Asian American Cultural Studies 2

In the film Aoki, I loved how even after everything he’s been through he’s still helping others and making a difference. Aoki did so much to represent his community despite his past experiences. He served for our country and continued to change our country for the better despite how he was treated before and after the war. He was discriminated against in school, which relates to the Laotian article because even before the 90’s previous immigrants were being treated the same as they were recently.   They were treated differently because of their race. Youth Activism and State Reform This reading also relates to the Laotian article because they both discuss the same issues. The youth in both instances take action and it started from their grass roots. Both youth activists went up against a higher power who didn’t take them seriously since they were minors, yet they made a huge difference. The way immigrants were treated back then were horrible and it makes m...

In M.K. Gandhi's "Hind Swaraj," Gandhi discussed with the reader in the excerpt, of how India can be free if it's ruled by 'the people.' He refers to that as the "home rule." Gandhi wanted to break that economic bond that India, as a colony, had with England, but more importantly, wanted India to be free mentally and spiritually from Western machinery and materialism. This connects to Foucault's reading about trying to separate the truth from the power, by wearing down the powerful. In this case, Gandhi pushes for passive resistance against the English.  In C.L.R. James's "Beyond a Boundary," James talked about his education, as well his love for cricket. Growing up, James did not question anything because he thought that everything was just the way it was. At the cricket field, he felt that he was equal with everyone else. While on the outside of the cricket field, he questioned society's view. His society was all E...

Monkey Dance Video I most relate to Linda from the video because she bares the female expectations. She started the traditional dancing when she was three because her dad found a dance group for her to join. Her dad spends most of his time with the dance group then work night shirt at a factory. When Linda was in 7 th grade, her sister got arrested. From then on, relatives and neighbors looked down on her family and her. They say Linda will be like her sister and not even graduate from high school. In my family, I have one older sister and 6 brothers. Elders often compare me to my sister too. My situation is different from Linda. My sister graduated from high school and college so now my family expects me to graduate from college and pursue something higher. I also experience the burden of female expectations. By the time, I was in 6 th grade my mom expected me to clean around the house and by the time I was in middle school my mom expected me to cook full course meals. In high ...

Week 4: "Beyond a Boundary" and "Hind Swaraj" I like Gandhi's idea for freeing one self from technology to be completely free. We should free our selves from the technologies and capitalistic things that our oppressors brought to our land. He talks about how the Manchester Cotton company came to India and exploit the people for labor and the land for materials.  Big factories and companies come into these developing countries and exploit the people and the materials. Financial and technological tie was a way to dominate and assert authority over India. Gandhi later goes and contradicts himself by saying how we can't completely let go of it all because we've  grown to them and have accustom to them. The interviewer ask Gandhi, about printing press. Gandhi reply back by said "using poison to kill poison." Gandhi uses the printing press to reach out to vase group of people and by doing so he is using the technology brought by t e Europeans. Re...

Week 4 "The Politics of Race" The unfortunate event with the Chevron gas station and the community surround it is upsetting. The gas station explodes and release sulfurous smoke into the air. This event shows that we need more Asian representation. Many of the elders were not able to understand the alert on the TV or the phone calls because they were in English. After the accident, second generation Laotians had multiple roles that contributed to what happen. The teenage Laotians were translators and activist for campaigns. Many second and third generation Asian can relate to this situation. When I was in elementary school I had to translate for my mom. I remember getting frustrated because there would be words that I can’t translate into Hmong into English. I like how the Laotian teenagers took what happen to them and use it to better their community. They went out and propose their campaigns the county health ombudsman and an officer from the Health Department. I think ...

Week 3 "Race Rebels" and "Weapons of the Week" I never saw resistance as everyday form. “Everyday forms of resistance make no headlines.” Because every day form of resistance didn’t make headlines, people like me never bother to see it as an everyday form. I was trying to think of some example from my personal background of resistance and I thought of how the Hmong people turned against each other during the Vietnam War. Some Hmong people were recruited and trained by the CIA to fight in the war while some decided to fight with North Vietnam. In the other article by Kelly, I feel like this is still active in today's modern society. Kelly talked about the observations and experience where McDonald's workers would make too many Quarter Pounders and apple pies so they can take them home. Many of these workers are under paid and don't make enough to support themselves. From my own experience, my brother use to work at Panda Express and he would be in the...

Week 3 "Filipino Nation in Daly City" There were two sentences under the section “Material Success and Filipino Authenticity” that stood out to me and resonated with me. “But she’s not Filipino, she doesn’t speak Tagalong anymore.” Coming from an immigrant family, I hear this phrase often, especially with the new generation of Hmong children. A phrase that my family use often is “they are American child”.  Which mean they are modernize and they don’t know what it is like to be Hmong. Because we don’t speak our language we can’t understand our culture. This makes me wonder about the Chinese and Japanese Americans who have been in the U.S. for years and have modernize. Do the 4 th and 5 th generation Chinese and Japanese still speak their language and practice their culture? Another thing that I appreciate was that this article brought up the model minority myth. Asian Americans that immigrant to the U.S. post 1960’s is not well off like the first wave of Asian Americans....

Week 2 "Truth and Power" and "The Prison Notebook" These two reading really made me rethink what I’ve been taught and what I’m learning. I resonant with Gramsci’s idea that everyone is a philosopher and that it starts by communicating with one another. Some of the greatest invention come from conversations and that came from conversation between individuals. The concept of “common sense” and who gets to say that it’s common sense is something that I’m still fumbling about. From the moment that I was born, it was common sense for my parents to pierce my ears by the time I got to kindergarten. It was common sense that I had to keep my hair long and wear clothing with floras. It frustrates me to think that these “common sense” came from the privilege and the domain group. It’s not fair that the white males who came to North America gets to say that Native Americans need to be tame because they were too savage. This leads me to the next article about Truth. Who are ...

Week 2: "DJing as a Filipino Thing" Finding their own style and their own place in the DJing industry for the Filipino community must have been difficult. The Filipino DJ’s can’t associate or identify with blackness. Instead, they must find their way to associate with the DJ industry. I find this relatable to Asian American now in the United States. As Asian American they don’t identify as white or black and they are always seen as outsiders. Asian American have to fight against the stereotype and have to represent themselves. The Filipino DJ find their sense of belong and make themselves stand out by using their own life experience in their music. I think it’s great how they are about to express themselves through music where they can reach a mass audience of young Asian Americans. Like how many Asian Americans are trying to find their place to belong, the Filipino DJ’s are using music to create their own placed of belonging. 

In the story Beyond a boundary, written by James, C.L.R. is a story about a cricket scholar who  failed to live up to everyone's expectations. James is overwhelmed by the pressure from his family as well as his team and everyone else who expect him to become a great cricket player. However, James chooses to rebel against these expectations by continuously lying and even stealing. From this story, I find a strong connect with in terms of constant pressure coming from the family. I'm the oldest child in my family and I come from a foreign country. I'm constantly expected to be a role model for my younger siblings and to be the first in my family to go to college. As if that is not enough, I'm expected to finish school with a medical degree and get a high paying job so I can give it back to my family. With all of these constant pressure, I sometimes want to rebel against my family and do what I truly feel like as well as James. Therefore, I feel very sympathetic to James. ...

In the articles, M.K Gandhi from Hind Swaraj and Beyond a Boundary both talks about some type of resistance. Whether it’s resisting because you enjoy something or resisting a culture influence. The author in Beyond a Boundary loved the sport of cricket, and would do anything just to be able to play, but it got in the way of school. In the Asian community school is very important, a high education and a good paying job is the meaning of success. Although James knew that, but he continued to play during college. I also have a love of sports, and I did anything to play in middle and high school. In middle school, I signed up for every sport I can possibly play which was volleyball, swimming, basketball and track. I loved all of them and was excited every school year just so I can play. With all these sport, my grades did slip a little but I didn’t care, I would do anything just to be on the court, in that pool, and on the field. My mom wasn’t so happy about that because she expected a ...

Ghandi’s teachings for the Indians to free itself from its parent colony and establish a home rule is a prime example of an everyday form of resistance. He never called for a violent uprising, but instead advocated for a more passive resistance by freeing oneself “mentally and spiritually from Western machines and materialism,” and by breaking the “classic economic dependency” by stopping trade with England. Silently reasserting their own Indian culture is a more peaceful mean of gaining their freedom without having to encounter a violent reaction by the English. Britain’s control over India can also be connected to the Philippines when it was under Spanish rule. In both instances, the suppressed countries were not entirely independent, and had to fight for their own home rule. In “Beyond a Boundary” James lived in a clear hegemonic culture while under Britain’s colonization. For the most part, he did not question the society he was placed in, and recognized that his education was pr...

The Hind Swaraj, a pamphlet written by Gandhi was a pamphlet that calls to the people of India to establish home rule by abolishing the use of machinery. It is very interesting that Gandhi, contradictory to common thoughts, is targeting the machine that was brought be the Englishmen and not the Englishmen themselves. I believe that there are reasons for this action. The first would be pretty self-explanatory; any resistance would be met with reaction in return from the other side. This is especially true when it is a huge revolt against the Englishmen. The second reason for targeting machine is that it is an object that has imbedded itself into many of Indian people life. So by unknowingly accepting the machine that is brought over by the Englishmen, the Indian people have consent the Englishmen to rule over them. These are the reasons why I think Gandhi is specifically targeting the machines.

In the other article, CLR James talked about going to an English, getting an English education, reading English books, and played English sports. “the education, the literature, the cricket, reinforced the English way of seeing the world.” I really resonate with this. My parents are from Cambodia but I was born and raised in the states. I grew up in a predominately white area. White people made up 86% of my town. I grew up thinking that the “white people” way or the “American” way to do things was the right way. I truly believed that my white classmates were better than me because their parents would speak to them in only English whereas my mom spoke to me in both Khmer and English. It was so ingrained in my head that Western culture is the correct or the superior culture. Something that stood out to me in Gandhi's article was the quote, “ When we are slaves, we think the whole universe is enslaved. Because we are in an abject condition, we think the whole of India is in that ...

Vergara I am from Oakland, not too far away from Daly City. I have also done various programs in which I go to the city continuously. I am going to be honest, I do not like San Francisco. It is confusing at first and the price to live there is ridiculous. I also hate how much money companies are making but there are homeless people on every corner, it is unjust. Even though I have been to the city so many times, I never knew about the high number of Filipinos. I am guessing I never paid much attention to it because I always had this idea that only rich people can afford San Francisco and barrios were mainly Chicanos but very rare. This article reminded me of when I asked my dad why he came to Oakland after he left Mexico; he could have stayed in Southern California, closer to the border or gone elsewhere. He told me that he just knew of a lot of friends that lived in Oakland and that he wanted a place where he felt comfortable. Just like the Filipinos wanted to r...