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?