Better Luck Tomorrow

The movie was really not what I expected.  It was interesting, but I never imagined it would end up with a group of high school students killing someone.  The use of SAT words throughout the movie was very interesting too.  I thought it was appropriate since the movie was a bout a group of kids doing everything they could in order to succeed – the movie was all about doing things that would get them into college.  As we said in class the video shows a lot about the Asian American struggle for identity.  These kids were trying to find their place in their school as well as in society – unfortunately they got mixed up in cheating, drugs, and murder along the way. 

I also noticed the discussion of some stereotypes in the movie.  For example Stephanie and Ben were picking on each other for their size, Stephanie asks Ben why he doesn’t want to be a Dr., all of the Asian students did well in school, etc.  However, I also noticed some things that went against Asian stereptypes – Ben was on the basketball team, for example.

The State of Asian American Cinema

I think the article by Peter X Feng gave an interesting perspective of Asian American Cinema.  The article discussed some movies in particular, but what I found most interesting was that “Asian American cinema continues to thematizie identity crisis”.  I found it interesting that we have been talking all semester long about Asian American’s and their struggle to find their identity in America.  Do they give up their culture entirely to become American or do they retain their Asian American culture.  Asian American movie producers apparently have the same struggles.  Do they make films about white Americans or Asians who have assimilated into the white culture or do they put their Asian identity into the movie.  It is a difficult decision for them and one that can effect the popularity and reviews of their movie.

Margaret Cho

I thought the comedy show by Margaret Cho was very interesting.  I was shocked that they actually hired an Asian consultant to make her more Asian.  I think though, like we said in class, that the producers were trying to give the viewers what they wanted.  It was all about the viewers and not about being natural and authentic.  In the same way they made Cho lose weight to be on the TV show.  Once again they were more focused on what the viewers wanted or expected.  They took who she was and tried to change her.  She even said herself that she “failed at being someone else”. 

I thought her relationship with her parents was odd.  She makes fun of her parents during her comedy routines.  Her parents obviously disapprove of some of her choices, but they really never say anything to her.  I wonder if they are just afraid to because she is on TV.  I also thought it was strange that her mother bought an outfit for Margaret Cho’s future child.  It is clear what her mother wants, but Margaret Cho obviously doesn’t agree with the choice.

I was also surprised to see Cho using her own culture and stereotypes associated with it in her comedy show.  If it had been a white person it would have been racist, but somehow it is ok since Cho is Asian.

Native Speaker – the end of the book

I was shocked by the ending of the book and by the things we found out as we continued to read.  Kwang really turned out to be a horrible person.  He has Eduardo killed, he is having an affair with another woman, and he crashes his car because he is driving drunk.  Earlier in the book we had noticed that he was portrayed differently in some situations.  Sometimes he was really nice and spent time with his staff and took care of his supporters, but then we saw him screaming at his wife in the car.  It kind of left the reader unsure of what to think of him.  However, now we really know the kind of person he really is.

I also noticed some things coming up in the book that we have talked about earlier in class.  For last week’s reading the Harlin’s case was mentioned and in this portion of the book the grocery store boycotts were mentioned.  I think it is interesting how all we are talking about is coming together.  I feel like we learned about all of the important events and now we are seeing how it fits into the experiences of an Asian American – Henry.

Native Speaker pgs 131-202

I think I’m actually starting to get into the book.  I finally have learned more about Henry and a lot of my questions have been answered.  I think it is interesting that while I’m reading I keep relating things in the book to what we have talked about earlier in the semester.  The portion of the book where we see Harlins actually made sense to me because we had talked about the shooting in class.  If we hadn’t talked about it before then it probably wouldn’t have meant anything to me.  I also find it interesting that some of the stereotypes of Asian Americans don’t seem to fit in with the novel.  There are of course, many that do… but I think the ones that don’t are more interesting to talk about.  For example, when we see Kwang we see him as a politician.  He is out shaking people’s hands, hugging people, the book even says he knelt down and kissed a woman’s hand.  This completely goes against the idea we have of Asian Americans.  I remember when I was researching for the Red Apple Boycott that people said the boycott started over cultural differences – that Asian Americans were accused of being racist toward blacks because they wouldn’t make eye contact or touch hands when giving change to a customer, when actually it was just how they were taught to behave in their culture.  In this way Kwang doesn’t fit the stereotype of his culture.

Native Speaker – post 2

As I continued reading Native Speaker I found that some of my questions are being answered.  We learn more about Mitt, Henry and Lelia’s son, and how he died.  We also saw more of Henry’s obsession with the English language.  When he was a young child his father had him come into the grocery store to put things on the shelves.  Henry says “My father, thinking that it might be good for business, urged me to show them how well I spoke English, to make a display of it…”  Henry was taught at a young age that speaking English well would result in a positive outcome, in this case it would get the store more business.  Maybe that is where he got his fixation on perfectly spoken English – he thought it would get him somewhere in the world.

Native Speaker

I found the first couple of chapters in Native Speaker to be very confusing.  I had no idea what Henry really did for a job, what happened to their son, and why Lelia seemed to hate Henry so much.  After talking about the book in class I realize now that the author does that on purpose – it kind of gives us a reason to keep reading so we can figure out what happens next.

I also thought it was interesting that Henry always referred to himself as the Asian guy.  We have talked about how Asian Americans have always tried to assimilate into American culture so it is interesting that he still sees himself as not American.  His fixation on language makes sense though since he is so worked about being Asian American.  Leila’s speech is so perfect that it represents to Henry how language is supposed to be – she is the ideal American, exactly what he is not, because she can speak so well.

Class Presentations of Wiki’s

I thought the wiki projects turned out very well.  I think we all took what Zia had to say and then expanded on that information.  Each group had something new to add to their topic.  It was good to learn more about the topic.  I really liked the groups that took their event and read something by someone who was actually there.  For example, the LA Riots group actually read an article about the pregnant woman who got shot.  It was great to have a basic understanding of the event, but just have more information added.  We all knew basically what everyone was talking about – they just filled in some more information.   It’s much better than listening to presentations that you know nothing about beforehand.

Wiki is almost done!!

I am so happy that this project is almost over.  I enjoyed working on the wiki, but maybe it was just our topic that I got tired of.  We had a lot of trouble finding information so it seemed like it was a last minute rush to get everything on the page and then to try to make it look somewhat presentable.  But, it’s almost done now – we just have to do some little things to complete the project.  I have definitely learned a lot more about our topic.  It is interesting with our topic (Red Apple Boycott) to find out what happened afterwards.  We learned from Zia’s book about the actual incident and then the resulting boycott, but it was interesting to see it from a different perspective.  We learned about other similar boycotts, we learned about Asian Americans coming together to help out the owners of eh boycotted stores, and we read about people who broke the boycott and shopped there anyway.  I think it was interesting to go beyond what Zia told us and learn about the incident more in depth.

More on the Wiki

We are still working on the wiki.  I did a little work on it today – trying to make it look better.  Once the information is up it’s just a matter of going back and making it look nice.  I figured out how to include hyperlinks so there are no more long website addresses on the page.  I put the hyperlink in the title of the article I was summarizing so hopefully it actually works.

My group and I are still having some difficulty finding additional sources of information.  We have the newspaper articles that are up already and we have a possibility for a journal article, but that’s about all we have so far.  I’m getting kind of nervous because it is due on Wednesday and we don’t have all the information we are required to have.  Hopefully we’ll have some more luck finding things as we continue our research.