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