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AAST355 Concept Map - Coggle Diagram

- - - - A lack of real Asian people in America further fed into Asian caricatures in media, replacing public's knowledge of what Asian people are like with incorrect depictions and narrowed Asian identities to a bunch of stereotypes and caricatures
- - - - From Recuperating Suzie Wong (Feng): "this text constructs a vision of the Orient and implicitly justifies Western exploitation of that world" (Feng, 41).
      - From Recuperating Suzie Wong (Feng): "underscoring the notion that Americans are not racist compared with Europeans" (Feng, 42), justifies American exploitation of Asian countries
  - - - From Recuperating Suzie Wong (Feng): "The spectator is simultaneously reassured that Asian women want to be beaten and allowed to displace revulsion onto the 'Orient'" (Feng, 42), incorrect depiction of Asian culture as backwards
- - - - Mina's parents associate Demetrius, who is African American, with the African people in Uganda who mistreated them and forced them out of their home. In turn, the Black community of Mississippi are upset that Demetrius is not with a Black girl. Both communities' biases about each other enforce racial borders and discourage unity among minorities
        
        Mina's family's dislike of Demetrius and the other Black people in their community allude to anti-Blackness and colorism that is prevalent in the South Asian community
        
        Pontiac calls Demetrius a "carpet-cleaning kalu". Kalu is an offensive term for Black people in Hindi and "carpet-cleaning" makes a mockery of Demetrius's work shows they consider his work lower class even though they are also working class
        
        "Face it, Ma, you’ve got a darky daughter—Harry’s mother doesn’t like darkies.”
        
        Mina's family cannot fathom that Mina would want to remain with Demetrius and that he is very important to her. Even while she is with him, they are stubborn about their opinions of him and do not even attempt to understand him as a person or accept their inter-racial romance.
      - Mina struggles to balance her love and connection with Demetrius and her desire to make her parents happy. Ultimately, she cannot comfortably have both and chooses to run away with Demetrius
        
        In her parents' Mina has brought shame and dishonor on her family by choosing to be with a Black man
        
        At the Crossroads of Two Empires: "the film could not envision a future in which cultural hybridity held a legitimate public space. The Indian woman and
        the African American man who kiss blissfully in Mississippi Masala’s final scene purchase their togetherness at a high price: exiled from family and community, they face an uncertain future with neither a destination-point nor a means of subsistence" (Seshagiri, 179)
      - Societal pressure from other people in the Indian community supports Mina's parents' anti-Blackness: "Kinnu has opened a liquor store that serves mostly poor black people, a choice that earns the contempt of the gossipy and status-obsessed Indian community in Greenwood." (Seshagiri, 184)
  - - - Eleanor continues the cycle of trauma by hypocritically disrespecting Rachel the same way her own mother in law openly disrespected her. Seems to believe that Rachel should suffer just because she had to suffer when she was in Rachel's position
    - - Multicultural Redemption: Sugino provides an interesting analysis of this scene, showing how it gives the illusion of "capitalist excess [dissolving] racial anxiety" without further engaging in a meaningful way with the reality of racism
      - Multicultural Redemption (Sugino): the scene and film as a whole "frame Asian liberation as synonymous with upward class mobility", feeding into the already prevalent narrative within the Asian community that financial success is the only way to obtain happiness and peace
        
        Perpetuation of this idea fuels stereotypical Asian behavior of going to extreme lengths for success and stripping oneself of other characteristics to achieve success. Feeds the model minority and yellow peril myths as non-Asians perceive this continued behavior as a threat or as a tool to pit minorities against one another
        
        "Put differently, as 'Asian Americanness' becomes linked with values such as bootstrap ideology and immigrant grit" (Sugino)
    - - Eleanor seems heavily influenced by the opinions of other women in her circle who gossip about Rachel's family background (not having a present father), her lack of wealth, and her status as an immigrant to America
        
        Connection to Mississippi Masala: the opinions of their peers seem to exacerbate Mina's parents' prejudice against Demetrius
    - - A major reason for Eleanor's disapproval of Rachel is her ethnic background. She believes her family's lifestyle as an old-money family with decades of history and traditions in Singapore is superior to Rachel's Asian American lifestyle, and she believes that Rachel values the wrong things in life. Although they are both Chinese, Eleanor thinks her "way" of being Chinese is better and that Rachel is not good enough to be part of the family.
        
        Connection to Mississippi Masala: although they are both minorities and working class in America, the Indians in Greenwood believe themselves superior to the Black people that live there and refuse to interact with them.
      - During the bachelorette party, someone guts a fish on Rachel's bed and writes insults on her wall, showing their intense jealousy and hatred for Rachel, who they believe does not fit into their community and does not deserve to be with Nick. Rachel faces discrimination even though she is only surrounded by people who are Asian, just like her.
      - Anti-Blackness and devaluation of darker-skinned Asians
        
        "In a number of scenes, the film distances East Asian characters from darker-skinned Asians. These characters are rendered more or less invisible throughout the film, with the exception of their presence as guards or service workers" (Sugino)
        
        "Even in these brief moments it is easy to apprehend the ways in which the Asians that the film celebrates are light-skinned, wealthy East Asians, relegating Southeast Asians to the background and portrayed as threatening" (Sugino)
        
        Peik Lin's appropriation of Black vernacular is supposed to be comedic but instead comes off as a mockery of Black people
- - - - Evelyn remembers Gong Gong threatening to disown her and ignoring her after she chose to move to America with Waymond
      - Alpha Gong Gong wants Evelyn to kill Joy so that at least one iteration of Jobu Tupaki can be destroyed. This seems to represent the older generation's encouragement to have future generations also treated in traumatizing ways because "that is the way it has always been".
        
        Evelyn heals and breaks the cycle by refusing and instead of destroying Jobu Tupaki, attempting to understand and placate them, and by extension, Joy.
        
        In her personal life, she realizes she is no better than her father was and she was not treating Joy with the respect and kindness that a child deserves from their parent
  - - - Evelyn mistakenly refers to Becky as "he", and though it could have been an honest mistake, she immediately takes the opportunity to mock the way Joy and Becky dress, which is not traditionally feminine. Implies that she wishes Joy conformed to gender norms.
      - Evelyn tells Gong Gong that Becky and Joy are just very good friends, refuses to enlighten him that they are romantic partners.
        
        Displays invisibility of queer women in Asian communities due to assumed heterosexuality (Sohn reading)
        
        Connection to Saving Face where Vivian and Wil initially lie that they are good friends rather than reveal that they are dating
    - - Evelyn conflates Jobu Tupaki, who is evil, with Joy's queerness by blaming them for "turning [Joy] gay". This shows how negatively she truly perceives Joy's relationship and queerness as a whole.
- - - - Shows Asian Americans acting out because they are discontent with their comfortable, but unremarkable lives. The model minority stereotype generally implies that Asians Americans keep their heads down, but in this film the characters do the opposite.
        
        Straitjacket Sexualities: "The young men in this movie seek a viable manhood for themselves be-
        yond their Ivy League–bound futures and the daily experience with racism" (Shimizu, 156)
    - - The boys in Better Luck Tomorrow are protagonists and the audience is meant to root for them, however they are in no way heroes, as they break the law and make morally questionable choices- they even murder a classmate.
      - The male characters are also afforded sexuality as Ben pursues Stephanie, and displays an obvious attraction for her. In previous roles for Asian men, sexuality is ignored, which perpetuates a false notion that Asian men are simply asexual by nature
        
        Film subverts archetypes surrounding Asian women's sexuality is well. In this movie, Stephanie's sexuality is portrayed as empowering rather than using it to make her seem weak or one dimensional
  - - - Daughter of the Dragon also makes use of the "honorable death" trope as Ling Moy dies fighting to achieve her father's ends
    - - Bruce Lee and the Anti-Imperialism of Kung-Fu: Lee publicly held strong antiracist sentiments and was the first martial arts sifu to train non-Asians. He is also quoted as saying he did not believe in racial barriers. Enter the Dragon is a film that has a strong but unspoken antiracist message
- - - - What is Third Cinema: This aspect of the film is described as Tajiri giving "closure" and "reconciliation" to her mother who had face extreme discrimination as a Japanese American (Mimura, 101). Tajiri bridges the gap between history and memory, and seeks to "connect the picture to the story" (Mimura, 101) and understand her own background.
- - - - Alienation of Asian elderly people in America -> Connection with uptick in hate crimes against elderly Asian Americans during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Shows targeting of a vulnerable population who cannot necessarily defend themselves against these types of attacks
      - American occupation of Asian countries such as the Philippines under the pretense that exposure to American values and ways of life will "save" Asian people who supposedly live in squalor. Ironic because Filipinos were not much better off even when they lived in America
        
        Connection to anti-imperialism discussed in Week 6
        
        The actions of the real-estate corporations that wanted to destroy I-Hotel despite the vulnerability of its residents and intense backlash from not only other civilians, but politicians and local government leaders implies the notion that Asians are "second-class" in the West and do not have the same rights because they are "other"
        
        Would the situation have been different had the residents and protestors been white?
  - - - Chinese man killed due to anti-Japanese sentiments, proves larger problem about how non-Asians view "Asia" as a homogenous culture and do not even bother to learn/realize the vast diversity of Asia
      - A tragic outcome of the Yellow Peril myth that has been perpetuated in the West for over a century. Unresolved fears of the progress and innovations of Asian people. At first, the fear was that Asians would infiltrate the West and take over the Western world. At the time of Chin's murder, the fear was that Asians would surpass the West as the center of innovation, wealth, etc. while remaining in their own part of the world
        
        Detroit Blues (Zia): details how hatred for Japanese auto-industry for "taking American jobs" extended to a hatred for anything Japanese or presumed to be Japanese; targeting a group of people associated with a source of anger but are not actually directly causing the problem is the entire basis of the Yellow Peril myth and its effects in the real world
- - - - Begs the question, can documentaries truly convey peoples' lived realities if they are so complex? Does being filmed and documented change the way people tell their own stories and carry themselves?
- - - - Potentially depicts Hmong people in a negative light, which has negative implications when the community is already so unrepresented
        
        "The girls go to college. The boys go to jail." An example of gendered racism, implies that Hmong men are inherently aggressive and morally corrupt, coming to the U.S. and causing nothing but trouble
        
        The Hmong men in the movie are either criminals, like Spider and his gang, or do not have much going for them, like Thao, who mentions having no car, no job, no girlfriend, etc. and trying to steal Walt's car
        
        History on the Run: "[Walt] sets out to man up and save his young Hmong neighbor who possesses neither the necessary life skills or heteronormative masculinity needed to succeed in the United States" (Vang, 164) -> emasculating portrayal of a Hmong man
        
        History on the Run: "reveals the patriarchal framing of Hmong and Asian American women as a hypersexualized threat (Sue as the 'dragon lady' or the helpless innocent requiring a white male savior)" (Vang, 165) -> sexualization and infantilization of a Hmong woman
    - - Film falls into a grey area in terms of representation. Although some parts feed into the white savior complex, the film also depicts a white man hardened by war, illness, and the loss of his wife showing kindness and becoming respected by a group of people he does not understand
        
        Walt shows mercy to Thao even after he tries to steal his car and by the end of the film, he has become so bonded with Thao's family that he sacrifices his life for them and leaves Thao his prized Gran Torino
      - Hmong adults implied to be absent or weak because Walt has to step in to save the youth of the Hmong community
  - - - Wil is afraid to reveal her relationship with Vivian because of the backlash she will face from her family and community
        
        Wil is afraid to show affection to Vivian in public because of the judgement they may receive. Even during the crucial moment of Vivian leaving for Paris, Wil cannot bring herself to kiss her because of her fear and Vivian leaves her behind
      - Wil and Vivian have to play off their relationship as a friendship in front of Wil's mother
        
        Imagining Queer Asian North American Lives (Sohn): Queer Asians often have to hide the complexities of their queer identities to remain safe in their community, and the existence of queer Asian females is largely ignored, with their relationships being mistaken for sisterhood or close friendship due to heteronormative values in Asian communities
    - - Wil's mother is removed from the home by Wil's grandfather due to his anger about her becoming pregnant out of wedlock -> shows intense devotion to heteronuclear family structure in Asian cultures. As mentioned in Sohn reading, deviations from this ideal are severely punished by disownment, physical harm, etc.
      - Wil's mother refuses to acknowledge Wil's sexuality because of what it would mean for Wil to be openly lesbian, and what it would mean for herself to have a lesbian daughter. Her fear can likely be connected to the trauma of being disowned by her father and other punishments she has witnessed or experienced herself
      - Vivian's father disapproves of her interest in modern dance and wants her to pursue ballet, which he believes has more prestige
        
        Rather than submitting to his demands out of fear or avoidance of conflict, Vivan continues to do modern dance anyway (although she later accepts an offer to join a prestigious ballet program)
        
        Vivian's defiance of parental pressure and Asian cultural norms (encouraging Wil to show their love publicly) represents bravery and a strong sense of individuality
        
        Wil represents fear of deviation, avoidance, and longing to break free of societal pressure
      - Healing: At the end of the movie, Wil and Vivian's mothers are happy about their daughters' relationship even though some members of the community show disgust and disapproval. Everybody learns to find happiness and freedom to express themselves despite continued disdain from their community and family
- - - - Changez is singled out and strip searched at the airport
      - Lincoln immediately suspects that Changez was involved in killing Rainier after having received a photo of Rainier dead and Changez coincidentally pulls out his phone to text his sister. This judgement leads to the death of Sameer
        
        Connection to Vincent Chin's death at the hands of people who were angry about the effects of the Japanese auto industry on U.S. employment
    - - "as the model minority has been irrevocably eroded, while his brown peril body emerges as a blight that must be regulated, impugned, and ultimately expunged." (Sohn 245)
- - - - Arakau is terrible to Edith, trying to kiss her without consent, locking her in a room, offering her a knife when she threatens to commit suicide, and branding her. These events support the idea that Asian mean should be feared (yellow peril stereotype) and are always looking to take advantage of and hurt white women (promotes ideology of Exclusion Era)
        
        After the trial, the Hardys walk out to cheering from the crowd despite Edith stealing Red Cross funds. Their wrongdoings are completely forgotten about while Arakau faces punishment
    - - Lotus Flower commits suicide playing into the stereotype of Asian women as tragic
      - Lotus Flower speaks in broken English
      - Name "Lotus Flower" seems objectifying as it strips her of a name and replaces it with an inanimate object
    - - Arakau punished for his possessiveness of Edith while Richard was not
      - Arakau's character plays into the yellow peril stereotype with his barbaric/ brutal branding of Edith. It feels like a nod to the fear of Asian men at the time and what they might do to white women if they came to America.
      - Arakau wears Western clothes throughout the film: possibly represents the belief that Asian people moving to the West might try to blend in but ultimately have ill intentions the way Arakau did