Week 10 Blog

Hi guys! Here are our questions about the readings. I hope you found them as interesting as we did. : )

1. Mainstream media is hypersexualized and in all of the sexiness, sex education on marriage, pregnancy, and sexual orientation is rarely mentioned. We see lots of sex but we don't talk about it in an educational manner.

• What can we do to combat this?
• In this same discourse, what is sexual liberation?
  

2. Regarding the subject-object of porn (and other forms of media) discussed in the Fung reading:

• Can you think of anything that makes the male Asian American character less of an object to be desired and more of a subject to be addressed?
• Why is the Asian "servant/house boy" such a popular fantasy? How does this factor in with the notion of Asians as foreign? How might we combat this?
  

3. According to the satirical magazine image, "society at large" thinks that Asian "equals" white-gay. What does this say about gay culture? What is this trying to say about Asian men? (Feminized?) why is it trying to pose this idea?

• What are your reactions to the magazine picture?

4. What do the readings say about gay culture? What do they say about the Asian and Asian American experience in gay culture?

5. Reflect on Morohoshi's definition of empowerment - to be in a place of power, where you have access to produce your own work and tell your own story.

• Think also about the responsibility that comes with that power: "We had to get the word out ourselves and conduct our own preview screenings and curatorial process. If we didn't have the time, [the] energy, or the interest, that queer girls shorts program would have never happened" (85). What are the pros and cons of being placed in this kind of position?
  

On a slightly side note: If any of you have seen "Milk" (a docudrama about the life and murder of openly gay politician, Harvey Milk), think about the role of the Asian American gay man in the film. What is it? How is he portrayed? Is he really portrayed at all?

Hey Shara! What's your email? 

We're going to be talking about a lot of different issues, watching a short film, and enjoying free food! Come! and tell your friends/classmates. Questions? email me: junko.ihrke@cgu.edu

Sylabus Update

ASIAN AMERICAN AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
Immigration
Historical perspective - current connect to historical as relevant
Case Studies (bring in local focus) Riverside
Jose Calderon - use him as resource (Filipino Farmworkers)
Farmworkers
Sex Trafficking
Sweat Shops APALA ior AIWA
Domestic Workers - PWC
Unions

"How do these Asian American issues relate to the greater labor movement?"

Speaker Series

Tony Osumi - SOCA (Kim)
Skim - MOTLEY (Jessica)
Tad Nakamura -small auditorium (Cheukwa)
Bambu -MOTLEY (Emily)

Let's have Skim's performance a the MOTLEY
venues subject to change
dates will vary
throughout APRIL
2 hour maximum

Field trips for next year!

This seemed like a common thread in the course evaluations, so I'm starting a thread for some labor related API events.

First off: Dolores Huerta, who was one of the leaders of the Filipino farm workers when they started striking in the 60's visits Pitzer every year. In fact, she's coming this friday! I'll try and have the time and place by classtime today.

Week 9 Post

Hope everyone had a relaxing spring break. Here are a few questions to consider for this week's reading.

In "Confronting Gender Stereotypes of AA Women" it seems that many of the thoughts revolve around the question, “do Hollywood movies perpetuate racial stereotypes by reinscribing them in the popular imagination or are such movies merely ‘harmless entertainment’ that has no lasting impact or effect?” What do you think? Have you seen any movies recently that you found used stereotypes in a non-detrimental way? What about in a very detrimental way?


What is your opinion about what happened between the members of Unbound Feet and the disbandment of the group?
Wong believed that…
· You cannot force politics on another person.
· As activists and feminists it is important to speak out against issues that you don’t agree with, even if it means dividing/creating scars in the (Asian American) community.
· “Criticism is a positive moving force” (240).
· The opposing members in Unbound Feet relied on personal squabbles and did not act on “democracy and feminism” (240).
Do you agree with all of Wong’s insights in the situation? Is there anything that we can learn from this incident? What does it say about (feminist) organizations, organizations that at its core try to bring people from all cultures, all walks of life, and all communities?

mid-term class evaluation

hey class,

please comment about how you feel about the class so far. this can include anything from your thoughts about the readings, to the pace of the class, the workload, suggestions for future class improvements, etc. thanks!

Professor for Next Semester

- hired professor should have knowledge and/ or experience with labor issues
community organizer?
community involvement
knowledge specific to LA
understanding of API issues
understanding of API identity
should have community connections
should be people friendly
how to explain understanding/ experience to students with no prior knowledge/experience
should have experience with facilitating a diverse group

- hired professor should understand this is a student run class, but should enforce weekly assignments, such as blogs
- be aware that students coming in may not have prior understanding/ experience of labor issues and/or Asian American studies

Week 7 Blog

Hi, everyone! Cheukwa and I came up with these questions for Monday; we know that there's a lot; feel free to only answer parts, but please give a bit of thought to each question so that we may discuss it in class.

On page 105 of Gong, the criteria for admitting pieces into the Asian American Film Festival. There were both exclusive and inclusive criteria over the years: "Films by, for and about Asian Americans" was a criteria at one point while at another time any "positive images and truthful portrayals of the Asian American experience" would be considered. Cheukwa and I thought that this connected really well to the series of questions asked by Hirabiyashi and Xing on page 7. We could not find a more precise and clear way to ask it, and so our first set of questions are theirs verbatim:

Who has the authority to represent a given community? Does one have to be an "insider" in that community or experience to represent it authentically? Can sympathetic, well-informed outsiders be as effective, or even more effective, precisely because they have both empathy and a modicum [small portion] of detachment from the group being represented?

Our second question block is about representation of Asian Americans in video and film. Hirabayashi and Xing mentions on page 4 that media can be used to recognize, confront, and smash stereotypes as well as develop empathy. On page 5, the authors say that film can be used to "raise both individual and collective consciousness." Can you think of any documents/ documemoirs/ mainstream films that empower Asian American viewers by doing the things listed above?

Field Trips

It's super late to post this but if there are comments/ideas about field trips, let's talk about them here...

(We can delete this post if it doesn't end up being useful, but I wanted to post it in case there's any chance it would be helpful. I think it would be good to check-in about what field trips we want, or what other things we might want for the semester).