Asian American Literature

Robot Stories

martink852 — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:25:24 +0000

I have to say that I really enjoyed watching this film in class. I thought that it was interesting to hear what people had to say about it. I agree with some of my classmates when they stated that they really don’t know why it’s labeled as an “Asian American Film.” I really saw the familar theme popping up about Identity. With the article and the film. I also quoted in the Robot Love section of the film about Bob saying “they don’t like you because you are different” to Archie, the robot. I feel that it depicts what Asian’s feel sometimes, or atleast what I’ve recieved from reading all of these texts this semester, that they feel that they ARE different and don’t understand why people can’t look at them as normal people with feelings. Archie had some sort of attraction to the girl robot working next door and that told me that even ROBOTS have feelings!

After reading the qoutes posted on our class website, I really understood the Robot Love part of the film a lot better. The producer really wanted to reach out and show the isolation and the struggles that Asians have, and he did this by producing this robot. I feel that this was a great ending to our semester because it really gave us a different perspective other than reading literature. Although, I can’t say if i completely understand why it’s classified in “Asian American Film.” I do understand the message that was trying to be sent though.

This was a great class and a great ending to our realization about Asian American’s!

Asian American Film Productions-

martink852 — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:03:31 +0000

After reading this journal article, its obvious that Asian Americans have a huge problem with “identity.” I found it horrible when it said that they had to choose between having an Asian identity or an American identity. It was like they couldn’t be both. What is so wrong with being Asian Ameican..together!! We saw this throughout Sone’s novel with being a “two headed freak” when you are Japanese American.

As I was reading this article, all of this information wasn’t too shocking to me because we have been introduced to the theme of identity and the theme of outcasts in America and feeling shame. This article really showed me how judgmental Americans really are at times because they pretty much made these films based on an American audience, and now a days its so hard to impress us americans sometimes!!

Lastly, I found it interesting when they talked at the end about basing this one particular film around the theme of death and how the audiences reacted to it. They clearly didnt react very well because it states “maybe the film world isnt ready for community just yet.” Thats so true because sometimes you have to know how to deal with different circumstances and maybe the film world wasn’t ready.

I’m anxious to see what this film is going to be like tomorrow in class!

End of My Year of Meats

martink852 — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:56:47 +0000

So what a good book to end the semester with! I really enjoyed reading this book because I really felt like the characters grew so much, especially Akiko. I found myself constantly wanting to read the sections about her because they were so horrible, but yet so intriguing. I was disgusted when she was with John while he was beating her. But at the end of the novel we see that she gets the strength to actually buy a plane ticket to New York the day before John gets back from there. She leaves nothing of herself behind and she’s ready to start a new life with her baby. Speaking of her baby, i think its so strange how she knew when the whole process was going on within herself. When Akiko was in the hospital i felt like it showed how afraid she was of john because she said that she felt secure and protected.

Jane on the other hand was always the stronger woman in this book but we also see her become a documentarian at the end. She is doing what she loves best and living her life. When her and Akiko meet up, Akiko even says that she pictured Jane a lot differently. SHe thought that she’d more “tough.” I found it interesting how Ozeki has Jane lose her baby and then have Akiko get pregnant really all around the same time.

Overall, I really liked how Ozeki left this book at the end. It showed both these women striving to become something or do something with themselves. Akiko got out of the awful, abusive relationshop and Jane became a documentarian after working on the set of My Year of Meats. The last sentence that Ozeki left us as readers with is “My year of meants. Not so easy. But done. ” I felt like that was powerful and showed that her life wasn’t easy, just like Akiko’s wasn’t or anyone elses life, but they made it through and are in a better place with themselves now.

My Year of Meats # 19

martink852 — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 03:53:41 +0000

I have to say that this book is a very easy read along with being very interesting. What I really enjoyed most about reading these chapters was finding out more about Akiko. It makes me feel sorry for her that “john” treats her the way that he does. She seems like such an innocent woman who is so taken back from the world because of her husband pretty much not controlling his sexual drives and his abusive personality! god! I find it funny how this novel is talking a lot about sex and femanine things. It switched to having the basis around meat, and now to periods? It makes me want to laugh.

I am really liking Jane as a character in this novel. I feel like she is a little stronger than the others and she is just striving to become something of herself. Yes, there are many points in the novel that “question her identity” but I just have a feeling that she’s going to surprise us with something. I think its also very different, as an author, for Ozeki to write about the women getting their periods at the same time and going through all these personal problems. It cracks me up to think about what he’s trying to make a point of.

I’m happy that Jane was actually able to get pregnant when she was so set in stone that there was no possible way that she could. I read on a little bit so I know more of what happens with this pregancy, but I won’t spoil it for the rest of you! I can’t wait to get to the end and see what it has in store for us!

My Year of Meats

martink852 — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 02:03:30 +0000

I think that this book is very interesting so far. I really like how Oseki writes in a very different style than what we are used to. It is kind of confusing at some times, but I feel that she isn’t holding anything back about the characters. We get to know everything upfront for once! How amazing! No more guessing or trying to figure out what characters are going to do.

First off, I think that its quite different how they are creating this television show based around meat. Why meat? That is so strange to me. One thing that i don’t understand is why they hid that some of the individuals that are working “behind stage” are japanese. They pretty much lied to America to get people to think that there was no influence from the japanese culture. In the beginning, there was a list of Desirable things for My American Wife. Almost every thing contained in that list had to deal with attractiveness. That made me rethink what Americans are really viewed as. Everrything has to be based around physical appearance, attractive liftestyles, attractive friends…It just really caught my attention. Comparing that to what we know of Japanese culture, we see that japanese culture is not all about “attractiveness, but instead about family values.

It really caught my eye when they were talking about how meaning a name has. This reminded me of Native Speaker so much! Ozeki really couldn’t have said it better because a name is really what the world knows you as. “Name is Face to all the world.” (9). Following that paragraph on page 9, it talked about Jane feeling “freakish” because in Japan when you were six feet tall you were seen as a freak. How much alike is this to Nisei Daughter?!

I could probably blab for a while about this book because i feel that it contains so much! I am so happy that this novel is an easy read and very straight forward so far, but i do feel that its going to get more complicated as we begin to read on…maybe?

End of Native Speaker

martink852 — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:47:06 +0000

I was very surprised and happy with the final ending of Native Speaker. I feel that Chang Rae Lee really writes in a way that keeps the readers wanting to continuously read more! It is obvious that the theme of Speech was continuous throughout the whole novel. The last chapter I feel that it really shows how Lelia and Henry were brought together by speech and kids! It is obvious that families are very important with the Korean culture just like they were with the chinese, japanese, etc. The family is what brings people together. In Henry’s case, I was happy that he finally expressed some emotion when Lelia asked him what he actually did for his job. Could you imagine being together with someone and not really knowing their job?! This novel felt very real to me, for i caught myself having to keep remind myself that it’s not a memoir! I really enjoyed Lee’s writing style even though at times you just wanted to know everytyhing he wasnt telling you! I feel that it is really important the importance of family and children like i mentioned above. In a different way, this states to us as readers the “meaning” of the Korean culture. Mitt was such a huge part in Lelia and Henry’s life and when he died their relationship died. The quote on page 269 really stood out to me because i related it back to Henry’s son, Mitt. It stated ” Sometimes you want to see what will happen to a boy on his own. I feared for him but i did nothing. Sometimes you must wait and see.” I feel that this relates a lot to Mitts death in a way. Is that what Henry wanted to see about Mitt. Did he want Mitt to become strong so Henry was allowing him to hang out with the “tough” guys. I dont know, just a thought! Overall I really liked reading this novel and i feel that we recieved a lot of information about the korean culture by the way Henry and his family were.

Native Speaker pages 130-250.

martink852 — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:16:19 +0000

Well there was so much to read that i really dont know what i want to focus my blog on! Obviously John Kwang was a huge part of these chapters. Henry seemed to look up to him in a way. He was always talking about how Kwang dressed and how he carried himself. He wasn’t worried about what the rest of the world thought of him, unlike Henry and his family. We see many scenarios relate back to his memories with his father. His father was always comparing Henry to his mother, like it was a bad thing. Henry was “frail” as he described himself. He never really was a strong man like Kwang was, but Henry always wanted to be. We see that Henry’s father sort of put him down in some ways especially on page 135 when Henry’s father is talking about Henry’s hair and says “look at this, he’d scoff, just like your mothers.” I feel that it is negative and that’s what made Henry so worried about what everyone was thinking of him because his father pretty much raised him like that.

Again, we see a lot of mention about food in Lelia and Henry’s relationship. Henry and Lelia are brought together again by cooking her stew for dinner. This was an old ritual they always had. While reading this section I was nervous for henry because it really seemed like he didn’t even know what to say to his own wife! The setting that he set up for the readers really made it feel like i was actually there. On page 163, Henry talks about how his marriage with Lelia and how he thinks it may be “pure Junior High” and that he needs “seven minutes in heaven.” This explains how Lelia and Henry act toward eachother. It seems that that are both not mature enough to be married with these sorts of problems. Henry has many thoughts but he never acts on what he’s thinking. He keeps everything inside of him and makes himself “blend” in so he won’t draw attention to himself like Kwang does.

I really found it humorous how much Henry talked about Kwang. It really seemed like Henry wanted to “become” him. Kwang was his “invention” he says on page 140.

These chapters were very interesting to read, and cant wait to finish the novel and see what happens.

Native Speaker

martink852 — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:18:37 +0000

I am really liking this novel so far! The most significant thing about Lee’s way of writing is how he makes Lelia and Henry interact with eachother. Henry is such a strange character. I feel like he is so scatter brained that he never knows what he’s trying to say. It makes me wonder what Lee’s thoughts were to make the main character like this. In the beginning of the novel we were introduced that Lelia and Henry had a kid together, but there really wasn’t much explained other than his name, Mitt, and that he died. We didn’t get an age, what he died of or anything. While I was reading I was really anxious to find out what had happened to him. I feel like that was a strange thing to do as an author and leave this significant piece until almost the middle of the book. I was so surprised that Mitt was seven years old when he died and it was caused by all these boys out at his Henry’s fathers house making a “simple dog pile.” SEVEN years old and these boys harrassed Mitt so much. That’s terrible!

What I did get out of this chapter was how there family was before Mitt died. It seemed like it was a little more normal than it was now. Lelia and Henry weren’t as strange together, and Mitt was so close with his grandpa (henry’s father) that it brought the whole family together. Henry and Lelia adored Mitt, and I felt like Mitt made their family “whole.” Now i see that with Mitt gone, things have just been falling apart. Their marriage is slowly disintegrating and henry is just so scattered all over the floor. I was very surprised when Lelia and Henry start to get their marriage back to “normal.” But i wonder if it’s going to work.. I can’t wait to read on!

Native Speaker & Takaki

martink852 — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 04:27:09 +0000

After reading the first two chapters in Native Speaker, I really find myself liking this novel. There were many things that caught my attention, but the most significant theme that i saw throughout the first two chapters was the significance of speech with Henry. There was one incidence in the novel where he talks about his wife lelia and says that he loves the way her mouth moves. Along with that, lelia pronounces her name to Henry and says Leel-ya. I find it strange that he picked this name to use in this novel because it is clearly a different pronunciation that we would associate with that name. I feel that it really draws the reader into the author and why he chose the things that he did. I thought it was kind of humorous when lelia says to Henry after she kisses him that he “tastes like korean.” It was clear that lelia was trying to ignore the race difference, but it was also clear that it bothered her in some ways. She always seemed to answer very quick when henry would ask her different questions about the way that he looked.

Takaki discussed many issues that the korean went through coming over to Hawaii. I felt like i recieved a lot of information from these chapters. I found it shocking how many koreans were literate coming over to America. Takaki says that 70 percent of them were. Along with literacy, most of them were well educated and a majority of the immigrants were women! It is funny when Takaki talks about why the Koreans wanted to come over to America so bad. They were told that America had money growing on trees and gold everywhere. They were very miseld. When they came over to America things were a lot different than what they expected. It wasn’t as easy as they thought it was going to be. THey worked over 60 hours a week for very very very little pay! I feel sympathy for these immigrants because all they were trying to do was make something of themselves.

I really liked the start of Native Speaker and I hopes it gets better as we go on to read many more chapters. Takaki, as usual, was very informational but im glad we are taking a break from him!

Southeast Asia

martink852 — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:43:06 +0000

I decided to focus my blog on Christmas ’95 by Isabelle Thuy Pelaud. I feel that this piece connected very well with Takaki’s reading 449-460 because it relates to the French and Vietnamese relationships. The father of this girl was french, and the mother was vietnamese. It shows how they bring together both of their ethnic groups and create a combined ethnicity. I thought that it was interesting to read about a family that had a father from a different culture because all that we have read before, both parents are either chinese, japanese, etc. It was different to get information on how the family was considering there were these two parents from totally different cultures.

An important theme that I noticed in this short story was the role women played. It constantly talked about how the father was gone and all the mother ever did was stand out the sink and wash dishes. She was always “hurrying through the chores to keep the equilibrium” (page 10). This here shows that all she wanted to do was keep peace within their home, and if she didn’t do the chores and dishes they were expected of her then the peace would break. It said that she had some sort of education, but look what she was doing! washing dishes at home. It makes me feel for her because that was what her husband wanted her to do, and if it wasn;t done then the peace would break. A passage that I thought was very unique was on page 10 where she says “Each of us holding firmly on to our masks, each carrying more than one. We talked breifly about this in class, but i would like to add more! I interpreted this to mean that each person has their own mask, whether it be french, the cleaning mother, vietnamese, an obedient daughter, etc. Each person expected something different from everyone, so for example when the mother was around the father she put on her “obedient wife” who cleans dishes and cooks for her french husband. When the father was around his french friends, he put on his manly french mask. It seems that they were all hiding behind their true identity. They constantly did things to make others happy because that is what they wanted. THey didn’t want any conflict in their home, and instead of expressing their feelings and how they thought about things, they resided to these masks that “protected” them from the unknown, the fighting, and breaking the peace.