Beccah

Schizophrenia comes to mind when I'm thinking on Beccah's mother. I spoke to my boss, a doctor about it and he disagreed. He said she just seems crazy but I don't know. She hears voices and speaks to them. That to me makes her a schizophrenic. But, to argue against myself and for the "supernatural" she did speak to Reno about her mother and knew things there was no earthly way of knowing. I find her character very complex. I do like the mother. I'm not sure it was the way the author intended it, but when she came home and found her mother dancing and kicking her leg up pouring with sweat it made me laugh. It probably wasn't supposed to be funny because it seemed to be a traumatic moment for Beccah but to me, I it was hilarious! But I don't want to like her because she scares me with her spirit-talking fits. When she got in Reno's face talking like her mother all I could picture was a demonized figure of an old woman yelling and tormenting her still living daughter. It really creeped me out! But then I still feel bad for her. I really think she had some sort of chemical imbalance and was doing the best she could to care for her daughter while living with her "gift."

It would be very difficult to live with the trauma of being a comfort woman. I can't tell from the excerpt that we read whether or not her mother was a comfort woman, but the title of the book that it is from makes me think she was. As everyone will see in Jessica and my presentation tomorrow, comfort women were traumatized. They were mislead to think one thing and forced to do... bad things. Here is a video clip that I think will help understand the trauma that these women experienced.

Some of her story is difficult to hear so here is my disclaimer!!! Some of the content of this story may be found uncomfortable, inappropriate, or undesirable. Watch at your own discretion!

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Margaret Cho on Dancing with the Stars

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I've never really watched the show but I saw her when flipping through... Interesting:)

Buddy as Rico with Motivation

I am fascinated by the contrast in Rico and Buddy in this story. When reading it, I felt a lot of sympathy for Rico. At first I didn't like him because he sounded like a dog of a boy. Especially when he was at the dance and didn't even ask girls to dance just nodded from across the room. She just followed after him because that's the way it was. I thought the relationship he had with the "long-legged blondes" was appalling. He acted like a stud of a pimp and that, to me, does not make for an appealing protagonist. But when the story progressed and Buddy showed the struggle of Rico, I began to feel sorry for him. The fact that he was not "prep" educated and from a low income neighborhood made him feel that there was no way out for him. That is really sad. I wish, as a reader, that Rico would have seen Buddy as an inspiration and tried to be more like him. Instead he saw Buddy as the exception to the rule because he had the opportunity to do something with his life. It seems like Rico saw his destiny ending like Cookie's. The only ending for him was the war and probably death. Rico is following Cookie's path by trying to go to Frisco to hook up with the "white middle class hippie girls." I really felt for Rico and Buddy in their parting scene. It seemed like both just wanted to hug and tell each other how much they loved each other but their rough-n-tough personas got in the way. Their reputations would not allow them to show their true feelings. Buddy even says "in our neighborhood, emotion was for sissies and not to be shown" (25). Both boys understood that it was the last time they would see each other but neither felt the need to break the hyper-masculine walls and tell each other their true feelings.
Race is another thing that I found really interesting. This story seemed to focus entirely on socioeconomic status instead of race. The "neighborhood" Buddy grew up was not like neighborhoods that are traditionally broken down by black, white, Asian, etc... Buddy mentions a Hispanic boy, black boys, white girls, Asian boys all from the same neighborhood. The only thing that seems to unite these groups was their low income. I think that Bacho is making a statement by doing this. I don't think he wanted to the story to be overrun with ideas of what the race does to a child, but what the socioeconomic status does to a child growing up. I think he wanted us as readers to focus on the struggles of growing up in poor neighborhoods.

Off Base on the Masculinity

I disagree with the comment that the book is masculine and focusing on the father. While a large portion of the novel does talk about the history of male ancestors, Wong's narrator shows a great respect for his mother. It's almost as if he has a special connection to her. When she tells him, if that's what you want to call it, about his father's death, the narrator saw "in her blank expression" that his father had died. In the next few pages, he describes the connection to his mother deeply. In teaching him to iron, the narrator says "a family tradition had been passed on to me" (33). After his whole spiel on ironing, the narrator says that "it was [his] mother that controlled [his] growing until she too died."
The death of his mother seemed to be a traumatic experience. He mimicked her strength and courage to move on yet he still recognized her pain and loneliness. At her own funeral, he followed in her example, which is weird because he didn't actually witness her at his fathers funeral. The narrator obviously had a special relationship to his mother with fond memories. He learned a lot from her. I don't understand why someone would say that she was left out of the story. Maybe I am just seeing this because I am a woman and want my future children to respond positively to my influence, but even as more of a side story I see her as a strong influence in his life.

"Confucius say a filial son knows what color his mother's hair is"

I found Jen's narrator to be inspiring! She was witty, smart, bold, sort of depressing and at times absolutely hilarious! I found the growth that she experienced through telling this story to be surprising. In the beginning of the story, she had little to no respect for the Irish. You can see that the narrator is judgemental of other races. "Four brothers in the family, and not one of them work...even the black people doing better these days" (177). Jen's narrator has a very high view of herself in the beginning of this story. She feels sorry for those Irish who are less fortunate than the Chinese. "Chinese beat Irish" (177). She even feels sorry for the Irish because they don't have good food. She shows little to no respect for her son in law. Not that I blame her because he sounds like a real "winner" but she constantly is putting him down. When she is talking about Sophie, it's as if she had given up on her from the beginning. She saw her "nice Chinese side swallowed up by her wild Shea side" (179). When it finally seems like the narrator is going to work with Sophie to make her a better behaved child or even come to touch with with her Chinese root, Sophie resists and poor ol' grandma is left without any right to discipline or support. John and Natalie are horrible supporters. Neither have any time for their child or their child's well being so basically she sounds like a spoiled rotten brat! I feel bad for the narrator for dealing with a problem-grandchild without any support from the child's parents. I disagree with the narrator in the fact that I do believe in creativity and I do think there is such as depression but I do not think that these things should overtake the need for manners and some level of social standards. At the point when the grandmother is "in trouble" for Sophie having bruises, I am torn. I feel for Sophie and getting poked with a stick for hours but come on. If the little girl would have come out of the hole in the first place it never would have happened. At that point, the grandmother loses all respect and the child takes authority through her parents. I find it hard to believe that at that point of the story, the narrator still does not understand the meaning of the word depressed.
I am also impressed by the relationship that developed between Bess and the narrator. It says a lot about what the narrator learned and the true meaning of family. When her family put her out of their house, Bess, the Irish mom to four lazy boys took her in. She became "honorary Irish." After all the negative things the narrator said in the beginning about the Irish and their work ethic, it was Bess who took her in. Bess even defended her to her boys. I feel happy for the narrator that she finally found some place that she could belong, but I also hope she felt a little salty for judging others the exact way she didn't want to be judged. I like that Jen used Irish as the opposite family instead of a white family. Had Jen used a white family, I don't think it would have had as much of an impact. Irish immigrants are pretty high up there on immigrants who had it rough setting up life in America. I like that Jen used two ethinicities that mirror each others struggles and then unites them in the end.

Chester

As requested, this is my fur-child, Chester Bailey. He's wonderful:)

Week 1

My exposure to Asian American culture is limited I must say. I didn’t realize just how much before reading the Takaki piece. In all my experience with American history/lit classes, I can count on one hand the number of times I have encountered their distinct culture. I found the Yang piece very interesting. I don’t have a lot of experience with graphic novels but I really think it is amazing how deep a “comic book” can be. Chin-kee’s character holds a lot of significance in the story. While his character magnifies the negative stereotypes that white Americans have about Asian Americans, I think Yang did this to show the ridiculousness of the stereotypes. Danny, who somehow morphs into Jin Wang (still lost on that one), was not receptive of his cousin or his cousin’s culture. The way that Danny treated Chin-kee highlighted the bad behavior toward Asian Americans. Had Chin-kee’s behavior not been exaggerated, the reader may not have felt quite as sympathetic toward Chin-kee. In my reading, I felt embarrassed along with Danny at the “abnormal” and often inappropriate behavior of Chin-kee, but when the fight breaks out on pg 206, my sympathy went completely to Chin-kee. I smiled a little when Chin-kee kicked his butt! Regardless of his behavior, he was family and Danny turned on his family.
I think another reason Chin-kee’s behavior was so exaggerated was because Yang planned on him transforming into the Monkey King. I’m still not sure what that was about, and other insight is appreciated, but it makes sense that of all the characters he could become, Chin-kee would be a monkey. I don’t know a whole lot about monkeys, but from what I’ve heard about the monkeys in Cincinnati, they aren’t the best behaved of species. I’m sure that the monkey holds some sort of significance in Asian culture because animals usually are when used in literature, but the behavior issue is the only idea that came to my mind. I am very open to other ideas about this though. Chin-kee’s behavior in several of the scenes was loud, inappropriate and just plain wrong. For example, when Chin-kee first enters Danny’s life, he makes very… I’ll say instinctual, statements about Danny’s girlfriend. There was nothing subtle about his comments or intentions. His behavior here gives a whole new meaning to “he’s a dog.” A few frames later, Chin-kee again behaves wildly as he sings and dances on a table in what looks like a library. This behavior is again, animalistic. I could be totally off base here. I’d like to know what everyone else thinks.