I am having some trouble understanding a couple of the questions for the final and was hoping that someone could help me to understand them better. First, question #2 in the short answer section is about the different ways Butch Mystique and Boi Hair image Butch desire; what is butch desire? Also, #3 in the same section is asking to compare Max Wolf Valerio's discussion of his Tranzman identity with those of the butch mystique and boi hair. I don't know if I'm missing something but I just don't understand these questions.

Umbrella Country: Disfunctional relationships

There are so many aspects of this book that are worthy of discussion. One aspect in particular that intrigued me was Estrella's disfunctional relationships with Daddy Groovie, Pipo and Gringo. Halfway through the book, we learn that Estrella was essentially forced into getting together with Groovie, at the hands of Ninang Rola. She ends up getting raped by him, resulting in a pregnancy. When Estrella wants to terminate the pregnancy, Ninang Rola again influences her and has a hand in getting Estrella and Groovie married. When all this surfaces, it confirmed my suspicion that Estrella never really wanted to be with him, nor have kids with him. Later, she even tells Ninang Rola how she tried to love him, but just never could. By the end, of course, we know that she ends up staying behind while Pipo and Gringo go to NuYork to live with their ***hole father. Now, I'm not defending her choice, but in a way, I kind of understand it. For one, perhaps she felt that she could not really be a mother to them, being all screwed up and all (and since she could not be with Daddy Groovie again, figured that the boys would be better off in NuYork with their dad than with her). Towards the end, she was successful at bonding with them (and Pipo and her actually held each other), but ended up not going after all.

Disfunctional relationships really effect entire families. When reading this book, I was reminded of my own Grandma and Grandpa (from my dad's side). Needless to say, their relationship was totally disfunctional and it affected their kids greatly. From what I've been told, my grandpa was a pretty bad dude (he didn't drink, and I don't think he beat up anyone, but from all accounts, nobody liked him. In fact, at his funeral, only one person paid tribute!) Anyway, years after my grandpa died, my grandma revealed that she, like Estrella, never loved him. She married him thinking that she would never get proposed to again, ever. So imagine, getting married to someone you don't love, having kids with them, and perhaps, resenting the kids? I am certainly not encouraging this, just shedding a personal note to illuminate how Estrella might have been thinking.

Umbrella Country

I really wish we had spent more time on this book, there was so much more in the little things about the characters that was really remarkable. I would've said more in the class when we did talk about it, but actually had started crying again thinking about Gringo saying goodbye to Fernando (Boy Spit - I just re-read that passage so got his real name, the only time it is mentioned) so just sat in the back wiping my tears. About the ending, in many way it was both the happiest and saddest ending to a book I've ever read. There was so much hope and chance for a good life for everybody finally. Even Daddy Groovy could get a chance to be a real father to his sons. This book made me think seriously about the things that bring people to USA, and when I meet immigrants sometimes their foreign customs annoy me, and I think "if they want to come here why don't they want to be American?" but stuff like this reminds me that not everyone wants to come here, some people have no choice. Like the kids, but also Daddy Groovy, who had nothing for him in PI either, his only chance for a real life was to come here where we get all the product of the rest of the world for our wealth and have all the space to spread out. Also, almost everything we've read or watched this semester has had the theme of 'memory' or 'identity' from our past heritages, I guess by keeping some part of their past it keeps people sane and grounded in ways that a native-born can't see, being already in the place the memories are from.

Discussion of Her: Ethnic identity, white privelege and political correctness

As we were discussing the book Her: A Novel in class, the topic of ethnic identity came up - a topic in which I am very interested in. I thought it was interesting that the topic of "political correctness" came up - and wanted to respond, first, with a story. I was listening to a morning radio show on my way to school the other day, when the DJS were talking about Mexicans (I can't remember the exact framing of the discussion). A person called in to state that she was from Nicauragua and hates it when people constantly call her a "Mexican". After she hung up, one DJ (who happens to be both male and White) didn't understand why the caller was so frustrated and upset. He said that, if he was travelling and someone mistook him for being Canadian, or British or Australian, he would not care (a subtle example of his white privelege). My point in telling this story is to promote the idea that ethnic identity (or however we choose to identify ourselves) is something we must choose for ourselves, not something that should be defined by others. In the example given, the caller was trying to tell the DJ that she identifies as being Nicauraguan, and when others just assume or press upon her another identity, they are simply being ignorant. In my eyes, addressing someone by their "correct" identity is not a matter of being "politically correct", but a matter of respectablity. If you don't know how someoneone identifies themselves, please ask before impressing upon them an identity. Something to think about.

daughters of the dust

After watching the film, Daugthers of the Dust, I was disappointed that the film was so simplistic on the surface, yet filled with complexity underneath the simplicity. In order to make any sense of the film, it was pivital to thoroughly read the screenplay. I had a hard time understanding the movie in any way until I had gone back and read the screennplay and heard Dr. Esquibel's synopsis and explanation of the characters. I just felt like the film had many critical issues within and would have been better conveyed through a less confusing script with some actual background and detail.

Good reading (DotD) and bad blogging!!!

Looking again at the 'Daughters of the Dust' makes more sense knowing that the character Toady is probably female. The scene of the club they run at first reading sounded like just a party place, and didn't know why none of the people from there would not go to church also; seeing it as a queer space makes the marginalization of the people and the interactions a lot better. I do wonder why there was the constant gender mixing going on, and wonder about the whole scene being based on some real place. What struck me the first time was the focus on memory and the way it was sort of 'taken for granted' and yet an integral part of the people. Also, in a way it was dissapointing to see the stories of Haagar and Yellow Mary because in my mind had created an entire history for them that didn't match what was told!!! In the movie my favorite characters were Haagar and Nana, so to find Haagar later described as "equal parts rage and censure" was actually confusing. Haagar had seemed pretty bitter and unillusioned but not that bad, she actually reminded me of my eldest sister (the one I don't speak with anymore) and reading that has made me look again at that sister to see what I saw mirrored in the character! It was also strange to me to think of how isolated that 'queer community' would be, the people have their own customs and dialect and since they are thought of as 'backwards and ignorant' by the mainlanders, would pretty much be stuck on the island. Must be pretty strange, and wonder how welcome strangers (tourists, etc) would be, compared to how welcome they would be on the mainland? Oh, speaking of memory, the speech Nana gave in the graveyard was great, about the power and strength of having memories to grow from. Guess that is what a lot of the search for 'history' in many stories we've read is about. Also Eula's comments on the difference between Yellow Mary and the so-called respectable women were pretty powerful, along the lines of 'let her that is without sin cast the first stone' but in the context of ex-slaves, saying that none can be considered 'pure' is depressing! It made me wonder also about how people ignoring their past or pretending to be other than they are can easily turn to attacking others for not being as good as they. Anyone who looks at their own history will find a lot of bad stuff, when the issue of slavery in the USA is added, the reality is scary! Oh, a few years ago I read a book written by an ex-slave, and the main bad guy's family name was 'Cheney' so guess some people should be more careful than others to look at the past!

About the bad blogging, this is the third time I reset my password! After each logoff it resets my info, and for some reason keeps sending my password info to a mac.com account that I don't have! Technology is scary!!!

David Eng and the Wedding Banquet.

I think it's important not to be misled into binary thinking. old model=bad, new model=good; the concept of "oppression" is too "old school," identity politics are essentialist and thus may be easily dismissed, blah, blah, blah.

"Transnational capitol" and "third world labor" are much more than "silly old tropes."

In ethnic studies it's important to interrogate issues like oppression, power, citizenship, and male privilege. Yet, they are complex and deserving of more than a knee-jerk reaction

David Eng is drawing from Mark Chiang here, but he's saying that he finds Chiang's argument disturbingly convincing. That on the one hand, it's very easy to embrace the "queer multicultural millenial family" posed at the end of The Wedding Banquet, but that it would be a mistake to see Wai-Tung, Wei-Wei, and Simon as having equal access to choices, to power, et cetera.

The "marriage of convenience" that ends in love is prob'ly one of the top five romantic plots of all time. So the film is working within a [compulsory heterosexual] expectation that Wai-Tung and Wei-Wei will fall in love. That they come to another arrangement, that Wai-Tung and Simon are able to recommit to their relationship, and that they'll be forming a different kind of family is one of the great things about this film.

However, it's important to recognize what goes on on the other side of the "marriage of convenience" in the US nation-state. There are real people, like my friend Y, a lesbian of color who entered a green-card marriage. When she was raped by her legal "husband," she couldn't do anything about it. Yes she was "playing the system" but in that system she was especially vulnerable.

Wei-Wei, we may frankly and happily say, does not get raped by anyone. She initiates sex when she wants it. Additionally, the film goes out of its way to show Wai-Tung and Simon respecting her "right to choose."

Far from being perceived as daring for its time, The Wedding Banquet was widely criticized in the queer communities for being so "mainstream." For one thing, it's a story about gay men, but the only on-screen "sex" is between Wai-Tung and Wei-Wei. Simon and Wai-Tung try to have sex but are frustrated by the appearance of the family patriarch.

In terms of transnational capital: this does end up being relevant to the story. When we first meet Wai-Tung, we see him as financial successful. When his parents (Mama Gao and Baba Gao[the general[]) appear on the scene the father makes it clear that Wai-Tung's money for the building is HIS, money, his investment in his son, implying that there may be economic as well as personal consequences to Wai-Tung coming out.

An important argument that Eng is making has to do with Queer Diaspora. This is a whole field within Queer studies, American studies, and Ethnic studies. What role do queer identities play in decisions to emigrate? How do US immigration's amnesty laws exclude people persecuted on the basis of gender and sexuality?

One of the things about reading the whole article by David Eng is that he maps out the history of Asian American studies, why it developed the way it did, and how much who makes up "Asian America" has changed in the past forty years. He even takes Queer Nation seriously: although he criticizes its reliance on "nation" (which is how most scholars completely dismiss QN), he also recognizes that there were people of color who were extremely active in that organization, that it was neither all-white nor hegemonic, that it was an important site of contestation about queer identities.

All of the films that we're watching are "messy," and it's important to take criticisms such as Eng's seriously, instead of getting seduced into the "finally a happy ending" positioning. I remember arguing with a friend about The Amazing True-Life Adventures of Two Girls in Love and all the criticism about race and class that film. One thing question was raised was "why do lesbian films get held to a higher standard than mainstream films?"

The Wedding Banquet is a lot more complex than the American Express ad showing two white lesbians adopting an Asian baby, but that doesn't mean we should ignore what they have in common.

I didn't mean for this to turn into a lecture: I just think it's important that we not take off our "critical glasses" just because a film is fun or has a happy ending. I'm now going to avoid a long diatribe now about Ugly Betty and stereotypical portrayals of women of color, because I've already gone on longer than I intended to.