Asian American Cultural Studies 2

            In the article “Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice”, Nam Le discusses his life as an ethnic writer when his Ba came to visit. The reading demonstrated concepts of cross generation gaps, parental expectations, and ethnic stereotypes. The generation gap that Nam and his Ba experiences is in the form of merits; for example, Nam’s Ba was former soldier, whereas Nam is a scholar/lawyer/writer. This gap is important because Nam explains to his wife Linda that his interactions with his father were different, presumably in the form of merit, that led to his decision to not talk about Linda with Ba. This can also reflect what the Laotian girls, from “Laotian Daughters Working toward Community, Belonging, and Environmental Justice”, did with their parents in terms of telling them things; for instance, the Laotian girls were not entirely honest and disclosing in their behaviors outside of house, similar to how Nam wasn’t telli...

In this short story, the time setting was all over the place because he was telling the story backward from the present to the past.  So it was interesting to hear his story from a different point of time.  In the beginning, the narrator was trying so hard to cover all the mess that he has done to his apartment.  He even tried to cover the picture his girlfriend, Linda, from his dad.  I feel like this story represents the main Asian American narrative which is intergenerational conflict due to cultural differences.  In this case, there is a conflict in him trying to finish this story because he does not want it to be a tacky “Asian American” story.  Yet it still aligns with some of the narratives in terms of migration experiences.  Since we come from a broken home where he witnessed both the struggles of his parents separating and living separate lives, he uses his experience to formulate a story.  

I really liked the story. I thought it would have a different ending though, I thought the dad would've died. I thought the relationship between the father and son were similar to Kelly's relationship with her mom and Tony's parents. Both children try to do what is expected of them to please their parents but they can't relate to their parent's experiences. The character's girlfriend could have had a bigger role. I would have liked to see how the main character's father and girlfriend would react to each other. There was a lot of orientalism with how people treated the main character and his writing. There's nothing wrong with writing about personal experiences, but the criticism about "ethnic" was what I expected because it's about minorities. The attacks about his story reminded me of common sense and how people just assume there is one way to look at things. Not all of his friends understood his stories. I feel like only his girlfriend ...

After reading Nam Le’s story, it was very intriguing to read because it tackles issues that many people face today in the form of fiction. By seeing characters interact just like how average people in society do today, it shows the realism of the story and its meaning. A specific part of the story was when the main character talked about how they left home at the age of sixteen, doing everything their father prohibited. By piecing things together, it is like the father disowned the child. This is actually stereotypically seen in Asian/Asian-American culture today where the parents of an Asian is seen “disowning” their child after doing something that is labeled “bad” in Asian culture. The father holds a form of pride for his family and if anyone were to act out of line, then he would be ashamed. Eventually, the father in the story goes as far as even giving his own wife an ultimatum on where she can life after finding out that she has been helping their child. This can relate to my ...

In Nam Le’s fictional story, the narrator reflects on his childhood as he works to provide his last story as a student. At the same time, he accompanies his father because he rarely visits. The story seems as if it was going to be another descriptive, fictional narrative. There was an emphasis on the description of the father’s hands—“hard ad leatherly, moved deftly in the sink.” Thus, that was when I realized the story was going to have more meaning than simply being just a story. The story extended to ultimately show that sometimes Asian narratives become so normalized, Asians do not realize how their history has affected them in the present or their future. In this case, the narrator tries to explicitly subdue writing about Vietnam. It could have been about outside influences such as his colleagues stating “I’m sick of ethnic lit” or it could have been simply about the fact that he wanted to hide from his past. Therefore, I found the part where his girlfriend mentioned, “You’...

Even after learning this story is an autofiction, I can still see why it would be believable. There are very relatable conversations that are brought up in this story, although a lot of the actions seem very exaggerated and unrealistic such as the burning of the story. One thing that was brought up that I felt was interesting is how the narrator had this internal conflict of wanting to not write about ethnic studies, but also wanting to reveal his family's past. Apparently writing about ethnic studies is seen as average and cliche, but after learning his father's journey of survival, the narrator felt compelled enough to use it for his project. I though the conflict between him and his father was very symbolic. His father didn't want him to use his story, but instead wanted to forget everything that had happened in Vietnam. Coming from a family of refugees during the Khmer Rouge, I've witnessed many of my family members struggle with PTSD and other mental illnesses tryi...

In “Shopping for Please,” Fiske explores consumerism, that is dominantly male/patriarchal, and shows analysis of how women can gain empowerment from shopping. Fisk argues that shopping for women is an act of cultural resistance because women find pleasure in consuming materialistic stuff. It’s also because women resist their typical role as a woman at home to being themselves. This is ironic as women want to break away from the patriarchal household of theirs, they face a private yet public space where many of the stores are owned by male executives. Nonetheless, shopping offers women pleasure and self-satisfaction so they can leave behind the responsibilities they had at home and think about themselves for once.  In “Art of Necessity,” Jordan discusses the methods in how protesting for current political issues can be done through creative and non-violent artistic ways. Over time, the ways of protesting has changed and has become more dynamic and powerful like a  flashmo...

In the article “shopping for pleasure” Fiske talks about the cultural resistance, cultural practices and consuming relations of consumers by analysis the power of women and how they gain pleasure through shopping in our patriarchal world. In Fiske’s idea, shopping is an act of culture resistance of women because they can find pleasure ad desires through this activities. I agree with this idea because as a woman, I feel happy when I go to shopping. In the patriarchal society, especially Asian societies, man are dominant and women are likely to stay home taking care of the children and doing housework. Thus, shopping is a method to free their economic and social freedom by controlling their own money to spend on things and time to do things. Therefore, shopping at a mall can be viewed as a cultural practice. In the article, the Fiske also discusses the value structure of masculine and feminine: masculine tends to public, work, earning, production while feminine tends to private leisure,...

6/1 Angel Truong Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice Journal             What I found most interesting in the story was the debate between the narrator and his girlfriend and father. First, the narrator’s girlfriend criticized the narrator’s choice in writing about his father and Vietnam because she felt that he was exploiting them. This really engaged me because as an Asian American Studies major, I have full support on oral history and autobiographical novels. However, this criticism really changed my perspective by allowing me to see another side of this action in a more objective, but cynical and capitalistic way. I remember reading novels for my ASA01 class and I was very interested by them since they brought out strong emotions that I never felt in most academic writings. In other words, the strong emotion brought from these stories gave me a positive attitude towards them. So, this debate made ...

In Shopping for Pleasure, Fiske explores the consumer power of women in a patriarchal world. I believe the consumer power of women is a form of cultural resistance that is both counter-hegemonic and contradictory. Shopping is cultural resistance as it challenges the position of women in households and transforms shopping into exertions of consumer power and expressive liberation. I think it also represents women’s economic power as they demonstrate their freedom to spend their individual earnings, which is a powerful statement considering men are traditionally viewed as family breadwinners. However, this can also be viewed as contradictory considering the free market as predominantly male. As the article states, the majority of shops women feed into are not created by women, so in a way women are still commodities in the patriarchal world as the survival of the market is dependent on their spending. In addition, shopping can be driven by trends and culturally hegemonic ideals imposed...

I thought it was very interesting that consumerism from the female population can exemplify resistance. I am used to discussing acts of resistance in regards to family expectations, traditions, religion, or something along those lines but this time we’re looking at shopping which is a nice change. Fiske explains that a shopping mall or a department store is where women can feel like they are in charge and that is the place they can feel empowered. This reminds me of my own family since my mom does pretty much all of the shopping. I’m not sure if my mom would say she feels empowered in a mall but she’’s definitely more comfortable shopping than my dad. Anytime there is an occasion where a gift is needed, my mom is the one who is responsible for buying a gift. Whenever I receive a gift from my parents, it was usually picked up by my mom but has both of my parent’s signature on it. In fact, last year for Chinese New Year I saw my mom put money in little red envelope and give it to my dad...

Fiske’s “Shopping for Pleasure” article explores the notion of patriarchal consumerism and the association of women with a certain power in shopping malls to feel empowered and important. It is no surprise that the major demographic in shopping arenas are female. It’s stereotypical for people to associate women shopping with an obsession of materialism because that is not always the case. All in all, Fiske argues that this is where a woman can be free in public for their recreational satisfaction, rather than at home meeting the demands of the nuclear family. This perception of seeing shopping as a demonstration of feminism is ironic considering malls are commonly built by males and sales contribute to the general economy.  Therefore, I feel like it takes away some of the female empowerment and puts women back to the patriarchal norm that the male are the dominant power. Shopping nonetheless, though, can still offer an escape for women to leave behind home responsibilities and thi...

In "Shopping For Pleasure", one point was raised "In shopping malls and department stores women's pleasure and desires are catered to, but only in so far as they serve the greater interest of the market". I somewhat disagree with this. While it may be true that the notion of shopping and the market is mostly managed by the predominantly male. The fact that women have a place to exercise a small resistances is important. It is also worth noting that it might be true that it is mostly managed by males, women are exercising the power to vote with their wallet. Also, it creates a space where women can be employ because of the fact that they belong to the group of the target audience, therefore, they have better knowledge of the market. So I argue that shopping malls might not be the place created by women, but it is a stepping stone for women to achieve equal right.

This week’s article talks about capitalism on women’s fashion.   John Jordan’s illustrates how protest, and movements can acknowledge issues without the use of violence. For example, in class we watched flash mobs in India to protest LGBT rights. The use of pop culture to fight political issues. John Fiske talks about women fashion is dominated by males. Shopping is mainly done by women because they care more about how they look, so it’s presumed as a female hobby. For example, modern teens who keep up with trends are called hypebeast, buying and wearing expensive big brands, such as Nike, Adidas, and Diamond. Some people can argue that spending money on a thirty five dollar t shirt it a waste, which I agree, but some only care to represent that brand. I do own a few expensive brands, and when I wear them I feel like I have a sense of superiority, like look I’m rich, but not really because this is the only expensive shirt I own. In a sense women do their shopping to feel super...