- In Gene Yang’s comic American Born Chinese, excerpt A, he shows how we can all be quite judgemental at first glance when we first meet someone. We see depicted that a new boy in school doesn’t have any friends and tries to make one but is rejected on first impressions. The boy he is attempting to make friends claims he has other friends just on what he initially thinks of Wei-Chen Sun. This all changes when he finds out that they have a common interest; the robot toy.
- We see evidence of this when the boy who was already in the school claims he already has friends (the football players) when Wei-Chen asks to be friends. It was clear that he didn’t have friends though as he was eating lunch alone when Wei-Chen made contact with him. The boy was obviously just not interested in making friends based on what he first saw. It wasn’t until they were both interested in the toy robot that they became friends.
- Being a comic, there aren’t many words to define, but in this case the concept of image can be defined. Us as humans tend to judge people based on first looks rather than the person as a whole. Just like the saying “don’t judge a book based on its cover”. This is especially true in general with racial stereotypes as society tends to judge people on their race as a whole not on the content and actions of each individual.
- The themes within this excerpt of the comic align with many of the themes we have been looking at throughout the course of this class. How Americans tend look at the face of other cultures and try to “Americanize” them as to find a way to relate or enjoy them conveniently for them. Also how as humans in general have some form of implicit bias when it comes to first reactions and we all tend to judge others unfairly upon initial contact.
- In Sarah Moon Cassinelli’s article “If We Are Asians, Then Are We Funny?”, she details Margaret Cho’s experience as told through memoirs of her time as the star of All-American Girl. Cho’s memoirs tell a story relatable by many immigrants in show business as to how their lives are affected by the use of stereotypes, in Cho’s case especially ones related to body image. The show itself also over emphasized many stereotypes of Asian culture to spread cultural awareness as well as add comedic value, but became overused and eventually unattractive.
- The producers of All-American Girl wanted Cho to be relatable to the average American watching the show, yet they wanted to stress the idea of Asian American culture which took a toll on Cho immensely. Cassinelli talks about how the “show’s demands [were] made visible on the body of Margaret Cho” (p.4), to the point where she wasn’t in a healthy state mentally or physically. They dressed her as an average American teenager, commented on her weight, and attempted to alter her in a way that was suitable for the American public, not what was a best representation of herself or her culture.
- The key term which really stands out in this article is the use of ‘Asian American’. The TV producers were making a sitcom about an Asian family in America, however, what they filmed and put on television was what the American public wanted an Asian American family to be. There was so much altering to Cho that it was no longer an accurate representation to her and her family values. Between the image, clothes, and the weight issues, as well as the over exaggeration of Asian stereotypes to “promote” Asian cultural awareness, there wasn’t any room for authentic content in the final product. It ended up becoming a sitcom about an American family played by an Asian cast, which is what would sell best to an American audience.
- This entire idea of promoting Asian culture in America has gone through most of the examples we have looked at in this class so far, and it all has similar flaws. The American media wants to promote Asian culture and attempt to spread it to the masses for consumption. However, in order to do so they feel the need to Americanize it in order to sell it and be successful. There is no mainstream interest for an unadulterated version of a media production promoting pure Asian culture.
- In his article, Fong’s main argument and focus to his thesis was the idea of how Asian American Films are marketed. He mentions how important marketing a film is, as that is how people show up to watch the film in the first place. He emphasizes the fact that normal American movie’s have marketing budgets multiple time larger than that of the entire budget of an Asian American film.
- Fong uses four specific examples of how Asian American movies were marketed to support his claims. The first being the 20th anniversary of CAAM and their use of an email newsletter. The second of how The Debut used the closing night of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. The third being how Better Luck Tomorrow rode off the success of a premiere on sundance and an acquisition by MTV. Finally Fong discusses the grass roots campaign conducted by the cast of Finishing The Game.
- The main term throughout the article was grassroots. A grassroots campaign is one in which you focus on community and small scale advertisement that will eventually spread by branching off of itself. Fong discusses how the Asian American community is relatively close to one another and that can be used as an advantage for marketing purposes. This also enables films with low budgets to accomplish a sufficient amount of marketing and advertising.
- The ideas that Fong is trying to convey, are expressive of the overall amount of work that it requires for an immigrant race to become successful in a white dominated america. It is clear that a typical movie budget is in the millions even for something that isn’t necessarily mainstream, whereas an Asian American film would be a fraction of that requiring the staff of that movie to work much harder to make it a success on the big screen. Fong also highlights the strengths of the Asian American community and how they stick together and can accomplish amazing feats with a limited amount of resources.
- In “Assimilation”, Lisa Sun-Hee Park discusses the various ways in which assimilation can be interpreted and carried out in society. She gives examples of different views on the concept of assimilation through quotes from multiple authors and explains how the definition can be seen differently. Park then goes on to describe the assimilation progression for Asian-Americans and how their culture is perceived in America.
- Park uses different authors in the beginning of the article on page 14 to define assimilation and create a base from which her main argument of asian american assimilation can branch off of. This includes quotes from Du Bois (p.14) and Robert E. Park (p.14).
- Assimilation was the one major key term in this article as announced by the title. Park made it clear with the introduction of multiple views from other officers that assimilation is not a clear term to define. It can be adapted and interpreted in many different ways. According to Du Bois (p.14), it is required for their to be a white race in order for assimilation to take place as other races are absorbed into it. Robert E. Park (p.14) was also quoted saying that assimilation is an inevitable part of society, just that there are certain barriers which hinder it.
- This article connects with the documentary we watched in class about the Forbidden City. In the documentary it was clear that in the U.S. you must conform to american standards and customs to become successful which is essentially a form of assimilation. The dancers in the documentary all came from asian or oriental backgrounds where they were raised to behave a certain way and act very reserved, but in order to be successful in the nightclub and dancing business in america, they had to become much more risque to appeal to an american audience. In order for many immigrants in general to make a living in America, they must adapt their culture in a way that’s appealing to Americans which becomes an indirect form of assimilation.
