oops. I forgot to sign my post...that last one was me, Kelly.

It took me a while to really get into Dictee. I wasn’t really getting anything out of it and it didn’t make any sense to me. I was just reading the words without really seeing or caring about anything beyond that. I thought the words “sounded” cool and I appreciated them for that, but my main goal in the reading was basically just to get through it.

Then I started noticing aspects of the book’s form and Cha’s style of writing that jumped out at me and I was like “OMG! Core 3!” (Vivian L. and Nicole know what I’m talking about…)

Last semester in Core 3 I studied “artist books” (…as in books made as a form of art, not a book about artists) and I think Cha’s book fits very well into this category. It is not just a book; it is a piece of art. I especially started to make this connection in the ERATO/LOVE POETRY section (page 91) when Cha starts playing with the form of the text and how the reader is meant to read it (alternating between pages).

One of the defining characteristics of an artist book is the way the information is conveyed. The book is not just a container for words; it is a part of the message itself. Every aspect of the book—content and form—is compiled into a coherent whole and intended to emphasize some central theme. Dictee is a great example of how meaning is realized through how a subject is told and not only by what is told.

One of the sections that I really liked, that made me stop and read it over again was the chapter called MELPOMENE/TRADGEDY (starting on page 77). I was attracted by the language and the “aura” (?) of the passage. For me, this was a part of the book where the writing style really added to the meaning. The way the text is written here allows you to feel what the speaker is going through. You don’t just listen to the story being told, you are living it as it happens.

For example, the sharp, quick sentences (“Run. Run hard. Out the gate. Turn the corner (83)”) convey the rushed, anxious feeling that the actual character would be experiencing. You become invested in the story. It draws you into the pages. Even if you don’t completely understand what’s going on, you are living the moment, feeling it, and that is what matters.

I really like this paragraph on page 84:
“My brother. You are all the rest all the others are you. You fell you died you gave your life. That day. It rained. It rained for several days. It rained more and more times. After it was all over. You were heard. Your victory mixed with rain falling from the sky for many days afterwards. I heard that the rain does not erase the blood fallen on the ground. I heard from the adults, the blood stains still. Year after year it rained. The stone pavement stained where you fell still remains dark.”

Cha is able to create vivid and stunning imagery with simple language and short sentences. It’s all in the form, how she presents the words. Dictee is a very emotional text and if nothing else, even if I didn’t understand exactly what Cha was trying to say, I at least got a sense of how she felt about the subject. Even if I didn’t know the context of the passage or what event the words were referring to, I could sense the pain, anguish, struggle and loss in them.

In some ways, reading DICTEE was a carthartic experience for me. I think that many of us can relate to times when one feels like words are not enough to express his/her emotions and thoughts. I usually find myself having trouble conveying my ideas and thoughts effectively through a specific writing style and structure--say, the way college students "ought" to write. I remember reading out loud a short story that I had written in my Creative Writing class. It was written in a way that was similar to what you would usually hear at a spoken word performance. My classmates were confused after hearing my story saying that perhaps the story could be more coherent and clear. I figured that the way I had written it was terrible since no one seemed to understand or appreciate it. Therefore, although it may seem that its content and the way DICTEE is written seem too confusing to be meaningful at all, it is innovative and powerful in conveying many emotions of Kreans and Korean Americans during their tragic history.

Through silence and censorship, Koreans in the past and Korean history are being forgotten. Japanese colonialism, division, Koreans being enemies with their own brothers and sisters, and all the painful memories are not being voiced, but rather, they are "justified as a void, as invisibility, lack, and absence in the dominant culture" (5, Kim). In order to express the frustration and difficulty of recalling painful memories and trying to be heard, Cha writes,

"Resurrect it all over again.
Bit by bit. Reconstructing step by step
step
within limits
enclosed absolutely shut
tight, black, without leaks.
Within those limits,
resurrect, as much as
possible, possibly could hold
possibly ever hold
a segment of it
....
salivate the words
give light. Fuel. Enflame"
(129, Cha)

This part creates a sense of progress, bit by bit, and people's effort to be remembered. This concept is also expressed in the poem on pages 67 and 73 with phrases like "little by little," and "memory not all heard, not certain." However, one cannot simply blame the censorship or forbidden use of Korean language to grasp what Cha is trying to say. No matter how incoherent and confusing it may be, the way it was written is important and powerful in that it created a sense of confusion, desperation, and fear that Koreans experienced.

Like how Kim said that "to discuss DICTEE without ever referring to Cha as a Korean American woman is to depoliticize the text and thereby obliterate or at least drastically reduce its oppositional potential and its empowering possibilities" (22, Kim), I think it is important for the readers to take interest in Korean history and its tragedies in order to thoroughly understand the text. Because then, one can start to get a sense of where Cha is coming from.

I don't think there is any one particular topic that I would like to singularly address in this post, so I think I will start with literary form as a starting point since that seems to be an issue many members of our class seem to be hung up on. It is pretty clear that at least two of our readings, Dictee and Dogeaters, clearly do not fit cleanly into any established form. I do not see what the problem with this is. It comes to no surprise at least to me that the writers, who are Korean and multi-racial/Filipina respectively, may have some reservations against trying to write in the genre created out of European/American thought and experiences. If you look at the history of these two countries, the United States has been instrumental in quite a few dark chapters in their histories. I unfortunately can't speak to the history of the Philippines, I do know a little about the period of time in which the author of Dictee, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, was born. The Korean War, commonly refered to as the "Forgotten War", transplanted, disrupted, and erased hundreds of thousands of Korean lives. Just to list off a couple background facts about this war: 1 million South Koreans were killed, 85% being civilians, and 1.13 million North Koreans were killed (11.1% of their entire population). In terms of war attrocities, more napalm was dropped on North Korea than on Vietnam (The Korean War lasted three years, while the Vietnam War lasted 16), and for a period of time the U.S. armed forces were ordered to consider all Korean civilians as hostiles, resulting in the murder of hundreds of refugees at the hands of U.S. military, most notoriously at No Gun Ri. The aftermath of the war is another whole host of problems that the U.S. was involved in, but in short, the experience for Cha was one highlighted by disruption and displacement. I interpret Dictee as a product of the formative experience of the Korean War as well as further displacement due to structural forms of racism and prejudice that the Korean American immigrant population faced once immigrating to the United States.

The novel form is not stagnant, and is always in negotiation. However, it has largely been influenced by European and American culture and values. In class, someone brought up the point that the structure of Dogeaters is constructed in a manner to depict the communal experience of injustices and sufferings, and I completely agree and urge us all to question what it is that is educating our analysis of what we call the "novel." Why is it that anything that doesn't adher to the literary forms and genres that the literary canon indoctrinate us to hold as dear is interpretted to be alienating and inaccessible? I think a better question would be why we do value the forms and genres and particular kinds of narratives that we have historically priviliged? There are particular inherent value judgements made on what goes into a narrative, and from the sound of a lot of posts, people aren't understanding that a century of abuse and exploitation may change one's value system a little. I find that a lot of the kinds of things people critique about this text are based out of the kinds of payoffs one usually gets out of reading a novel. However, if one's history and experience is marked by a lack of ownership of wrongs and abandonment, the kinds of conclusions that are born out of that experience cannot possibly fit into the genre of the novel. At least I haven't seen it done yet. Although I began with the intention of covering a couple topics, I got engrossed in this one. Oops.


-Min

Okay, I finally figured out how to use this site!

I had an experience yesterday that I consider post-worthy. I was explaining to a friend what I was reading in this class. (At the time, I was halfway through Dictee and feeling as I assume most of us felt ... confused, jaded, and ready to go find a French-English dictionary.) I was then asked, "Well, what is the book about?" I was a little startled to find that I didn't have an answer, not even a small one.

This class has been full of new experiences for me. I'm reading things that I would never have read on my own and, for the most part, enjoying them. Occasionally I'm frustrated, and occasionally I feel left out. This being my first race and ethnic studies class, I had no idea there was such a wealth of Asian American experiences out there. Sometimes I have felt it difficult to identify with the people we read about because they depict such an Asian American experience. But I like having my worldview broadened and influenced, so I really don't mind.

Still, sometimes I feel at a loss when attempting to explain what I read in class. Dictee is a particular problem due to its unique form, but I even had a problem pinpointing exactly what My Year of Meats was about. I have given this a great deal of thought. My reply to my friend's question earlier was that Dictee was a postmodern novel-esque text about the fragmentation of language, and therefore the fragmentation of reality, and the inability of people to communicate with each other (specifically, the difficulty of Korean Americans making their voices heard in the wake of the Korean war). Like I said in class, it was largely about disorientation and disequilibrium, throwing us off balance from what we expect out of a novel. In some senses, Dictee is a deconstruction of the classic 19th century novel, disregarding European ideals of plot, character, and even sentence structure. If Cha had altered it to make it more understandable, it probably would have lost most of these elements and wouldn't be so effective in portraying an Asian American experience.

This seems to be a theme in the literature we read for this class. In My Year of Meats, for example, Ozeki uses mixed media (in the form of faxes, etc.) and multiple perspectives, and the same goes for Dogeaters. I think there are different levels of accessability to the three texts, but what they are doing amounts to the same thing. The deconstruction, or perhaps refusal to use, generic European norms is something all three of the authors has done. This was also part of the postmodern movement, I believe, but these authors seem to claim it for the Asian American experience by focusing on Asians and Asian Americans.

I think this post was at least half for me to get all of this straight in my head, but I'm curious about how people respond. The readings for these texts, particularly for Dictee, depend largely on what each particular reader brings to it (as we discussed in class). I think understanding can only be complete after we each puzzle individually over them, and then puzzle together.

A few of my opinions…in somewhat analytical style. Also in Hawaiian style – i.e. posted a bit late to discuss My Year of Meats and Dogeaters. In my defense, this response has been awhile in the making...

There seems to be an Asian interest in things American – in consumerism, standards of beauty, and other aspects which mark the American people, culture, language, and way of life.

In My Year of Meats, Joichi commends Professor P. Thomas Ziegler as “a wise man. An American” (21). Joichi adds “an American” as emphasis, making it sound as if he believes wisdom to be an intrinsic property of American people as a whole. Akiko watches My American Wife! and notes that she “like[s] the size of things American. Convenient. Economical” (19). For the BEEF-EX campaign to be profitable in Japan, the series must draw a substantial number of viewers, people who buy into the idea of the American dream. The producers of the show depend on the fact that their audience in Japan holds American culture in high esteem.

Many of the characters in Dogeaters pay to see American actors as well. A popular theater in Manila, where Rio and Pucha go often to see movies, advertises “English Movies Only!” (3). Pucha prefers American stars Rock Hudson, Ava Gardner, and Debbie Reynolds to local Filipino celebrities Barbara Villanueva, Nestor Noralez and Lolita Luna. Both Pucha and Rio admire the personas portrayed in the American films – the characters are “inherently American, modern, and enviable” (4).

Rio is also impressed when Tonyboy speaks “with his American accent…with such confidence” (240). She has her sights set on someday living in America and making movies. “When I grow up,” she tells Tonyboy, “I’m moving to Hollywood” (240). Another character, Joey Sands, dreams of one day living with his American lover “in Vegas or L.A.” (77). Neither Rio nor Joey are taken seriously, but Rio does move with her mother to America for school. Though she misses home, Rio never moves back to Manila permanently; she goes only “to visit” (245).

The Filipinos regard the English language as sophisticated, and they use it with satisfaction. Rio’s mother calls her “precocious” with “an uneasy pride in her voice” (85). Does the pride stem from being proud of her daughter’s intelligence, or of her own ability to wield a big English word? The big businesses in Manila, including SPORTEX department store and TruCola Soft Drinks, sport English names. The advertising ploy here plays to a “modern” (102), westernized aesthetic and shouts, “Buy me, I’m American!” As Senator Avila writes in his pamphlets, “We Pinoys suffer collectively from a cultural inferiority complex. We are doomed by our need for assimilation into the West…” Avila goes on to say that although the Philippines was “baptized and colonized to death by Spaniards and Americans,” they continue to be “united by [their] hunger for…[their] Hollywood dreams” (101). This is the paradox I question. What makes entire nations so admiring of western countries when these very countries have exploited them in the past? Why do they often renounce their own heritage and culture for westernization? It is possible that they have seen Europe and America flourish and want to find the same success. The phrase “if you can’t beat them, join them” resounds here.

Not only is there veneration for western culture and America itself; there is also an obsession with whiteness. To many, the term “American” conjures up images consistent with the white ideal of physical beauty, regardless of the fact that the U.S. is composed of various ethnic groups. Pucha, for example, is proud of her “mestiza nose,” which is “pointy and straight” (4), unlike the typically flat “Filipino” nose. Rio envies her cousin’s European features – her nose, her blond hair, and her fair skin. Pucha also comments later that Tonyboy is okay even though he is dark. Rio’s paternal grandparents are both Filipino, but “consider themselves Spaniards through and through” (93) – they live in Spain, speak Spanish, and are not close to their family, the Gonzaga clan, back in the Philippines.

Similarly, in My Year of Meats, Joichi expresses his desire for a white mate. He distances himself from his thin Japanese wife, Akiko, and makes her watch My American Wife!, perhaps in hopes that she will take cues from the white women on the show. He wants to put meat on her bones to fulfill his fantasy of “big-breasted American women” (42). He goes so far as to try and rape Jane, whom he admires for her “hybrid vigor” (43) and begs her to let him “make baby with [her]” (110).

It is interesting to note the history of relations the United States has with Japan and the Philippines. In the mid-nineteenth century, the U.S. disregarded Japan’s closed-door policy to international trade, and forced them, under threat of naval bombardment, to sign a trade agreement. Almost everyone is familiar with the dropping of the atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan, which ended World War II but continues to cause radiation illnesses for many innocent people till this day. The Japanese Exclusion Act denied the Japanese legal entrance into the United States in the mid-1900s. These events of the past make it a wonder that people in Japan desire American things at all. Jane’s mother’s parents did disown her (235) after she married Jane’s father; Jane speculates that this could be because he was white. Perhaps in that time, when World War II was still fresh in peoples’ minds, the Japanese felt more hostility toward Americans. Now, however, we see Japanese people's hair bleached gold with peroxide, and hear their pop songs, which are often fraught with English words.

The Philippines also has a discordant history with the United States. After the U.S. defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War, the Filipinos believed that they would regain their autonomy. The United States had been their ally against Spanish colonialism; however since Spain relinquished control of the Philippines to the U.S., U.S. occupation of the Philippines ensued. The Philippines fought back but failed in their attempts, and it wasn’t until after World War II that the United States finally granted them independence. It seems strange that there is no real mention of anti-American sentiments in Dogeaters; in fact the only chapter which directly mentions colonialism is the one entitled “President William McKinley Addresses a Delegation of Methodist Churchmen, 1898” (71). The short paragraph on this page provides the reader with McKinley’s argument – mainly that of manifest destiny – for why the U.S. did not grant the Philippines self-rule after the Spanish-American war. Since the stories in Dogeaters take place over a decade after Philippine independence, perhaps resentment toward America has died down, and thus does not come into play much in these narratives. Nevertheless, it is ironic that a people downtrodden by another would not remain more rebellious toward their former oppressors.

This is all reminiscent of the first article we read in class, “The Possessive Investment in Whiteness.” In this age, whiteness continues to be synonymous with things modern, accepted, and revered, regardless of the atrocities the United States has and continues to commit. What if the Renaissance and the European Enlightenment occurred elsewhere? What if these ideas never reached America? What if English were not the international language of the day? What if the United States was a third world country? What if the "western" world was never "modernized?" Who then, would provide the standard of beauty, of culture, of making a living? Would any race dominate, or would there be equality for all?

Alex the Konfused Ko-Am (haha.... korny)

After having established the fact that the book was convoluted, frustrating, noisy and consistently inconsistent in it's form, I felt, like everyone else, exhausted and off-set by the end of the book. It was not until Kim's article that I began to realize that the book is not meant to be an isolated text. One person reading the book just once is not enough to understand and appreciate what Cha is offering out to us. Now, being Korean American may seem as if I have a slight upperhand in grasping some of the highly specific cultural subject matter better than others, possibly even some of the historical background of some of the events mentioned in the text. But the truth is, personally, I don't. Even if I did, I would still feel excluded from other aspects of the book (the French poetry, Daoist text...) and, in fact, everyone should feel excluded in some way. This exclusive feature of the text is significant to the understanding of what the text is representing.

In the post that started my directed discourse, the question was raised whether this exclusion of the reader "in a book that finally gives the experience representation" works against the "specific and very under-represented" experience. (The female Korean-American experience is how I am reading this) From what Kim has to say about the fluidity of identity/boundaries and my own personal exploration of identity, I reaize the book does give an accurate representation of a specific and very under-represented experience by being all of the things that frustrate us readers - the exclusivity, fragmentation, erratic form etc. I would like to go even further by claiming that the form of the text is an accurate representation of all other identities, experiences that we each associate with - how multi-layered and blended our own identities seem to be at times. The text then requires of the reader to not simply ignore and never think about the seemingly noisy and unnecessary filler pages but engage in active pursuit and conversation with others and other texts to uncover the deeper meanings and expose different layers

Most of this, however, was touched upon in class but I wanted to restate it in case some thoughts were lost in translation. A fresh idea that I'd like to conclude my blog with is the personal affect the text, along the subsequent critiques and conversations, had on me.
I can relate very closely to Kim's previous struggle of how to define and claim my Korean American identity. I felt that there should be clear cut answers to the exact ways in which one is Korean, Korean-American. Lately, I've realized the blending and fluid nature of my identity and that it never stops changing. The way in which the text embodied this perspective on identity and how I could share and understand this message somehow connected me with Cha. This link, moreover, can then potentially be made between all sorts of supposedly exclusive groups and identities. Maybe this last thought is too optimistic and unrealistic in our lives today but the experience of the text, nevertheless inspired and empowered me to believe its an idea not worth giving up on... yet.

Some more thoughts on Dictee...

I too had a difficult time understanding the formatting in this book, and was perplexed by the seeminng lack of a noun or subject in several of the chapters. I think I took a look at the first couple of pages and thought "seriously?" The french written "assignments" so to speak seem a random addition, but I agree with Nicole's point: "A possible explanation for the use of foreign language and non-western writing system—and forgive me if this analysis proves trite—in the author’s desire for her reader to experience sections of this work from the perspective of “the other,” or the outsider. " I think the reader who doesn't know french is purposely made an outsider to give us an idea of how the Koreans who left and returned to the country felt.

I took 3 years of French in high school, and am sadly out of practice, but I did attempt to read and make sense of the french versions of some of the text. Especially in the more recent pages (this was mentioned in class as well I believe), the english translation presented is most definately not exact. While we discussed this being Cha's loose translation rather than a translation given to us by another source, I think that- and this may be obvious- the loose and relative translation is given on purpose. To me, it represents her point that there shouldn't be a suppression of one's own voice, and there shouldn't really be a perfect "all encompassing/universal" translation. I think that because she has choosen to take the translation loosely, we see that Cha is striving to maintain some semblance of an individual quality to the words if that makes any sense.

This work screams CORE 1 to me (for all you Scripps people you know what I'm talking about...). aside from the post-modernist aspects of the work, it reminds me of representation, and how that was such a major theme to CORE. While I can't seem to discover my own interpretation of the formatting, etc. in this book, I think the inclusion of diagrams, illustrations, etc. serve to provide the reader with a way to interpret the meaning however they choose. Our definition of what this book really means, or what it is trying to say to us, is all based on how we use the concept of representation. For example, the inclusion of the biological diagram for monday's reading represented to me the common biological system in all of us that gives us the ability and right to speak. Maybe that's just because I'm a science major... but to tohers it might represent something else (say, depicting one's literal ability to make sound as someone mentioned in class). While I think there is definately a narrow range of interpretations that were intended by the author, I can't help but wonder if someone with a Korean background has additional insight into the text.

I hope this made sense... at least a little bit?

--Ashley

I don't know how coherent this is going to be. I just have some thoughts and I'm putting them out there, sorry if it doesn't make any sense.

As much as Dictee has been a challenge for me to read because of the unorthodox format of the text, I have actually enjoyed reading Dictee much more than I thought I would have after picking it up last week. I guess I little bit has to do with the ideas addressed in this book. I am taking a class called Politics, Economics, and Culture of Korea, and we have discussed the importance of history and how that effects identity formation. So in a way, this book, along with my other class, and the Still Present Pasts exhibit I went to all culminate on this idea of the formation of identity among Koreans/Korean Americans through the effects of major events that occured in the past, but still leave their legacies.

As others have expressed in their posts about the format of the book, I also had a hard time really understanding (and still don't know completely) why Cha used this format to write her book. I think because of the way the book is written, with the incorporation of French, the splitting of text, the mixture of mediums (art, poetry, prose), etc. all says something about the end message(s) Cha is trying to convey to the reader. I agree that with all of this information that is given to us as the reader, we can not overlook the question of what these different conventions of writing mean for the overall book, and Cha's point. With that said, I have grown to appreciate writing that does not necessary or does not fit into the mold of this canonical text that has everything in it that it needs to be a noteworthy book. Dogeaters as well as Dictee have broadened my literature world and shown me that there are great things beside a plot, character development, opening and closing, etc.

Back to the notion of identity formation evident throughout this book. I have been learning about Korean history, the history touched on in the different chapters of Dictee, in my other class. I guess this has provided me with a contextual background to understand some of the history of Korea. I want to argue that Cha is addressing the bigger issue of identity formation through the experience of Japanese colonization, the Korean War, the nationalism, the March 1st Movement, etc. and how the history of Korea and the Korean people affects the development and understanding of the generational differences among Koreans and Korean Americans.

I never thought about history and the effects of history, especially when unspoken about, like in this case with Japanese colonialism, the Korean War, etc., had that large of an effect on the formation of identity for someone. Cha takes a period of time in Korean history that is so tragic and unspoken about and puts those issues into a book, whose title is even about dictation and speaking out. There is a large emphasis on finding a voice among all of the structures that can silence a person. There is a link between finding a voice that is yours and developing that voice to be strong and conveying your identity and aspects of your identity to others. Through the power of voice, identity is formed as well as developed and continually changed and reinvented.

I feel like I am talking/writing in circles and I don't really know if this makes sense. But ultimately, I think that Cha's work says a lot more about identity formation, especially among the Korean and Korean American community, and the huge role that history plays in that identity formation. The historical events that occured in Korea (the colonization, division, war, etc.) do not only affect the generation who actually/physically lived through the tragey but also those generations afterwards who live withthe consequences and results of the tragic moments in their parents lives. What is so naturally categorized as cultural is, when looked at closer, actually a result of these tragic periods in Korean history. Cha brings to light these issues and reminds the reader that these moments can and should never be forgotten or overlooked.

Reading Dictee aroused a feeling similar to that which I often experience while visiting a contemporary art exhibition. Overall, the book, “novel,” or compilation of poetry, prose, and pictures did have a feeling of collage about it—or in this case, bricolage. Structurally, it is a great example of a post-modern novel. It takes a variety of difference forms of written expression and melds them all together to create a larger picture. Verse, narrative, government-type documents, photos, diagrams, sections or photo-copied hand writing, and an invocation of the Greek muses. I found the overlying arc that tied these different things together to be how then functioned as forms of communication. This post will focus chiefly on the way different types of language function within the text.

In it’s entirety I saw this work as being the sum of many distinct parts. (Once again, a sort of collage, or bricolage.) Some parts fit nicely, others seemed more independent and lost, but I don’t doubt for a second that this was all orchestrated very carefully.

Some parts of the writing were fully comprehensible. I was able to understand what the author was trying to convey and was even able to recognize something resembling a plot line.

Some parts were a bit more dense. While I was able to grasp onto some element of Cha’s meaning, I was aware that there was a deeper significance eluding my comprehension. For example, while I could recognize the French poetry as being written in the French language, as someone who doesn’t speak French, I was met with a barrier. Because of some similarities between English and French, I was able to decode some of the words, but nothing substantial enough to formulate any cohesive meaning.

Then there were parts of the work that I found to be completely incomprehensible. I didn’t bother making an attempt at understanding the characters because, not only was I unsure of what language they were, I had no idea how I might even begin to look for a way of translating them. Instead I was left to regard them as mere images, which was incredibly frustrating. While I knew they likely carried profound significance, I was powerless to learn what it was.

A possible explanation for the use of foreign language and non-western writing system—and forgive me if this analysis proves trite—in the author’s desire for her reader to experience sections of this work from the perspective of “the other,” or the outsider. So much of the work examines the concept of speech and person’s voice, ability to make their ideas heard, or freedom to express those ideas in the manner or the specific nature of their choosing. It is possible that Cha inverts this by forcing foreign languages upon her reader.

She imparts ideas on us in the manner of her choice. In doing so, she might be mimicking the sense of disregard shown to the Korean people by the Japanese. While she does offer an English translation of most of her French poetry, there are some instances—unless my drowsy brain is playing with my memory—where she offers no explanation. Could this be her way of attempting to get her readers to understand the position and experience of a group of people who were robbed the ability to speak and communicate in the manner of their choosing—and instead were forced to function in a language that was forced upon them?

It is possible that none of this will make sense to me in the morning—or rather, when I wake up later today.

Nicole

A Post by David Saetang

For the sake of discussion, I wanted to speak again the idea about the language and word choice used in DICTEE because Vivian’s earlier post basically touched upon the most points I wanted to bring up in my presentation, which I would like to elaborate on now. Sorry if it seems redundant but I believe I can add at least a little but more to that topic.

As we all have experienced thus far, DICTEE uses a most untraditional, unorthodox written style which, to most readers (if not, all), makes for a very uncomfortable, uneasy read. This written style shows all of the hard work and dedication that Cha had put into the creation of the text simply because she did not have to make it that difficult in the first place. However, the resulting work is one that deserves much attention and appreciation – that is, if we can understand why it was made that way.

While reiterating what Vivian had been saying about the incorporation of non-English language use in the text as a way for the author to invoke a sense of “alienation and confusion” to the reader, I would like to point at the difference(s) between “wanting to know” and “needing to know”. As Megan had mentioned in her post, foreign language students are forced to interpret the essence of the sentences when they are met with limitations to their ability. It is this essence of interpretation that is the key in understanding the reasoning behind the structure of the text of DICTEE. By making readers go back and forth (literally in Chapter 5) through the text while dodging foreign languages and diagram after diagram, they [us readers] are left with two things: 1) wondering why in the world Cha would go through the trouble of doing such a thing to us (and herself), and 2) a desire to see what we were ‘missing’. It is this desire to know that eats us alive inside and inevitably takes us away from the text. By this, I mean to say that we end up questioning what we are given rather than attempting understand it; and this is the reason why the text becomes (is) more difficult than it already is.

[Okay, I need to separate this paragraph somehow, so… here we go.]

Anyway, as I recall saying in my presentation on Monday, it seemed that the more you knew about the “extras” (French, Japanese/Chinese characters, etc.) that Cha through into the text, the more it turned out to “harm” you instead of helping you. Once again I will bring up my argument that Cha put the importance of her message(s) in the words she knew we as readers would be able to understand because it would be both ridiculous and unreasonable (to me) for Cha to assume that readers go into it already knowing every language that she uses (this is also the case for My Year of Meats and DOGEATERS). What I’m trying to say is, the authors clearly did this for a reason: not only to make us feel uncomfortable just as a “foreigner” to the language would, but also to make us decide on our own what is important to pull out from the text (that being the information they want us to know).

So I suppose what I am trying to say is that it is important for us to take the text as it is and to understand/take what we are given, because everything we need to know is already there; it is not necessary for us to try to understand or have everything we want. That’s exactly how the characters were treated in their lives – so there’s a lesson already learned right there. Going back to what I said earlier about the “essence of interpretation”, what we are able to do at best is to assume what Cha is trying to saying in the complex chapters (some more than others) that we read. There are direct hints, such as those referring to the occupation by the Japanese and the division of Korea into the North and the South, but besides that we are left with a visually-awkward structured book. As much as we want to understand why some chapters are made the way they are, in the end we are actually just better off trying to understand text away from the “distractions”. It’s a difficult task, but that’s why we have each as a class, right? =)

I apologize in advance for the poor structure of this post – I usually have a direction that I want to go in, but I sometimes go off tangents so badly that I can’t remember my original course of thought. I hope I didn’t give anyone a headache. Take care! -David

I wanted to talk about Dogeaters and Dictée, so you’ll have to forgive me for not sticking to just Dictée. In hindsight, I probably should’ve posted something about Dogeaters earlier.

Going back to Dogeaters:
I was excited to finally read a) something other than stories about Japanese Americans, and b) something about the Philippines, but it wasn’t at all what I expected. I was hoping to relate to the book a lot more than I did. (If nobody’s figured this out by now, I’m half Filipino) The back of the book said the book was set in “Manila in the turbulent period of the Philippines’ late dictator,” which I took to mean that I would get to hear about what it was like living under Marcos (which my mom did, and I’ve been meaning to ask her more about it, so I’m doing that right now as well). While it was fiction, I wanted to hear some mention of Marcos or something. I also got kind of irritated with the Tagalog in the book because it wasn’t translated, so I only understood some of it, and I felt like I should have understood it all, but I didn’t. I did get a little personal satisfaction every time I understood something that wasn’t translated. That’s just a personal thing though. I was also kind of frustrated at the form of the novel, the fact that it kept switching between characters and times without telling the readers got on my nerves, because I really wanted to like the book and I found it hard to get into any of the stories because Hagedorn seemed to kind of pull away and start with another story once I began to immerse myself in one.

On Dictée:
With Dictée, form was an even bigger problem for me, and I had a really hard time seeing through the unconventional format of Cha’s book and understanding the story and message. Kim’s essay helped put it in perspective and clarify what Cha was trying to say, both specifically, in certain segments, and in general. I read Kim’s essay and noticed that at least one other person commented on her statement that by “refusing to be drawn into an opposition between “woman” and “Korean” or between “Korean” and “Korean American,” Cha creates and celebrates a kind of third space, an exile space that becomes a source of individual vision and power” (Kim 8) I don’t know to what extent you guys have had this experience of living in a “third space,” but I know I feel that way, to some extent, being hapa and having lived all over, I’m not fully Filipino, nor am I fully American, so I’m a little out of place everywhere—too Asian to be American but too American to be Asian.

Sidenote: I’d like to think that what Kim says on page 10 isn’t true- “most Americans cannot even locate Korea on a map of the world.”

Kim tells us that “Dictée is about negotiating the tensions between self and the world, the interior and the exterior, the body and language, the creator and the viewer, nationalist and female concerns.” (Kim 14) This summary of the book helped me understand some of the overarching themes of the book which were hard to make out because to do that we have to look through the form to understand the content and then see what Cha tries to say through all the different stories she tells. “By telling the women’s stories, Dictée disturbs established notions of history.” (Kim 14) What I got from this is that history has been written largely by men, and therefore, many women’s stories have been collectively forgotten, and Cha seeks to remind us of those stories and to remind us that history isn’t absolute, that it is merely “a set of lies agreed upon.” (I’m not sure who said that, but I know I’ve heard it before.) She also tells us about other tensions that Kim mentions—between interior and exterior, and the body and language, to name two. I saw the tension between the interior and exterior in the animosity Koreans who stayed in Korea felt for those who fled when they tried to return to Korea, and the tension between body and language is seen throughout the book in relation to the Japanese colonization of Korea.

No one can argue that “Dictee” is anything but a tough read from page one. We can only assume that such leaps that Cha takes from the “standard” storyline novel are the result not only of artistic license, but of a purpose that no standard discourse could reveal.

In the opening paragraphs, the reader is made almost painfully aware of each mark of punctuation, given as much importance as the few words of which the story is made up. It is difficult for the reader to gain much of the substance from the first read through, because the structure of the sentences serves to confuse rather than organize the sentence. The mind automatically weeds through the excessive wording, to create a visual of the scene being described. The reader begins to gain a sense, through personal experience, of struggle between what the narrator wants to share, and the cumbersome and limiting medium of writing.

Cha further demonstrates the importance of and inherent problems with this physical self expression through hugely varying examples. On page 14 she relates what seem to be exercises for learning French. For anyone who has attempted to learn a foreign language will be aware of the level of imprecision of meaning which translating can produce. Somehow there are always discrepancies between what one wants to say, and the available words with which we can express ourselves. Because of this, often foreign language students are forced to interpret the essence of the sentences, rather than the dry words themselves, but the reader is confused by her choppy, incomplete, running sentences, with which we struggle to gain meaning much less be able to restate in a new form. Much like the book, the format is necessary to the meaning.

We are further convinced of the importance of language through examples of prayer, letters concerning militaristic aide in war, and racial identity though a native tongue. Again on page 14, the prayer is not merely an arrangement of vocabulary words, as the heading “Translate into French” would cause us to assume. It is a confession of sins and an apology to ones god, and in effect, a group of words which can save this individual for eternity, based on their beliefs. The letter to the US asking for military aide in Korea is potentially no less important to the lives of thousands. This single letter could, if convincing, save the Korean people from further physical and economic damage from Japan. However, as the dates following this letter reveal, those written words were indeed not enough to save the people of Korea from further abuse. Suddenly the written words appear much more fragile and dependent upon the feelings they instill in their reader than their quality of arrangement and structure. Perhaps the words will always fail the human emotions which they attempt to reveal. However, when Cha relates (presumably)the story of her mother, language seems less an imperfect medium of expression as providing a sense of identity itself. For her mother, “the tongue that is forbidden is your own mother tongue. You speak in the dark. In the secret” (45). Suddenly we are exposed to the softer side of language, or our dependency on it not merely for a means of communication and self expression, but for understanding ourselves. The mode through which we chose to express ourselves can be just as meaningful as the thoughts and ideas which they strive to represent.

Though Cha’s book is visually confusing as it is not in our native novel format, it is vital in her labors to stress the importance and volatility of words on a page, and the importance and trust which is instilled in the integrity of their meanings and the interpretation which their reader will assume.

(sorry if this is too academic paper-y. Thats all I know how to write!)

-Megan

As I was reading Dictee, I was definitely frusterated. I honestly found the reading pointless (I love my 19th century novels!) because I could not break through the puzzles and diffculties of its structural exterior. I felt completely disconnected from whatever it was trying to tell me. I wondered why the work was written like this in the first place, wouldn't the author want people to be able to take something away after reading the text--if not complete understanding and/or satisfaction, still something. Many of the pages I read were hard to remember at all. I know it sounds like I am bashing this text, but I'm not. Although this type of work is not my personal favorite, I try to appreciate it and learn new things from it. So, I am trying to get to the point of my post, which is, that after reading Kim's essay on Dictee, I began to understand it, and its structure a lot more. After reading the essay I was able to take something away from my reading of Dictee.
Kim relates the text to her own experiences as a Korean-American woman. For me, her essay read like a reading companion to Dictee. It was a part by part analysis that helped me realize what Cha was doing with her text. Kim is especially interested in the treatment of Korean history in Dictee. She raises a lot of interesting and significant Korean history (the invention of gunpowder, the printing press, Japanese conflit, the significant effects of American Imperialism in Asia), that I had no knowledge of. I realized that I had been effectively lumped in to the category of 'typical american' that she was writing about, whose historical lense begins with Ancient Greece. I get it! (I thought). Dictee is about calling attention to Korean history. Cha uses her unconventional structure to suggest that Korean history has been buried by America's version of history and must be searched for, worked at, to understand.
But then, Kim discusses Dictee as being specifically about women. She tells the few stories that she remebers about Korean women. She questions America's eager sympathy for Asian woman, bringing up footbinding as on of the only things Americans know about Chinese history. Kim writes, "If Korean history is missing from the master narratives of the West and women are absent from recorded Korean history, the Korean American woman is invisible in both discourses" (19). I think this idea is present not only in the text of Dictee, but also the structure itself. Those huge gaps between paragraphs, and individual words emphasize the negative space on the page. Perhaps this negative space represents the woman who do not 'fit' into those master narratives? So Dictee is about positioning Korean and Korean-American women into both 'Eastern' and 'Western' society. Kim discusses many other points in the essay, which are helpful and insightful. But still, this is only Kim's reading of the text.
When I finished reading Kim's essay, I felt I had a bit more understanding of Dictee--I had at least cracked its surface. However, I still feel a little disconnected from the text. It is almost as if I am not equipped with the right resources to read it. If I hadn't read Kim's essay, I would still be completely in the dark as to the point of Dictee. I wonder if a work of literature should need a paragraph by paragraph interpretation in order to be understood. (Although, of course, Dictee is not the only text to have this sort of point-by-point break down....I know that) I wonder if Cha has gone just a little too far in challenging literary structure, to the point where she isolates her reader too much?? (Again, just my opinion...) Ultimately, I am not sure if I have been included by Cha to read Dictee, because I do not have the knowledge needed to fully understand it. However, the other way to look at that is simply that I can learn what I do not know through reading the text, as well as essays like Kim's. Although Dictee is not the type of literature I generally study, I do appreciate reading completely new things and having these sort of internal debates about them. After reading Kim's essay I have at least taken away from Dictee some understanding of what it is trying to accomplish, which is actually really interesting and significant.
-RACHEL BERMAN

I just want to warn everyone that this post has no thesis. I just want to bring up some things that have been on my mind about the texts we’ve been reading for class that I have not yet been able to voice, so follow along if you can, but if it’s difficult to understand, I want to apologize in advance.

I wanted to add a couple more points to Vivian’s post on the authors incorporation of non-English languages in their respectives texts. Vivian already addressed the authors’ potential purpose of excluding their readers of the language’s meaning with the intent that their audience may experience the living frustration of a foreigner unable to keep up with or understand dominant society. I would also like to add the authors’ desire to convey a “multicultural” society as an additional possible motive in integrating Japanese, Tagalog, French, etc… in a piece of American literature.

A lack of understanding invokes a sense of confusion that, I argue, can be metaphorically extended to the state of society’s culture. Particularly in Dogeaters, I think this technique reflects the country’s contradicting experiences in undergoing sociological and cultural shifts that are inevitable with the imposition of an imperial society on/interation with native society, or I suppose in this case, a country formerly influenced by Spanish hegemonic powers. I detected a sense of dissatisfaction and unfulfilled desire in each character and their experience despite the fact that some are able to fulfill their dreams. Pucha achieves her material conquest that comes attached with the status of marrying an Alacran, yet winds up divorcing this dream. Romeo Rosales wants to make it as a famous celebrity, yet it is obvious that that juxtopsed lifestyle, embodied by Lolita Luna, is not satisfying. This sentiment of incompleteness can be physically felt by the reader precisely through the inability to comprehend the full body of the text during its non-English portions.

I want to make a shift here and address Manila as possible protagonist of this novel. The overaching sensation of dissatisfation, I believe, speaks to a foundational problem in Filipino society. I think the author is trying to express something fundamentally wrong with a society forced to change by outside imperial influences.

Someone mentioned in class that Hagedorn’s purpose of Pucha’s letter to Rio, which essentially undermines the truthfulness of Rio’s first person narratives may be to remind her readers that the text is a work of fiction. And in doing so, perhaps implies that rather than the details, what’s important is the experience of each character and the demographic identities each represent. Reminding readers to question the trustability of multiple protagonists, perhaps encourages the reader to focus, not on the historical specifics such as who died and when, which events occurred before/after others, but rather the collective experience, the makeup of the greater society that define Manila. Thus a reminder of falsehood becomes a reflector of a truth when applied to the greater city. Additionally, certain themematic markers remain consistent throughout the novel despite the diversity of its stories. The repetition of themes through the various lives of different characters speak to a description of the city, such as obsession with material and consumption, internalization of racial stratification, american dream, inevitabily of suffering, reinforcement of patriarchical society that tends to mark Asian/Asian America in reaction to hyposexualization of men and hypersexualization of women.

Thoughts?

Posted by Vivian Lin

Reflecting on something David mentioned in class a few weeks ago, I’ve noticed the incorporation of non-English language into the novels (“books,” if novel isn’t an appropriate term for some of them), and the effect this has on the work and the reader.

The Japanese romanji (use of Latin alphabet to write out the Japanese language) in Ozeki’s My Year of Meats was almost always followed by an English translation. While this English-echo of Japanese made practical sense for a novel intended to reach American audiences, it was not a very realistic portrayal of character-character interactions. Joichi knew that Jane speaks Japanese fluently—he would not have needed to repeat himself in English. In contrast, I noticed that there was a great deal more confusion in Hagedorn’s Dogeaters due to the use of unconventionally-spelled Spanish and Tagalog (and possibly other dialects). I often found myself wishing there were a glossary or mini language dictionary built into the back of the book. What inside joke or snide remark was I missing out on? Now, with Cha’s Dictee, there are entire passages of French, sometimes followed by a translation, sometimes not.

I personally know some Spanish, very little romanized Japanese, virtually no French, and no Tagalog or any other Philippine dialects. The occasional use of non-English language probably is not as important as form and other aspects of writing style when it comes to understanding the literature. However, there is something very stabilizing and comforting when you feel that you can read all of the text, recognize every word, and perhaps proceed with a literary analysis of some sort. The converse is that feeling of alienation and confusion when the text is not comprehensible to you. If the language is one you do not know, there is limited potential for analyzing the literal content of that passage.

In the bigger picture, I wonder how accessible these works are to an average reader. Surely the audience cannot be expected to be fluent in every language that appears. Beyond language, there are likely to be subtle cultural details that go unnoticed. Again, the audience most likely will not be well-versed in proper behavior or convention of these varied cultures. [By the way, I asked my roommate, who is 4th or 5th generation Japanese and has studied Japanese for language, about bathing and back scrubbing as noted in Yamamoto’s “Seventeen Syllables.” She said it would not be unusual for a father to scrub the back of his young daughter in the bath. The father’s refusal to do so might be seen as an implied “grow up” type of a message. This is just one possible unsupported and un-researched interpretation of that passing scene between Rosie and her father, of course.] How much do we lose by not understanding the language?

Someone also brought up in discussion that even when the dialogue in Dogeaters was presented in English, we did not know whether the characters were speaking English, Tagalog, or another language unless the author told us so. Perhaps, then, we take for granted that we can understand what the characters say and do in the novel—we only know what happens because the author has generously provided us with a direct translation. The story transmits itself through multiple filters of language and culture, since dictionary definitions and basic descriptions do not always carry an explanation of cultural significance or connotation.

If there is no translation, as seems to be the case in quite a bit of Dictee, what do we do? I will admit that when I can’t understand the language that is being used, I tend to skim over that section. If the author provides a translation, I read that and feel better about the text, regardless of whether the translation does or does not make sense in the context of the scene (as in My Year of Meats). On a superficial level, if the language is unfamiliar, then some of the literal meaning may be lost. If the culture is unfamiliar, again, the reader may be missing out. However, the consequences of this feeling of unfamiliarity, the resulting sense of distance and that potential for misunderstanding, may be more important than trying to translate the text word for word. The fact that I sit back and say “I don’t know what that means on the most basic of levels” speaks to the Asian American experience for many people: a foreign language and a foreign culture, where everyone seems to understand except you. It is, effectively, inclusion and exclusion on the author’s part.

Posted by Vivian Lin


I attended the “History of Filipino Farm Workers in America” presentation by Marissa Pulido Rebaya last week at Pitzer. The history of Filipino farm workers in the U.S. goes back to the early 1900s. The Sakadas (1906-1946) were men from the Philippines who were recruited to work in Hawaii on sugarcane and pineapple plantations. The Manongs (1920-1935) were 16 to 21 year old single, unmarried, and uneducated Filipino men who came to fill the gap left in the manual labor work force left by the 1924 U.S. Immigration Act [The word “Manong,” which appears in one of the last chapters of Dogeaters, is from the Ilocano dialect, meaning “older brother,” and used as a term of respect]. Since the Philippines were a U.S. territory, Filipinos were not excluded by the 1924 act; the Filipino quota actually increased at this time. Migrant workers predominantly worked crops in California and Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico, and Pacific Northwest fisheries and canneries in Washington and Alaska. They often had to travel with the crops, living in labor camps. These consisted of barracks made from wood scraps, without heat, plumbing, or toilets.

Around the time of the Great Depression, animosity toward people of color increased due to the belief that immigrants were taking jobs away. There were anti-Filipino race riots, such as the 1930 Watsonville riots in which a Filipino man was shot and killed. Filipinos held the status of “nationals,” which can be considered between alien and citizen status; this designation by the government made it so Filipino immigrants could not become naturalized citizens. They could not vote, own land, or join the military at this time. Following WWII, Filipinos who served in the military were able to gain citizenship.

Filipina women rarely immigrated, resulting in an unbalanced 14:1 ratio of men to women. Anti-miscegenation laws existed until 1947 in California (1967 for the rest of the country), which prevented the “mixing” of races. Young men living in the slums consequently turned to taxi dance halls (where they would pay per dance with a white woman… not prostitution or stripping, just to clarify), pool halls, and gambling for entertainment; some men spent a great deal of the money they earned here. Ms. Pulido Rebaya pointed out that the Filipino culture is a “passionate and romantic” one, and Filipino men would treat women nicely and dress up to go out. She noted that some white men were jealous of Filipino men for dancing with white women. The over-sexualized Filipino stereotype may have stemmed from this kind of anti-Filipino sentiment. To tie this into the literature we have covered so far, the character Marpo in Hisaye Yamamoto’s “Yoneko’s Earthquake” fit the description of a Manong, being a young, single Filipino man working in agricultural labor. Different cultural ideas of romance may have made Marpo more attractive as a romantic partner than the husband: Marpo was cavalier in defending Mrs. Hosoume, and Yoneko herself was rather fond of him. Mr. Hosoume’s regard for Marpo was characteristic of the fear prevailing at the time; Filipinos were not only a threat in terms of taking jobs, but also competing for the attention of women.

The Bracero Program (Public Law 78: 1951-1964) allowed Mexican workers to cross the border and work on U.S. farmland. Mexicans were regarded as being less likely to unionize in comparison to Filipinos, who had gained much experience striking and organizing [I haven’t included much regarding the actual politics of the movement, since I mostly wrote down specific individuals and organizations; I can provide more information if anyone would like]. Ms. Pulido Rebaya explained that Public Law 78 was a “divide and conquer” tactic, setting two ethnic groups against one another, competing for the same jobs. Even so, both Filipino and Mexican farm workers united against the growers to achieve the same goals. Strikes for equal pay and worker rights brought together Filipino leaders such as Larry Itliong, Philip Vera Cruz, and Pete Velasco, with Mexican labor leaders such as César Chávez, forming the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (today, United Farm Workers of America).

However, Filipino men working in the fields were getting much older by this time, and young Mexican men were taking larger roles in the labor force. Some leaders in the Filipino farm workers community began to feel marginalized, a minority within a minority; Larry Itliong chose to leave the organization for this reason. I felt that the presentation provided insight into race relations in the manual labor force, and how much could be achieved through collective efforts. Similarities in social and economic situation made a common struggle possible, as mentioned in Lipsitz’s discussion of unity and division in “The Possessive Investment in Whiteness.” Even so, the need for distinct identity and differences in goals and ideas remained. A single organization was not satisfactory in addressing all of the issues and needs specific to each group.

Just some thoughts on Dictee and the Kim essay we're reading for Wednesday.

First, Dictee. While on the one hand I admire Cha's subversion of the traditional novel and story-telling framework, I found the form to be almost completely inaccesible. I'm not sure where the form came from. I'd like to say that there is some basis for it, that it is designed to convey something, but in thinking that I feel that puts it beyond my scope of understanding. If the form is extraneous, however, and simply an artistic flourish, then it becomes ridiculous and makes the book a waste of time. Either way, the form is problematic for me. I'm sure that, despite all the glowing reviews on Amazon, I can't be the only person who found the book so inaccesible at times.

Form is directly related to content (in my opinion, at least), and finding the form so problematic made me also feel as though the content were beyond my understanding. Form, at many points, clouded the content, such that I spent more time trying to figure out what Cha was writing about than actually thinking about what she was trying to say (for instance, Erato and Thalia). When the form begins to obscure content such that the audience cannot understand the content, I find that to be a great problem. The French language exercises play into that greatly; if you don't speak French, how are we to understand the importance of the exercises? I found myself skipping over them entirely. And yes, you can argue that there's a point there (me skipping over that part I didn't understand is similar to the way cultures ignore other cultures they "don't understand" or "don't relate to"), but I feel like there might have been a better way to achieve that same possible point than filling pages with something many readers will simply ignore and never think about.

I also felt as though the content were extremely culturally specific (I'll address this more later). While yes, it is a good critique of mainstream understanding and cultural history, etc. etc., it isolates the reader. I don't think that I'm completely ignorant of a history that isn't mainstream or that, as Kim suggests, has been suppressed, but there were only bits and pieces of Dictee that I could actually pick out. The March 1 Movement, for instance, or the Japanese takeover of Korea. The rest of it feels so specific that it is exclusionary. Yes, the experience is specific and very under-represented, but making it exclusionary in a book that finally gives the experience representation seems, excuse my lack of better words, stupid.

Perhaps I'm just stupid, culturally ignorant, and so trained by the mainstream that I cannot grasp or fully appreciate this book. But then think of this: is the desire of an underrepresented voice to be heard by the mainstream? If it is, does the work not need to try to reach those people? Dictee may gain people's attention because it is so different, so bizarre, so very anti- everything established, but if people cannot understand what Cha is trying to say, then she has done very little to represent her experience.

Or has she?

Another totally random note: I only understood the use of the Muses occasionally. Most of the time, I had no idea what was going on with that motif.

Moving on to the Kim essay...

I read this quite a while ago, so forgive me if I say something truly idiotic; all of this is taken from my highlighting and notes on the essay, and I'm not entirely sure I know what I was talking about in my notes.

First of all, I was confused by the way Kim presented Cha's experience is crafting an identity between the "Korean," "Korean-American," and "woman" as being somehow very unique. In many ways, I think we all do this. All of us have a cultural and gender heritage that is both unique to us and shared. All of us carefully select, exclude, and incorporate various aspects of the various aspects that make up our identity. Perhaps Cha had the special experience of consciously and obviously picking between the ideas, or being able to write this amazing (read: absolutely insane) book, but I think all of us have had experience creating "a kind of third space, an exile space that becomes a soure of individual vision and power," and I certainly don't think Cha is the only Korean-American woman to have done so (Kim, 8).

This is something I can't figure out, but maybe someone else felt the same way? I guess when I first read this essay, I felt irritation during the second section (part II) because Kim made it sound like the the exclusion of a certain facet of history (in this case, Korean women's experiences) was a) totally awful and b) totally unique. My thought was, "Like that doesn't happen EVERYWHERE?" If we're talking about the selectivity of history, that's not a new idea (think: the winners write history, etc.).

I find it interesting that Kim sort of sidesteps the issues of form with the book, and instead focuses on what little content she can draw out of it. A lot of the things she quoted I didn't remember at all, or they didn't stand out at all amidst the noise of the rest of the book. Most of what Kim discusses, though, is specific to the Korean/Korean-American/Korean woman/Korean-American woman experience. Since Kim herself is Korean-American, this makes me wonder whether or not someone very far removed from the experience can gain anything meaningful from struggling through the book (if they make it that far). Perhaps it is a critique of the mainstream, that "normal" people wouldn't be able to identify the history or culture written into it, but again, I wonder what the point of possibly isolating an auidence is.

Ultimately, what I got from the essay was a feeling that I didn't have the proper cultural background to fully appreciate the book, so BAD ME. The mainstream HATES Korean women (like it doesn't usually hate most minorities and women?), and Cha is giving a voice to that experience. Which I approve of, but for me, a lot of that voice was lost somewhere in the convultion of the form, which Kim hardly addressed.

post from Payton Watkins

Author Jessica Hagedorn has created a world of oppression for women within Manila. It seems as if the majority of the female characters acquire their identity by juxtaposing themselves against the dominant male identity. As a result, women have been objectified as sexual objects intended only for the male gaze. The integration of American consumerism and media have complimented this subordinate notion of the female by infusing American ideologies of beauty, love, and marriage into the Filipino culture.

Pucha, for example, feels most empowered and confident when she is objectified by men. Paradoxically, her feelings of acceptance only bolster the preexisting notions of patriarchal control. By giving into the male gaze, she is confined to a future of marriage and subordination within Manila.

Lolita Luna’s beauty and status as an actress has inhibited her from achieving her dreams of leaving Manila. Her aspirations are constantly diminished by General Ledesma and in turn she succumbs to society’s will; not only is she the General’s sex toy, but she also promises her faithfulness to him.

Daisy Avila is crowned the most beautiful woman in the Philippines. Consumerism and society has instilled the notions that if one is beautiful and thin, then one should be happy. Daisy realizes that her beauty is in fact not enough to make her happy and attempts to negate these American ideologies by “denouncing the beauty pageant as a farce” (109). As the novel progresses, Daisy is captured and raped by none other than Ledesma and his men. She too is unable to escape and hold a voice within this male dominated sphere.

Other characters, such as Isabel Alacran, Cora Camacho, Baby Alacran, and Trinidad, play the part which society has provided them: To be sexual objects, obsessed with the consumerist ideas of beauty, while at the same type supporting the male status of power and superiority. What interests me the most is that one of the main protagonists, Rio, is able to resist society’s influences (I consider her to be one of the main protagonists, if not the main protagonist, because the novel begins with her story, told in the first person, and eventually ends with her story). For example, we discover at the end that she moves to America with her mother and is never married. However, she still visits Manila, not viewing it as an oppressive place but simply as her home.

I wanted to get your opinion, as a class, if you think that Hagedorn used Rio’s character as medium through which she could show this oppression? Why just Rio’s character? Are there any other characters that you think could be placed outside of the mainstream along with Rio?

Payton Watkins

A Problematic Multiculturalism in My Year of Meats?

I finally got myself entered into this blog site, and then I proceeded to misplace both my username and password, and I've spent the last half hour attempting to retrieve one or the other. It was absolutely frustrating, but now that I'm signed on, here goes:

Professor Suh mentioned today in passing the use of multiculturalism in My Year of Meats and how Ruth Ozeki does not really give us the analytical tools to critique the view of multiculturalism presented in this text. I agree that Ozeki does not offer us the lenses and tools to problematize the idea of multiculturalism in her text, and that, unlike Lisa Lowe and other critical studies or cultural studies theorists, this book presents a fairly mainstream discourse of multiculturalism--that we live in a "global village" of sorts, that we reside in the "land of opportunity." I found that Jane's attempts to craft each American family for her episodes to be very similar to what standard American rainbow curriculum promotes in a very 90s view of American-ness: that we are all similar (read: American) despite our differences and that it is in valuing each other's differences that we find our American identity. Am I making sense here? I'm suggesting that despite Jane's attempts to seem like a progressive Asian American activist who will use her camera to expose the diversity of the American people, she is still very much working within mainstream standards of diversity--a diversity which isn't problematized and seen more as a harmonious blending of colors. That's what I took from Jane's crafting of the "American family."

That's not to say that I found everything in the text regarding multiculturalism to be problematic or wrong. I actually found many points which suggested that Ozeki does recognize the absurdity of a non-critical and mainstream multiculturalism. There were points which I found to be so absurd as to suggest that Ozeki must be hinting at the ridiculousness of it all. For example, when Akiko came to America and boards the train down South, she meets a train full of poor black people who sing and feed her fried chicken. When I read this part of the book, I cringed a little and had to read it over again to see if Ozeki had really included this ridiculous caricatured account, and when I realized that Ozeki intentionally inserted this over-the-top characterization of the black community, I took it to mean that the absurdity was meant to provoke us to be deeper readers and to recognize that absurdity, and that it would be through that recognition of absurdity that we would come to realize the problems of a mainstream multiculturalism--precisely because mainstream multiculturalism often essentializes and stereotypes groups of people into different categories like the example above. Perhaps I am reading this in a too-twisted and convoluted manner, but that is my interpretation of this scene based on my assumption of Ozeki as a progressive Asian American.

When we talk about what an author intends or whether there is distance between the narrator and the character (that is, if the narrative isn't in first-person point of view), I always want to resort to the author's background. I often feel that a writer must, as a human being, reveal an aspect of her background and beliefs in her writings, and it is probably due to my admittedly naive assumption that Ozeki is a progressive API woman that I've assumed that she expects her readers to read between the lines and see that there really are problems inherent in scenes such as the one described above. Either that, or perhaps I am just making things up to my own liking.

By the way, does anyone actually know anything about Ruth Ozeki, her education and background, whether she considers herself an activist in the API community? Sam and I were both surprised when we realized that she did not appear in a Wikipedia search. Perhaps someone can enlighten us?

To kick things off

I just finished My Year of Meats, and had a reaction I wanted to share/get feedback on. Last week's discussion was based almost entirely on material in the text itself--relationships and ideas the author included in her writing. But I wanted to say something about the book as a text, particularly the relationship between fiction and autobiography. While we mentioned in class that Ozeki was unlikely to have actually done most of the things (documentary filmmaking, exploring meatpacking plant, DES-related health conditions) in her novel, there are elements of her experience present in the narrative she created.

The one that particularly caught my eye was the identity of her narrator. Jane's multiracial background is alluded to from the first pages of the book, and her relationships with her extended family are further developed in the novel's second half. At first, I was excited that we were reading about a hapa main character (an uncommon event), and that Ozeki had chosen to explore some dimensions of identity related to the multiracial experience. A few chapters further in, I had become convinced that Jane's mixed parentage was a literary device intended to situate her outside of the symbolic discourses of both Japan and America in a way more profound than if she had been Japanese American (which carries its own resonances and meanings as a result of that community's history in the US). By the end of the book, I was less convinced of the "useful literary device" explanation--and then I read the Readers' Guide in the back of my copy, which alludes to her own identity as hapa.

While I think this should have made me a little bit happy (a published hapa author!), I felt a little bit hurt, somehow. Jane's identity was not a deliberate decision of a non-multiracial author to write about a sometimes-marginalized group within Asian America. It was a semi-autobiographical flourish. This doesn't (and shouldn't) take away from the depth or meaning of her ideas about the multiracial experience. It's just that, to be honest, I feel like a group paying attention to itself isn't nearly as momentous as when it is validated at large.

In this respect, I think multiracial Americans have long been silent--legal, political, and social discourses have denied the existence of a multiracial identity, forcing a choice of (sometimes assigning) one identity over another. And while I see the problems inherent in an outsider trying to write first-person narrative from a particular group's perspective (thinking about men writing in the person of women and vice versa, white people writing in the person of a minority, etc) and how hollow it can feel, I can't shake the mild disappointment that Jane was just way for Ruth Ozeki to be a little closer to her story.

After all, it seems a little depressing to conclude that, because they do a better job of it, authors should only write about characters like themselves.

I'm just still not sure why my excitement at the inclusion of a hapa author in the scope of Asian American lit isn't more triumphal. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the expectation that a non-hapa author was writing those identity issues into the text.