Dimensions of Culture Program DOC 3: Imagination

Professor Emily Roxworthy April 15, 2013

Asian American masculinity

new PSY video for Gentleman Jeremy Lin phenomenon of 2012 (60 Minutes, ESPN) Ng: the themes of love, loss, and the conflicted sexuality that is sometimes a consequence of border crossings (1990s) Adaptation of the old Chinese bachelor society in U.S. Chinatown/ghettoes
Labor on railroad and ships Ng: the title reveres the tradition of sending the ancestors bones back to China

Author Frank Chin

Asian American femininity

Leis intimate first-person narration
Moves backward in time from trauma (memory) of three daughters, one who killed herself
Confucian ideology of traditional Chinese society Leon defies this logic

Sweatshops female society listens to traditionally patriarchal Chinese opera

Men traditionally played all roles Lei says the singing sounds like cats

Ng counters missionary narrative

Different interpretation of Chinese American womens plight than previous writers e.g. Amy Tans Joy Luck Club (1989 novel, 1993 film)
Phenomenon of outmarriage to white men in particular (28% of Asians marrying in 2010 wed a non-Asian spouse, down from 30%+)

Asian American femininity

Appropriation of suicide stereotype: Oriental womans death-asspectacle (Orientalism)
E.g. Madame Butterfly Ng: Onas suicide might be seen as a kind of immigration -- a leave-taking/escape Each member of Leong family comes to own terms with Onas death in Chinatown
Communal living (like bones contained together in shoebox) but also isolated existence E.g. Ninas own immigration to NYC

Media: Hiroshima Maidens (ca. 1955)

Reality: sweatshops in U.S Chinatowns

George Takei has most influential Facebook page in the world*

(launched March 23, 2011)
2013 Distinguished Achievement in Internet Culture Shorty Award Facebook, Twitter (2011 tsunami), and Tumblr (2012 hurricane) Talking back to Asian stereotypes
politically conservative asexual/homophobic

*according to the Daily Dot

Allegiance: A New American Musical

New Broadway-bound musical play written for Takei by Jay Kuo and Lorenzo Thione Premiered at San Diegos Old Globe Theatre Sept. 2012 Takes place at Heart Mountain Relocation Center (concentration camp) that was in Wyoming (~10,000 Japanese Americans imprisoned there 1942-1945)