My Asian American hero is California State Controller John Chiang.
Not only is he the highest ranking APA state official, he is a true representative of the APA community. I have met him several times at various APA community events across the state and he is always listening, always open-minded, and always humble.
You can read more about him here:
http://www.sco.ca.gov/eo_about_bio.html
I am confident he will be Governor of California one day. The day he announces he's running, I plan to quit my job and join his campaign! =)
My Asian-American heroes are Sandra Kim, my mentor & Ranjani Saigal, my Indian classical dance teacher. Sandra is a hero to me because she's a core part of the Asian-American community, she's committed to theater, arts, performance, and she believes in helping empower Asian girls like me to be better leaders in our community and reach our dreams. After all her education, she is so easy to relate to still, and she is the epitome of both a skilled leader and a team player.
Ranjani Saigal is a hero to me because she is so grounded with a busy family, busy work-life, and busy dance-life, but she does everything she believes is important, and she really believes in the phrase "No excuses". She is a core part of the South Asian community in Boston, emceeing shows, being on boards for different cultural groups, and having an impact in the community every day. She also believes in hard work--she credits hard work with her success, her husband's success, and her children's. No matter whether she is editing stories for www.lokvani.com, or busy with work at MIT, she manages to make time to teach a new group of young girls wanting to learn dance every weekend. :)
Lisa Ling is my Asian American hero. She took the time to speak at our small high school and her talk was very inspiring.
As a foreign correspondent, she travels all over the world reporting back on important issues that the general public may not make the effort to see. Her time in North Korea was very admirable as she even admits that it is the one place where she felt so alone and disconnected that she cried.
She is a strong Asian American woman who I can look up to- and I definitely do look up to her. After speaking to her in person after the talk, I realized that her hero status became very concrete; it gives me reason to believe that I have the opportunity to help and change whatever I'd like to help and change.
My Asian American hero is I.M. Pei, an architect who was raised in Hong Kong and Shanghai. He attended college in the United States, and eventually established his own independent firm after working ten years with a partner. He defied the architectural styles that were popular during his time, and His contributions include the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong, the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, the Hancock Tower in Boston, and the Javits Convention Center in New York City.
What I find amazing is that he really sought out his passion in life. His decision to attend the University of Pennsylvania involved a boat ride across the Pacific and a train ride to Philadelphia. Furthermore, he even helped in World War II as a member of the National Defense Research Committee. He didn't let criticism get in the way of his designs (such as the Louvre Pyramid), and he didn't let any obstacles get in his way. He defied many odds to become a celebrated Asian American hero.
I'm going to cheat - I have a team of Asian American heroes, and they are known as the Gund Kwok Lion Dance troupe in Boston. They are the first all-female Lion Dance troupe in the United States in a performance art that has excluded women in the past based on the outdated superstition that Lion Dancing performed by women will bring bad luck.
Gund Kwok means heroine in Chinese, and the Gund Kwok team truly were my heroines when I was training to perform as part of Chicago's first all-female Lion Dance team. When there was no one else to look up to in this male-dominated performance art, I looked up to them for inspiration. I thought about their strength, power, and beauty whenever I needed an extra push.
Their dedication to Asian culture while breaking down barriers in the Asian American community is rare but much needed. Instead of rejecting the Asian American community for its sexist superstitions, my heroines are changing the beliefs of our community for the better.
My Asian American heroes... what a list. Yuri Kochiyama is one of my Asian American heroes. During the civil rights movement she was Malcolm X's right hand man. She defied the stereotypical roles of both a female and an Asian American, and dedicated her entire life to fighting for minority rights and injustices.
Gary Locke is another hero - he was the governor of Washington State while I was growing up in Seattle, and the only Asian American face that I could recall. I'm hoping to one day get into environmental policy and hold a position in office, and his abilities to be such a strong and effective Asian American leader really inspires me. I think he inspired a lot of the Asian community in my hometown too - my parents adore him.
Finally, and this is going to sound kind of weird, but a lot of famous hip hop dancers are my Asian American heroes! When I first came to LA I was ASTOUNDED that there was such a vibrant SoCal hip hop community... and the majority of them were ASIAN! Who ever thought Asians would be good at ghetto dancing? Anyways I think they defy the stereotype of Asians as quiet and bookish - these dancers are the most loud, vibrant, expressive people you will meet, and their never-ending bounds of artistic expression are just... mindblowing. Even the guy who plays Mike Chang on Glee - at least he's bringing recognition to the Asian dancing community!
@Laura- Word on Yuri Kochiyama. If you ever see any photos of Malcolm X's assassination, that's her crouched over him after he was shot. =(
As for this week's blog prompt about identity, as I said in session, I strive to be an ally, an activist, and an advocate. Some of the ways I continue to develop these aspects of my identity are simply through reading, learning and discussion with others- everyday! It's so easy to think that we don't have enough time to read, especially if you have so much reading for class! But think about it- how much time do we spend on FB or texting?
Next time you want to log onto FB, check this out instead:
I had a very profound moment regarding identity in my "Cultural Identities in Performance" class. We were reading this article about a hapa Chicana-Anglo lesbian girl and how she felt alien in her own identity, unable to relate to what I considered a major part of her identity as a half-Latina because she didn't speak the language, though she heard her relatives her whole life.
The concept that your heritage and your ethnic makeup is a large portion of your identity is not something I thought I held in my head, but apparently, I value my culture and ethnicity and heritage so much that I can't help but, regrettably, assume that others feel the same. There are so many facets to our identities! Our education, our likes and dislikes, what our values are, etc. Those don't all necessarily come out of your culture and upbringing, so it was wrong of me to assume.
I think this shows that no matter how open-minded you think you are (I consider myself SO open-minded, or I strive to be, anyway) , there are always ways in which you can improve.
Also! it's ALLY week! QuASA is hosting an assortment of events, so if you are an Ally, go support! and if you are not, check them out anyway and be an informed citizen :)
-Maithreyi
Oh, also @Jade: YES! I think we totally should invest more time in reading, even if it's online articles instead of straight-up books and newspapers. Our generation is becoming so mal-and uninformed because we rely of facebook to tell us BIG news. We need to actively be more aware of issues.
I'm going to blog last week's circle. Because I thought that the topic of identity was really significant to me.
The sware game was painful. At first, it was hard to list 5 idientites because I never had to identify myself before besides checking an ethnicity box on surveys. I was stuck on "Asian". But then even that word was not enough to describe me. So I wished I had more sticky notes. Then we played a stand up, sit down game which was interesting. I found out that there was a lot of simlarities and a lot of differences between the me and the other circle members (ie. conservative or liberal, gay rights, affirmative action). It was kinda hard to stand up for certain things, but I found out that the activity was helping me define myselft. Then we talked about racism and humor. It was interesting to hear who was okay to joke about racism and when was it okay to use racism as humor (Russell Peters or within own ethnic group). But we concluded that it depends on the context and the situation. Sot it was pretty much a grey area. Someone at the end of circle mentioned that she always had identified herself as Asian, but now she identifies herself as Asian-American. And she asked, "why is the "American" part after the hyphenated "Asian" is so important? I think that's a great question. In America, we live in a colorblind society that many people think is a melting pot, that we race is not as distinct anymore among the society. However, why do we still use the hyphens like Asian-American, Latino-American, African-American?
Today's circle: Social Issues yes and I realized that i made spelling errors in the first blog. I was typing fast. sorry! :)
Today we talked about social issues in the APA community. The one that I most affected by is the pressure from high expectations. Filia piety, family culture, the idea of you or your family "can't lose face" influences this. I thought it was really interesting when Jade brought up that when she mentioned these characteristics the whole circle nodded in agreement, but if she were to suggest these same characteristics to people who are not part of APA community, they would be confused. I find this very interesting and I think that because of this, is important to have school counselors that are APA because they can go beyond linguistic and cultural barriers and effectively help students. I'm glad USC has an organization like APASS! :D
APA in the media was an issue that really resonates with me, not because I am involved in media or foresee that in my future, but because it really affects the way the greater public (i.e. middle America/midwest where the Asian community is growing but is scarcer) view our race.
I found THIS : http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2010/10/19/terra-nova-casts-24-alum-mido-hamada/ interesting not because of the "Terra Nova" casting, but the fact that mido hamada, a german-egyptian guy took the role of "SAMIR MEHRAN" on "24". I never heard about this when it happened, but I cannot see the reasoning because I did hear them cast a high-name Indian actor FROM india for scenes/episodes before--why not this time? It reminded me of the race-bending issue and M. Night Shyamalan's issue. If you're going to have an Asian character, USE AN ASIAN! I mean, Kal Penn is one of the ONLY known South Asian male actor in the media today, and he even took a break from acting for a role in the White House (though he's acting again now.) and that too because he changed his stage name from Kalpen Modi to Kal Penn. Same with Jay Sean who's given name is Kamaljit Singh Jhooti. Hilarious, but not conducive to selling countless albums and becoming a musical icon while Jay Sean does not REP his South Asian roots. (Though he does want to educate the masses about his culture since they are more aware of South Asian culture in England than the US)
It's an ongoing struggle, but we should be able to at least cast Asians in the roles that we deem Asian! -Maithreyi
In our session my closing thought was, "CASI helps me to understand how and why 'the personal is political'." I just wanted to share more background about the origins of that phrase:
http://www.carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP.html
It's borrowed from the women's liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s which began with smaller groups of women discussing their issues (like CIRCLE?). Could Women's Liberation in the United States serve as a model for replicating progressive activism among APAs on campus at USC? It's been done before, on much larger scales- lest we forget. We can make change at USC. Every progressive movement began with a small group of passionate people.
Discussing and working our way through Social Issues week, I am realizing that I am at a point in my identity where I want to start taking ACTION on social issues. I absolutely love CIRCLE, but I am extremely frustrated that there isn't really a continuation of CIRCLE that exists at USC that translates the knowledge that we gain from CIRCLE into action to serve the APA community at USC, in LA, and at large. Let's do something about this!
I hope that SCAPE (Student Coalition for Asian Pacific Empowerment) plans more action projects for next semester so that CIRCLE participants and TAs can all mobilize and join SCAPE together to translate our awesome discussions into awesome service!
I am also hoping that a lot of you apply for the APASA Internship Program! APASA is the Asian Pacific American Student Assembly, and I feel like there is so much more activism that the assembly can mobilize for the APA community and other communities on campus. CIRCLE really provides important training for being a leader in the APA community, so use your CIRCLE training for good and join APASA as an intern! And the next step? Joining APASA as an e-board member! =)
So I am extremely frustrated still but I feel like this year's participants are very activist and passionate, and we can really start to create change!
I saw 2 videos written on Monday's blog. I really liked the "Slip of the Tongue" It's very empowering i think, even if it was talking about how she can't choose her ethnic makeup. It was a very powerful speech. It's true, we can't choose who we are... we can pretend we are someone or something were not. but that's painful and its not being true to yourself. I think we should all embrace our ethnic background! :D GO ASIANS!! hahah
the second video was also go. "Asia-America, Where have you gone?" Even though he was speaking really fast like 1000 words per second.... some of the stuff he said was good too. Like the stereotypes we get forced upon us. Just b/c we belong to one ethnic group, we're all individuals as well and have our own individual personalities. Also the whole we don't fit with Chinese ppl b/c of our broken Chinese, and we don't fit with White Americans because of our skin color. I understand that feeling. we don't really belong to one group or the other. :( so sad. gosh, our identity is very confusing...
I really enjoyed today's site visit to the Chinese American museum. For me, it reinforced everything we've discussed and learned during our CIRCLE sessions, and also added more depth to some of the concepts we talked about.
I particularly liked the exhibit about Angel's Island. I vaguely remember talking about the San Francisco fire and the resulting paper sons during our first session, but I never realized how being a paper son or daughter can effect how you feel about your own identity. I always just assumed that it was a fully technical thing, and didn't effect the immigrant's personal lives much. Today's exhibit gave me an insight on how one must feel if they found out their father was a paper son. I can't even fathom how it would feel not to know what my true identity is, and knowing that many Chinese immigrants went through this crisis really put things in perspective for me. It always seems that Chinese Americans do not have any hardships in America because in American History classes, very little light is shed on these subjects and Chinese Americans are under the "model minority" label. The site visit opened my eyes to some of the struggles that Chinese Americans faced.
I really liked the site visit the the Chinese American Museum. Before, I never heard of it. I never thought that Chinese Americans were cool enough to have their own museum of Chinese American history. Well that's because I came from a state that didn't have many Asians in the first place. >.<
It was a real eye opener! :D I never knew that the immigration process to bring their paper sons and even real sons were so hard. And that Chinese people were here for a very long time. It the exhibits were really authentic especially with the shop and I could compare the old Chinese medicine with current American Medicine.
The pop culture section was good too! :D I was just sad that I didn't see Jackie Chan. haha. :P
I really liked the speaker from this week's CIRCLE session. She was really charismatic and made her subject matter, which was domestic violence, really interesting to hear about. I liked how she depicted the ignorance of the South Asian's point of view on domestic violence with humor to show how many South Asians are truly unaware of the serious issue that is widespread in their community.
The commercials that she showed us were really touching and made me understand domestic violence in a more personal way. To see the actors act out how domestic violence really happens made the issue seem so much more real. In the first commercial, the inclusion of the couple's romantic life before the violence happened made me the issue of domestic violence seem much more personal and much more tragic.
Oh, and the "stand up if you..." activity at the end of our session was really enjoyable. I think these exercises truly help with the "identity" part of CIRCLE, because it forces me to think about my beliefs and the values I stick up for.
This week's speaker was really inspirational. I really like how she came prepared with a powerpoint outline of what she spoke of. It was upsetting hearing the facts of the domestic violence that was going on in the world, and I could not believe such things could happen. You usually hear about it, but never think about it in such a way. It brought more light into my eyes hearing and seeing on paper of said things.
Unfortunately, I could not stay throughout the whole session and do the activity that Cassandra said we did, which seems really fun! I am excited for the next session and CIRCLE retreat! :)
My Asian American hero is California State Controller John Chiang.
ReplyDeleteNot only is he the highest ranking APA state official, he is a true representative of the APA community. I have met him several times at various APA community events across the state and he is always listening, always open-minded, and always humble.
You can read more about him here:
http://www.sco.ca.gov/eo_about_bio.html
I am confident he will be Governor of California one day. The day he announces he's running, I plan to quit my job and join his campaign! =)
-Jade
My Asian-American heroes are Sandra Kim, my mentor & Ranjani Saigal, my Indian classical dance teacher.
ReplyDeleteSandra is a hero to me because she's a core part of the Asian-American community, she's committed to theater, arts, performance, and she believes in helping empower Asian girls like me to be better leaders in our community and reach our dreams. After all her education, she is so easy to relate to still, and she is the epitome of both a skilled leader and a team player.
Ranjani Saigal is a hero to me because she is so grounded with a busy family, busy work-life, and busy dance-life, but she does everything she believes is important, and she really believes in the phrase "No excuses". She is a core part of the South Asian community in Boston, emceeing shows, being on boards for different cultural groups, and having an impact in the community every day. She also believes in hard work--she credits hard work with her success, her husband's success, and her children's. No matter whether she is editing stories for www.lokvani.com, or busy with work at MIT, she manages to make time to teach a new group of young girls wanting to learn dance every weekend. :)
Lisa Ling is my Asian American hero. She took the time to speak at our small high school and her talk was very inspiring.
ReplyDeleteAs a foreign correspondent, she travels all over the world reporting back on important issues that the general public may not make the effort to see. Her time in North Korea was very admirable as she even admits that it is the one place where she felt so alone and disconnected that she cried.
She is a strong Asian American woman who I can look up to- and I definitely do look up to her. After speaking to her in person after the talk, I realized that her hero status became very concrete; it gives me reason to believe that I have the opportunity to help and change whatever I'd like to help and change.
Lisa Ling is my hero.
My Asian American hero is I.M. Pei, an architect who was raised in Hong Kong and Shanghai. He attended college in the United States, and eventually established his own independent firm after working ten years with a partner. He defied the architectural styles that were popular during his time, and His contributions include the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong, the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, the Hancock Tower in Boston, and the Javits Convention Center in New York City.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find amazing is that he really sought out his passion in life. His decision to attend the University of Pennsylvania involved a boat ride across the Pacific and a train ride to Philadelphia. Furthermore, he even helped in World War II as a member of the National Defense Research Committee. He didn't let criticism get in the way of his designs (such as the Louvre Pyramid), and he didn't let any obstacles get in his way. He defied many odds to become a celebrated Asian American hero.
I'm going to cheat - I have a team of Asian American heroes, and they are known as the Gund Kwok Lion Dance troupe in Boston. They are the first all-female Lion Dance troupe in the United States in a performance art that has excluded women in the past based on the outdated superstition that Lion Dancing performed by women will bring bad luck.
ReplyDeleteGund Kwok means heroine in Chinese, and the Gund Kwok team truly were my heroines when I was training to perform as part of Chicago's first all-female Lion Dance team. When there was no one else to look up to in this male-dominated performance art, I looked up to them for inspiration. I thought about their strength, power, and beauty whenever I needed an extra push.
Their dedication to Asian culture while breaking down barriers in the Asian American community is rare but much needed. Instead of rejecting the Asian American community for its sexist superstitions, my heroines are changing the beliefs of our community for the better.
My Asian American heroes... what a list.
ReplyDeleteYuri Kochiyama is one of my Asian American heroes. During the civil rights movement she was Malcolm X's right hand man. She defied the stereotypical roles of both a female and an Asian American, and dedicated her entire life to fighting for minority rights and injustices.
Gary Locke is another hero - he was the governor of Washington State while I was growing up in Seattle, and the only Asian American face that I could recall. I'm hoping to one day get into environmental policy and hold a position in office, and his abilities to be such a strong and effective Asian American leader really inspires me. I think he inspired a lot of the Asian community in my hometown too - my parents adore him.
Finally, and this is going to sound kind of weird, but a lot of famous hip hop dancers are my Asian American heroes! When I first came to LA I was ASTOUNDED that there was such a vibrant SoCal hip hop community... and the majority of them were ASIAN! Who ever thought Asians would be good at ghetto dancing? Anyways I think they defy the stereotype of Asians as quiet and bookish - these dancers are the most loud, vibrant, expressive people you will meet, and their never-ending bounds of artistic expression are just... mindblowing. Even the guy who plays Mike Chang on Glee - at least he's bringing recognition to the Asian dancing community!
@Laura- Word on Yuri Kochiyama. If you ever see any photos of Malcolm X's assassination, that's her crouched over him after he was shot. =(
ReplyDeleteAs for this week's blog prompt about identity, as I said in session, I strive to be an ally, an activist, and an advocate. Some of the ways I continue to develop these aspects of my identity are simply through reading, learning and discussion with others- everyday! It's so easy to think that we don't have enough time to read, especially if you have so much reading for class! But think about it- how much time do we spend on FB or texting?
Next time you want to log onto FB, check this out instead:
http://blog.angryasianman.com/
I had a very profound moment regarding identity in my "Cultural Identities in Performance" class. We were reading this article about a hapa Chicana-Anglo lesbian girl and how she felt alien in her own identity, unable to relate to what I considered a major part of her identity as a half-Latina because she didn't speak the language, though she heard her relatives her whole life.
ReplyDeleteThe concept that your heritage and your ethnic makeup is a large portion of your identity is not something I thought I held in my head, but apparently, I value my culture and ethnicity and heritage so much that I can't help but, regrettably, assume that others feel the same. There are so many facets to our identities! Our education, our likes and dislikes, what our values are, etc. Those don't all necessarily come out of your culture and upbringing, so it was wrong of me to assume.
I think this shows that no matter how open-minded you think you are (I consider myself SO open-minded, or I strive to be, anyway) , there are always ways in which you can improve.
Also! it's ALLY week! QuASA is hosting an assortment of events, so if you are an Ally, go support! and if you are not, check them out anyway and be an informed citizen :)
-Maithreyi
Oh, also @Jade: YES! I think we totally should invest more time in reading, even if it's online articles instead of straight-up books and newspapers. Our generation is becoming so mal-and uninformed because we rely of facebook to tell us BIG news. We need to actively be more aware of issues.
I'm going to blog last week's circle. Because I thought that the topic of identity was really significant to me.
ReplyDeleteThe sware game was painful. At first, it was hard to list 5 idientites because I never had to identify myself before besides checking an ethnicity box on surveys. I was stuck on "Asian". But then even that word was not enough to describe me. So I wished I had more sticky notes. Then we played a stand up, sit down game which was interesting. I found out that there was a lot of simlarities and a lot of differences between the me and the other circle members (ie. conservative or liberal, gay rights, affirmative action). It was kinda hard to stand up for certain things, but I found out that the activity was helping me define myselft. Then we talked about racism and humor. It was interesting to hear who was okay to joke about racism and when was it okay to use racism as humor (Russell Peters or within own ethnic group). But we concluded that it depends on the context and the situation. Sot it was pretty much a grey area. Someone at the end of circle mentioned that she always had identified herself as Asian, but now she identifies herself as Asian-American. And she asked, "why is the "American" part after the hyphenated "Asian" is so important?
I think that's a great question. In America, we live in a colorblind society that many people think is a melting pot, that we race is not as distinct anymore among the society. However, why do we still use the hyphens like Asian-American, Latino-American, African-American?
Today's circle: Social Issues
ReplyDeleteyes and I realized that i made spelling errors in the first blog. I was typing fast. sorry! :)
Today we talked about social issues in the APA community. The one that I most affected by is the pressure from high expectations. Filia piety, family culture, the idea of you or your family "can't lose face" influences this. I thought it was really interesting when Jade brought up that when she mentioned these characteristics the whole circle nodded in agreement, but if she were to suggest these same characteristics to people who are not part of APA community, they would be confused. I find this very interesting and I think that because of this, is important to have school counselors that are APA because they can go beyond linguistic and cultural barriers and effectively help students. I'm glad USC has an organization like APASS! :D
APA in the media was an issue that really resonates with me, not because I am involved in media or foresee that in my future, but because it really affects the way the greater public (i.e. middle America/midwest where the Asian community is growing but is scarcer) view our race.
ReplyDeleteI found THIS : http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2010/10/19/terra-nova-casts-24-alum-mido-hamada/ interesting not because of the "Terra Nova" casting, but the fact that mido hamada, a german-egyptian guy took the role of "SAMIR MEHRAN" on "24". I never heard about this when it happened, but I cannot see the reasoning because I did hear them cast a high-name Indian actor FROM india for scenes/episodes before--why not this time? It reminded me of the race-bending issue and M. Night Shyamalan's issue. If you're going to have an Asian character, USE AN ASIAN! I mean, Kal Penn is one of the ONLY known South Asian male actor in the media today, and he even took a break from acting for a role in the White House (though he's acting again now.) and that too because he changed his stage name from Kalpen Modi to Kal Penn. Same with Jay Sean who's given name is Kamaljit Singh Jhooti. Hilarious, but not conducive to selling countless albums and becoming a musical icon while Jay Sean does not REP his South Asian roots. (Though he does want to educate the masses about his culture since they are more aware of South Asian culture in England than the US)
It's an ongoing struggle, but we should be able to at least cast Asians in the roles that we deem Asian!
-Maithreyi
In our session my closing thought was, "CASI helps me to understand how and why 'the personal is political'." I just wanted to share more background about the origins of that phrase:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP.html
It's borrowed from the women's liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s which began with smaller groups of women discussing their issues (like CIRCLE?). Could Women's Liberation in the United States serve as a model for replicating progressive activism among APAs on campus at USC? It's been done before, on much larger scales- lest we forget. We can make change at USC. Every progressive movement began with a small group of passionate people.
Discussing and working our way through Social Issues week, I am realizing that I am at a point in my identity where I want to start taking ACTION on social issues. I absolutely love CIRCLE, but I am extremely frustrated that there isn't really a continuation of CIRCLE that exists at USC that translates the knowledge that we gain from CIRCLE into action to serve the APA community at USC, in LA, and at large. Let's do something about this!
ReplyDeleteI hope that SCAPE (Student Coalition for Asian Pacific Empowerment) plans more action projects for next semester so that CIRCLE participants and TAs can all mobilize and join SCAPE together to translate our awesome discussions into awesome service!
I am also hoping that a lot of you apply for the APASA Internship Program! APASA is the Asian Pacific American Student Assembly, and I feel like there is so much more activism that the assembly can mobilize for the APA community and other communities on campus. CIRCLE really provides important training for being a leader in the APA community, so use your CIRCLE training for good and join APASA as an intern! And the next step? Joining APASA as an e-board member! =)
So I am extremely frustrated still but I feel like this year's participants are very activist and passionate, and we can really start to create change!
I saw 2 videos written on Monday's blog.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the "Slip of the Tongue"
It's very empowering i think, even if it was talking about how she can't choose her ethnic makeup. It was a very powerful speech. It's true, we can't choose who we are... we can pretend we are someone or something were not. but that's painful and its not being true to yourself. I think we should all embrace our ethnic background! :D GO ASIANS!! hahah
the second video was also go. "Asia-America, Where have you gone?"
Even though he was speaking really fast like 1000 words per second.... some of the stuff he said was good too. Like the stereotypes we get forced upon us. Just b/c we belong to one ethnic group, we're all individuals as well and have our own individual personalities. Also the whole we don't fit with Chinese ppl b/c of our broken Chinese, and we don't fit with White Americans because of our skin color. I understand that feeling. we don't really belong to one group or the other. :( so sad.
gosh, our identity is very confusing...
I really enjoyed today's site visit to the Chinese American museum. For me, it reinforced everything we've discussed and learned during our CIRCLE sessions, and also added more depth to some of the concepts we talked about.
ReplyDeleteI particularly liked the exhibit about Angel's Island. I vaguely remember talking about the San Francisco fire and the resulting paper sons during our first session, but I never realized how being a paper son or daughter can effect how you feel about your own identity. I always just assumed that it was a fully technical thing, and didn't effect the immigrant's personal lives much. Today's exhibit gave me an insight on how one must feel if they found out their father was a paper son. I can't even fathom how it would feel not to know what my true identity is, and knowing that many Chinese immigrants went through this crisis really put things in perspective for me. It always seems that Chinese Americans do not have any hardships in America because in American History classes, very little light is shed on these subjects and Chinese Americans are under the "model minority" label. The site visit opened my eyes to some of the struggles that Chinese Americans faced.
I really liked the site visit the the Chinese American Museum. Before, I never heard of it. I never thought that Chinese Americans were cool enough to have their own museum of Chinese American history. Well that's because I came from a state that didn't have many Asians in the first place. >.<
ReplyDeleteIt was a real eye opener! :D
I never knew that the immigration process to bring their paper sons and even real sons were so hard. And that Chinese people were here for a very long time. It the exhibits were really authentic especially with the shop and I could compare the old Chinese medicine with current American Medicine.
The pop culture section was good too! :D
I was just sad that I didn't see Jackie Chan. haha. :P
Jennifer- I was sad that we didn't see Jackie Chan too! But at least we got to eat at the restaurant that was filmed in his movie, haha :)
ReplyDeleteThe speaker from last week was very interesting and gave a lot of facts on domestic violence that I had not known till that day.
Also, the activity we did afterwards really made me both question and embrace my identity. Great week!
I really liked the speaker from this week's CIRCLE session. She was really charismatic and made her subject matter, which was domestic violence, really interesting to hear about. I liked how she depicted the ignorance of the South Asian's point of view on domestic violence with humor to show how many South Asians are truly unaware of the serious issue that is widespread in their community.
ReplyDeleteThe commercials that she showed us were really touching and made me understand domestic violence in a more personal way. To see the actors act out how domestic violence really happens made the issue seem so much more real. In the first commercial, the inclusion of the couple's romantic life before the violence happened made me the issue of domestic violence seem much more personal and much more tragic.
Oh, and the "stand up if you..." activity at the end of our session was really enjoyable. I think these exercises truly help with the "identity" part of CIRCLE, because it forces me to think about my beliefs and the values I stick up for.
ReplyDeleteThis week's speaker was really inspirational. I really like how she came prepared with a powerpoint outline of what she spoke of. It was upsetting hearing the facts of the domestic violence that was going on in the world, and I could not believe such things could happen. You usually hear about it, but never think about it in such a way. It brought more light into my eyes hearing and seeing on paper of said things.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I could not stay throughout the whole session and do the activity that Cassandra said we did, which seems really fun! I am excited for the next session and CIRCLE retreat! :)