus blossom” or a manipulative “dragon lady” (185). Momoko is neither a weak or manipulative woman, instead she is described as a woman who is able to support her family through hard work and dedication.
Within the novel itself Momoko does not have much of a speaking role. One could argue that Ozeki does this to show Momoko’s loss of power. I instead would argue that when Momoko does speak it is simple but full of power. Ozeki, by limiting Momoko’s speech shows that Momoko takes her power back. This is shown when Yumi describes what Momoko says to Lloyd when Yumi runs away. She simply says “Go, bring her back” (112). Momoko speaks simply and when Lloyd does not follow her order she uses silence to keep her power by not speaking to him. Yumi describes this moment when she states, “that night Momoko more or less stopped speaking to him…she didn’t walk to him, more than was absolutely necessary. She closed herself inside my room and whispered and stared up at the stars” (112). Momoko uses this silence to prove a point to Lloyd and the readers, she does not agree with his decision and will support her daughter. She gains control through this silence and it often seems that Yumi respects Momoko because of this. While there may be a generation gap between the mother and daughter, Ozeki shows that one does not always need to speak to have power and a voice.
Maxine Hon Kingston’s memoir, The Woman Warrior, also displays the idea of speech and power among mothers and daughters. Kingston opens her memoir with her mother warning her about the use of speech. She tells her daughter about the story of her no name aunt whom Kingston is never to speak of, “you must not tell anyone…what I am about to tell you. In China your father had a sister who killed herself” (3). Kingston’s mother is warning her about the power of speech. How words can bring shame upon a family or bring forth knowledge and wisdom. While Kingston does not speak about her aunt she does break the silence by writing the story down. According to Dilek Direnç’s article to write the aunt’s story “means to acknowledge her. It also means to preserve her memory by committing to paper and thus immortalizing her” (4). Kingston through pen and paper gives her aunt speech.
It is interesting to look at how different Kingston’s mother is with her identity in regards to Kingston herself. Kingston states that it was her mother’s duty to protect tradition, “they expected her alone to keep the traditional ways, which her brothers, now among the barbarians, could fumble without detection. The heavy deep-rooted women were to maintain the past against the flood, safe for returning” (8). This passage explains why Kingston’s mother, Brave Orchid, is constantly using talk-story. She is trying to maintain tradition by sharing her heritage with her daughter. While Kingston argues in her memoir that Asian women were often given no power and subverted, I argue that this is not true. Her mother attains power through her speech. She picks and chooses which stories she will tell and it is her who tells stories of family and tradition. By telling her daughter about their heritage and past Brave Orchid allows her children to have a past and a family.
It is interesting though that while Brave Orchid is able to gain power through her voice, Kingston has difficulty finding her identity and her voice. Throughout her memoir she is struggling to find her voice and how to apply the Chinese heritage her mother teaches her with the American life she is forced into. She tells how when she tried to talk in class she would speak in a whisper, “I read aloud in first grade, though, and heard the barest whisper with little squeaks come out of my throat” (166). While Brave Orchid uses speech to teach, Kingston cannot find the words to express herself. This makes me wonder why is it that her mother is able to speak and assert her voice and her identity and Kingston is unable to.
As I work through my ideas with this paper I am finding the idea of voice between generations of Asian American mothers and daughters to be very interesting. I would like to explore why one generation can use speech or silence to gain power and identity while the daughters struggle to find a place for themselves.
Works Cited
Bow, Leslie. Betrayal and Other Acts of Subversion: Feminism, Sexual Politics, Asian American Women’s Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. Print.
Direnç, Dilek. “Restored Identities in Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior.” Modalitäten von Kulturkontakt 6.1 (2006). MLA. Web. 23 Oct. 2010.
Duncan, Patti. Tell this silence: Asian American women Writers and the Politics of Speech. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2004. Print.
Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior. New York: Vintage International Vintage Books, 1975. Print.
Ozeki, Ruth. All Over Creation. New York: Penguin Books, 2003. Print.
Pyke, Karen D., and Denise L. Johnson. “Asian American Women and Racialized Femininities: ‘Doing’ Gender Across Cultural Worlds.” Gender and Society 17.1 (2003). MLA. Web. 9 Oct. 2010.
Schoeffel, Melissa A. Maternal Conditions: Reading Kingsolver, Castillo, Erdrich, and Ozeki. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. Print.
Stein, Rachel. “Bad Seed: Imperiled Diversities in Ruth Ozeki’s All Over Creation.” Wai Guo Wen Xue Yan Jiu 32.1 (2010). MLA. Web. 15 Oct. 2010
Warren, Joyce W., and Margaret Dickie. Challenging Boundaries: Gender and Periodization. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. Print.
The Book of Salt Ramblings – Blog 7
20 Oct 2010 2 Comments
If I had to describe The Book of Salt in one word it would be beautiful. Monique Truong’s language caught me at the beginning and flowed through the very end. Her descriptions of colors were beautiful such as when she describes the jade earrings that Binh’s mother wore until she gave birth to him.
I especially enjoyed reading about the relationships between the characters. The Steins were very interesting characters and while they were so outrageous and so on the edge of everything I couldn’t help notice that they still treated Binh as a servant. I think it is interesting that while they are modern they are still old-fashioned in some ways. I find it troubling how Binh must constantly hide who he is. No one knows his true name or who he truly is. While the Steins live openly Binh must stick to the shadows and keep his life a secret, “I am at your garret by seven o’clock in the morning on Sunday. I stay till three or four the following morning, and then I return to 27 rue de Fleurus. At first it was just a precaution. I could not risk angering my Mesdames by over sleeping again” (110). While I find Binh to be an amazing character I have problems with his issues of always being the good servant.
I also find the character of Binh’s mother to be very interesting. I feel that while the Old Man tries so desperately to take away her voice and her rights she does assert herself and does gain some measure of freedom. I love how Truong tells the mother’s story through the third person, taking a step back to allow the reader to make his/her own decisions about the mother. Yet can you really say that the reader is making their own decisions or is Truong biasing the reader. The mother is so roughly abused that you cannot help but feel sorry for and cheer for the woman when she finds someone who is willing to love her even if it is for a brief time. This section really interests me I think because Truong changes voice and tone.
I also find the repetition in the passage about the mother getting her ears pierced to be very interesting, “She sat still while her mother heated the needle and bled her ear lobes. She sat still while her mother took the jade from her stretched lobes and placed them in hers. She sat still and received from her mother a rare gift of tenderness, which for the girl would always mean pain” (168). Why is Truong using repetition and alliteration within these few sentences? What is Troung trying to tell the reader? I wonder if she is trying to say that while the mother suffers through indignity after indignity she still asserts herself even if it is in the smallest way, such as paying off the midwife so that she cannot/will not have anymore children. Or meeting with the school teacher and taking him as a lover. I just find it so interesting that while she is abused so much and so often she is still able to remain so loving and caring for Binh.
So all in all I enjoyed this book immensely. I loved Truong’s use of language and imagery, I loved how easy it was to picture the colors and the scenes.
Exploratory Draft – Blog 6
13 Oct 2010 Leave a Comment
While reviewing my blogs and my comments I have found that I have been focusing on the ideas of identity. What I find very interesting is the role of Asian American in Susan Choi’s American Woman and Ruth Ozeki’s All Over Creation. I would like to explore these roles and the voices of the main female characters. I think that doing close readings and research will reveal that these Jenny and Yumi are often overly sexualized while their mothers either have very little role or no role at all in these novels. I would like to see why this occurs and what it could possibly mean.
It is interesting that within both of these works Yumi and Jenny try not to focus on their Asian heritage. Also, both struggle with their identities and are viewed as sexual beings. I would like to compare/contrast these two works to explore the role of the female voice in Asian American Literature.
History:
First I will explore the history of Asian American literature. This, I believe will help to support my ideas of the female voice in Asian American literature. It is interesting to look at how early in the immigration period of Asians it was often difficult for Asian American women to create literature. Sau-ling Wong believes this is because of “patriarchal values in the Asian countries militated against women’s literacy and self expression; the harsh lives of Asian American women as prostitutes, wives, mothers, and/or co-laborers with the men, which made the time and energy needed to write a luxury; and dominant society’s lack of interest in Asian women except in ethnographic, missionary, or philanthropic contexts” (184-185). Wong goes on to discuss the typical stereotypes of Asian American women which could be found both in and out of literature. Often Asian American women were seen as either a meek “lotus blossom” or a manipulative “dragon lady” (185). Because of this there is a “long-lasting effect on the American popular imagination and hindered ability of Asian American women to represent themselves and make their voices heard” (Wong 185). These stereotypes are often unbreakable and because of this Asian American women are unable to assert their own identities.
Karen Pyke explores the idea of the stereotypical Asian woman in her article, Asian American Women and Racialized Feminities. She argues that while black women were often seen as aggressive and overpowering Asian American women were considered “hyperfeminine: passive, weak, quiet, excessively submissive, slavishly dutiful, sexually exotic, and available for white men” (Pyke 36). Pyke argues that this image of the lotus blossom “obscures the internal variation of Asian American femininity and sexuality, making it difficult, for example, for others to ‘see’ Asian lesbians and bisexuals” (36). It also makes it easier for these women to be subject to mistreatment and oppression.
During the 1960s and 1980s a “second period” of Asian American writing emerged. According to Wong it was during this period that there was the “first widespread use of the coalitional term ‘Asian American’ as a self-conscious political act and the first explicit definitions of Asian American identity as inseparable from gender and sexuality” (188). One of the most widely known male Asian American writers during this period was Frank Chin. Wong believes that many of Chin’s works show an Asian woman who is often sickly (191). She goes on to argue that in “Chin’s fiction, dysfunctional relations between Asian men and women mirror the reality of Asian American male artists who, according to Chin, are outnumbered and therefore emasculated by Asian American women writers” (192). His works often focus on his association of Asian females of death, decay and futility which can often be seen as symbols of Asian male castration (Wong 192).
During this period of writing, women focused their writings on feminist movements and sexual revolution. Many writers often critiqued the “oppression of Asian American women, expressed solidarity with Third World women in Asia and elsewhere, discerned connections between sexism and colonialism, challenged Orientalist stereotypes, reconstructed female ancestor’s forgotten lives, claimed a matrilineal heritage on American soil, explored family dynamics, celebrated love between women, reclaimed female sexuality, and declared a new image: tough, powerful, resourceful, independent, and courageous, neither ‘lotus blossom’ nor ‘dragon lady” (194). This is very important in regards to both Choi and Ozeki’s works. Both Yumi and Jenny are at first viewed as sexual creatures who are viewed as other. Yet by the end of both novels these two women are no longer the meek “lotus blossoms” instead they are strong women who are able to form their own identities with a mixture of both Asian and American heritage.
American Woman:
In American Woman Choi creates a character struggling with her identity as both an Asian American and a woman. Throughout the novel Choi sprinkles stereotypical ideas of Asian American women which help to impact Jenny’s developing identity and prove Choi’s point about the voice of women in Asian American literature. One example is when Jenny discusses the character of Mrs. Fowler and her ideas on Asian Americans, “Jenny has long suspected that Mrs. Fowler’s ideas about her involve rock gardens and tea ceremonies and slender bamboo writing tools; that Mrs. Fowler, a connoisseur of the Arts of the Orient, is stubbornly awaiting from Jenny some endorsement of her, Mrs. Fowler’s very own aesthetic gifts” (Choi 57). The repetition of Mrs. Fowler’s name is very interesting and perhaps Choi is highlighting the idea that Mr. Fowler is unreliable in her beliefs of what is Asian. Fowler claims to be a “connoisseur of the Arts of the Orient” but she had most likely never been away from her small town in Redhook. Choi is telling the reader that one cannot possibly learn what it means to be Asian solely from reading books or watching tv. A person needs to actually experience being considered other and different. Choi also chooses to capitalize the words “Arts” and “Orients” which places stress on these two words. She is associating being Asian with having creative and artistic. Choi’s use of repetition and capitalization helps to highlight stereotypical imagery which proves her point that women in Asian American literature are often either sexualized or seen as the lotus blossom.
Another example of this stereotypical language occurs when Jenny is talking to the mechanic toward the end of the novel. The mechanic calls her China doll saying, “Late for what? Come on, China doll. Where’d the blond go?” (Choi 264). The use of the term China doll is very interesting on several levels, the first being the most obvious that Jenny is not Chinese. It is also shows that Jenny is interchangeable as an Asian American and does not have a unique voice. By calling her a China doll Choi causes Jenny to lose her voice and her status as a woman, she is now just like every other Asian American woman. Choi/the mechanic has effectively silenced Jenny and taken away her rights as a woman and an American. What is also interesting is Jenny’s reaction to be called a China doll. Choi chooses to immediately cut to Jenny picking Pauline up at the restroom and this implies that there was no reaction to the mechanic’s words.
Why does Choi have Jenny ignore the comment? Perhaps she is expanding on the idea that Jenny as no unique voice as an Asian American. And perhaps Choi is looking wider and seeing how society does not allow Jenny to be viewed as not only an American but also a woman with unique rights. Instead Jenny can only be seen as an exotic or as a martyr to the cause against the Vietnam War. Jenny is unable to develop her identity because she is constantly being told what she is as an Asian American. She is unable to find her voice and separate herself from the perception of others.
Works Cited
Choi, Susan. American Woman. New York: Prennial, 2003. Print.
Ozeki, Ruth. All Over Creation. London: Penguin Books, 2003. Print.
Pyke, Karen D., and Denise L. Johnson. “Asian American Women and Racialized Femininties: ‘Doing’ Gender Across Cultural Worlds.” Gender and Society 17.1 (2003): 33-53. JSTOR. Web. 9 Oct. 2010.
Wong, Sau-ling C., and Jeffrey J. Santa Ana. “Gender and Sexuality in Asian American Literature.” Signs 25.1 (1999): 171-226. JSTOR. Web. 9 Oct. 2010.
Catfish and Mandala – Blog #5
05 Oct 2010 4 Comments
When reading Andrew Pham’s story, Catfish and Mandala, I have to admit that I was very intrigued by his relationship with his family. Coming from a white middle class family there are always hugs and I love yous. There are always touches of affection and displays of emotion. I found it interesting that the words I love you are almost never spoken in this story. I think a moment that is full of meaning is when Pham talks about his grandfather’s death, “After Grandpa Pham passed way, father clipped a short newspaper article, hardly more than a blurb, taped it to the lampshade in the livingroom, and left it there for ten years. It was written by a man who, after his father’s death regretted never having said I love you, Dad” (322). I am from a family where saying “I love you” is an everyday occurence. Reading about a family/culture that is unable openly express their feelings really struck a chord with me and made me glad that my family isn’t afraid to be so open.
I also found Pham’s relationship with Chi to be very interesting and troubling. Chi is the skeleton in the closet, one that all families have. Yet what makes her story so sad is that she is so misunderstood to the point that suicide is her only option. I don’t that this is very different from American culture, how often do we shun what we don’t understand or is different? You can look in the paper today and see stories that are very similar to Chi’s.
Pham states that as his family learned English they lost pieces of Vietnam, in turn losing pieces of Chi, “Somehow she became the family’s big shame, as if we’d somehow failed – failed her as we’d failed ourselves” (215). Chi is the only person in this story that even comes close to sharing her feelings when she tells Pham ”I care for you” (214). She is described as the most Vietnamese by Pham but at the same time she can also be considered the most American. Like many Americans she is lost and unable to find her place in society and life. Because of this she is seen as an outsider and her only choice (in her mind) is suicide. I think what makes her story so sad is that it is so relatable. It doesn’t matter what culture you come from, you can still relate with her story and feelings as you can relate to Pham’s feelings about his sister and her life.
I think that Pham’s journey is an important one and it is one that we all take (and I know this sounds so cliché). It is a story of self discovery and he is realizing that memories are just memories. He has not truly lost his home in Vietnam but instead has grown and found a new home and place in America. It is realizing that you do not have to be just Vietnamese or just American.
A Bad Seed
28 Sep 2010 2 Comments
So first of all I want to say that I had a very hard time reading Ruth Ozeki’s All Over Creation. I would read a few chapters and then become so frustrated and angry with the characters that I would have to put the book down and walk away. At first I felt sympathy for both Cass and Yumi, after all they both have had tough lives. But very quickly my sympathy changed to frustration, these characters so often seemed to be self absorbed and didn’t learn from their mistakes. Yumi is a bad mother, I know she had it tough being manipulated into having sex and then an abortion at 14, but to push your children off on others while you go have an affair with the man who molested you and impregnated you is ridiculous.
I also found Cass to be frustrating. I wanted to feel sorry for because her father beat here, she was always in the background and she had cancer but she too is hard to sympathize with. She is quick to judge and she does not forgive. She wants to be Yumi’s friend but also wishes to steal Poo and does not forgive Yumi for running away or for being favorited by the town. Like Yumi, Cass and many of the other characters don’t seem to really grow into potatoes but seem to remain the seeds or eyes (sorry I just had to through that in).
On another note I found the”bud sporting” McHugh discusses in her article. She discusses how “potatoes themselves jeopardize the genetic homogeneity of clones through the uncommon phenomenon known as ‘bud sporting,’ in which one (or a cluster) of potato’s several eyes mutates to create a plant that is genetically and often visually different from others of the same variety, even its parents and siblings” (33). I think this idea could be applied to Yumi, she is often seen as a foreign mutation. Throughout the novel different characters refer to her as a bad seed or a disgrace to her parents. In a small town where there are few minorities she can be considered one of the only Asian Americans. At first she is a favorite and glorified always playing the pilgrim in the Thanksgiving play but as soon as she grows/mutates into a rebellion she is seen as a foreign other or a bad seed.
One scene highlights this view. Elliot Rhodes in a diner in the town discusses the Fuller family with an older gentleman (most likely a farmer). The older man has this to say about Yumi: “It’s a shame… Lloyd Fuller was always a strange one, but it’s a damn shame he ain’t got no one except that daughter to depend on. She’s a bad seed if there ever was one” (Ozeki 190). The idea of a bad seed is interesting. What makes you a bad seed? Does making mistakes as a child and then running away from your family make you a bad seed? Because Yumi rebels against her family and sleeps with her teacher she is considered a mutant/bad seed. She is no longer the favorite Asian American girl in this small town.
So while I didn’t really care for the characters I do find the idea of being a bad seed interesting. I think it would be neat to look at how different communities and cultures consider different actions bad. Then it makes me wonder if I can really consider these characters too self-absorbed because am I then just being like Lloyd and the other townspeople? Am I judging Yumi and Cass as bad seeds because of the few actions that the novel shows? If I knew more about them would I see them differently? So many questions and I don’t have an answer for any…
Changing Identities – Blog #3
20 Sep 2010 6 Comments
So for some reason I finished the book pretty early and am feeling like posting pretty early. So I am just going to jump right into this…
As I read Susan Choi’s American Woman I found it interesting that we do not really hear about Jenny’s heritage until the end of the novel. Spattered throughout the story we see little hints and clues about her past and her family but they do not take up a large portion as it does in Warrior Woman and Native Speaker. Being Japanese does not completely define Jenny’s identity. Not only is she an Asian American but she is also a woman, a daughter, a lover, a fugitive and an antiwar activist. It is all of these categories that make up Jenny as a person.
Throughout the story Jenny grows, discarding old identities that no longer fit and creating new ones. I find it interesting how often she is mistaken for being Chinese or Vietnamese. I also think it is important to look at how often Juan refers to Jenny’s “brown skin” in order to pull her into his fight against the “pigs.” He feels that because Jenny is Asian she should automatically be sympathetic to his cause.
Instead Jenny argues “just because I’m a Japanese woman, you can’t define me in terms of just that” (139). This statement reminds me of Leslie Bow’s introduction, she argues that “Asian American women’s ethnic and national identities are represented through gender issues- through contestations over women’s roles, feminist solidarity and expressions of feminine sexuality” (10). Because Jenny is a Japanese woman she is expected to feel sympathy and support to Juan and his supposed fight against the bourgeoise.
Jenny’s sexuality and Asian heritage would allow her to disrupt national politics. Juan perhaps argues Bow’s point when he states that Jenny would be a good leader. I believe that like Bow he feels that her sexuality and foriegnness would allow Jenny to disturb national politics and the war. She would be a perfect figurehead to his fight against the rich and bourgeoise.
Yet Jenny does not want to be judged solely on the fact that she is a woman and Asian. As I stated earlier in this post she is a mixture of many different identities that are ever-growing and changing. She cannot be boxed into one category and she refuses to use her sexuality as an Asian woman to support Juan’s cause.
Speaking Words of Wisdom – Blog #2
14 Sep 2010 7 Comments
So while I really enjoyed Native Speaker this week I was left staring at my computer and trying to figure out what to write about. I finally decided that I should just start writing and see what happens, so I apologize now if my post seems to be a little scattered. ;o)
While I was reading Native Speaker I kept thinking about Maxine Kingston’s The Woman Warrior and thinking about how the two books both look at how people of two different ethnicities are often left struggling to find themselves. They are expected to fit into a neat little box of one culture when in reality they are left straddling two different cultures that leave them floating in an ocean between the two.
As I read the novel I noticed fairly quickly that Lee was focused on the issue of speech between American culture and Asian culture. I have to admit that at times I wanted to shout, “enough about speech! I get it already!” But I trucked on and found that Lee made some interesting and strong points about speech. I found it interesting how Henry Park, Lee’s protagonist, struggles with his speech both public and private. It was interesting to see how when he tries to speak and act American in private with his family he is reprimanded for not being a good Korean son. One of Park’s earliest memories is of being reprimanded by his mother for asking his father about the stores his father owned and operated, “She never asked about the stores themselves… I thought it was because she simply didn’t care to know the particulars, but when I began to ask him one night about the business, my mother immediately called me back into the bedroom and closed the door” (Lee 55-56). Park goes on to describe how his mother tells him that Park shames his father when he questions how his business is doing. When Park openly shows emotion, which is something that is very American, he is accused of bringing shame to his father.
The opposite is shown with Park’s relationship with his wife, Lelia. She accuses him of being an “emotional alien” because Park being like his father internalizes his emotions (5). He tries to be a good Korean and his wife feels that he is a stranger someone she doesn’t know and cannot trust. Throughout the novel Park is often silenced by his inability to speak, his fear of saying the wrong thing or not knowing what to say. This reminds me of Kingston’s struggle with speech. Like her he is left struggling to find his voice. He feels as though he cannot speak Korean because he no longer knows all the correct words and proper behavior. He also cannot speak to his wife because he does not know how to express himself. Park is left unable to use speech to tell his father he loved him or to show his anguish over losing his son.
So what is Lee trying to say here? I think perhaps Lee is trying to show us how we allow our cultures to constrain our speech and personalities. By trying to be faithful to both his Korean and American heritage Park is left silenced. It isn’t until he finally lets go of both that he learns how to speak for himself. By no longer thinking about which way to use speech in both an Asian culture and American culture Park gains a voice.
