In
the following series of articles, we will be discussing the practices
of cultural art and production, and how the identities expressed are in
constant flux and ever-changing due to the current postmodern
environment of globalization and transnational networks. Stuart Hall
discusses the ways that cultural identity is presented while addressing
cultural hybridity, and Caroline Valverde discusses Chau Huynh’s art and
how its attempt at cultural hybridity resulted in anti-communist
protests that suppress freedom of speech that are not conducive to the
mob’s ideology. Finally, with Sunaina Mara’s article, we discuss South
Asian American youth and their hybridizing of their cultural traditions
with American hip hop ethos, and the desire to fit in both worlds while
embracing the positive aspects of both.
Stuart Hall. "Cultural Identity and Diaspora." Reader
Hart exemplifies this concept of identity through three “presences” that constitutes the complex Caribbean cultural identities; they are Présence Africaine, Présence Européenne, and Présence Américaine. Présence Africaine “is the site of the repressed.” They are the history of Africa and slavery, hidden in the Caribbean culture.Through the history of revolution, civil rights movement, and reconstruction of identity, the origins of the term “Africa” is no longer there because it has been transformed. Hart talks about this “displaced homeward journey” experience, where one has an imaginary or real cultural identity that they wish to return to. But before they can reach that identity, they go through a long route through Europe and the United States. By the end of their journey, they finish off with a western twist instead of being in their homeland with their traditional music and monuments. Hart explains that it is “by another route” that the African identity has become.Présence Européenne, which is about domination and power becoming a part of our own identity. Présence Américaine is the “New World” where all these different cultures meet to create a new assimilated culture and the history that we know it today. The “New World” represents the beginning of diaspora. Hart describes the term diaspora as an identity of hybridity, where the identities are constantly producing and reproducing through history.
Kieu-Linh Valverde. "Creating Identity, Defining Culture, and Making History from an Art Exhibit: An Unfinished Story: A Tribute to my Mothers'" in Transnationalizing Viet Nam.
Sunaina Maira. "Mixed Desires: Second-Generation Indian Americans and the Politics of Youth Culture" in Displacements.
In trying to comprehend homeland and new traditions, Sunaina Maira’s article describes the experiences of South Asian American youth who struggles to define notions of authenticity that work to position these youth in relation to hierarchies of race, class, gender, and nationalism that mark them as “local” in America. At the same time, they want to include a transnational imaginings of India or their homeland. They do this by incorporating popular culture music hip-hop into India’s music to evoke a sense of “place” in a social hierarchy. In conjunction with the production of remix music, the youth constructs a culturally hybrid style, such as wearing Indian-style nose rings and bindis with hip-hop fashion, and dancing in traditional folk dance gestures while gyrating to club mixes.
According to Maira, popular culture is a critical site for understanding the ways the youth position themselves in the landscape of ethnic and racial politics, because we see ethnic authenticity, cultural hybridization, racialized gender ideologies, and class contradictions. The youth thinks that it is “cool,” which also implies that they have racialized and classified themselves in the United States. Popular culture offers youth to re-appropriate or symbolically transgress existing racial, gendered, and class boundaries. The second-generation youth are able to socialize with ethnic peers while reinterpreting Indian musical and dance traditions using American popular culture. The hip-hop culture is mostly adopted by middle-class/white/suburban youth, as well as Asian American, Latino, and white youth from the urban.
Since most Indians lived in urban or suburban (cities), this fits them in the same “local” category. Hip-hop also expresses sexuality for women and men, but for Indian women the female “hoochi” outfits for nightclubs are against their Indian cultural beliefs of Chastity, but expresses femininity in America. For the men, the male black hip-hop style is machismo in the U.S. This is why the South Asian youth flaunt hip-hop styles while incorporating some Indian accessories and details.The hip hop culture alienates them from their parents or as a symbol of rebellion from their parents’ expectations. This alienation from their parents help make them “cool” like the youth in America, because they do not want to be classified as full Indians. They want to also feel belonging to the American culture. She argued that the cultural forms that responses to diasporic or transnational experiences take cannot be understood only in terms of the nature of migration but also be
Stuart Hall. "Cultural Identity and Diaspora." Reader
Hart exemplifies this concept of identity through three “presences” that constitutes the complex Caribbean cultural identities; they are Présence Africaine, Présence Européenne, and Présence Américaine. Présence Africaine “is the site of the repressed.” They are the history of Africa and slavery, hidden in the Caribbean culture.Through the history of revolution, civil rights movement, and reconstruction of identity, the origins of the term “Africa” is no longer there because it has been transformed. Hart talks about this “displaced homeward journey” experience, where one has an imaginary or real cultural identity that they wish to return to. But before they can reach that identity, they go through a long route through Europe and the United States. By the end of their journey, they finish off with a western twist instead of being in their homeland with their traditional music and monuments. Hart explains that it is “by another route” that the African identity has become.Présence Européenne, which is about domination and power becoming a part of our own identity. Présence Américaine is the “New World” where all these different cultures meet to create a new assimilated culture and the history that we know it today. The “New World” represents the beginning of diaspora. Hart describes the term diaspora as an identity of hybridity, where the identities are constantly producing and reproducing through history.
Kieu-Linh Valverde. "Creating Identity, Defining Culture, and Making History from an Art Exhibit: An Unfinished Story: A Tribute to my Mothers'" in Transnationalizing Viet Nam.
In
discussing how diaspora impacts cultural identity, and the declaration
of cultural identity in both old and new spaces, Kieu-Linh Valverde in
“Creating Identity, Defining Culture, and Making History from an Art
Exhibit: An Unfinished Story: A Tribute to my Mothers’” looks into the
Vietnamese Community and the case of Chau Huynh and the protesting of
her work entitled “Pedicure Basin” which appeared in a 2008 edition of
the Vietnamese American newspaper called the “Nguoi Viet Daily.” The
controversy, of the North and South Vietnamese flag stitched together,
resulted in large anti-communist protests over the nature of her work. However,
the personal intention of the art was dismissed in favor of courting
anti-communist sentiment. The reason for the stitching of two flags
together come from Chau’s experience as the daughter of Communist party
members, and growing up in an environment that celebrated pro-Communist
propaganda, while hiding the truth about what had really gone with the
4.3 million South Vietnamese refugees. Chau came to the United States in
1999 as an international bride, after several years of being in
conflict with a South Vietnamese-American, and had constant arguments
about their differing ideologies. Since her perspective on the Vietnam
War differed greatly from Vietnamese Americans who came in post 1975
with anti communist sentiments, she did not identify with the South
Vietnamese women at the nail shop she worked at. However, after coming
to learn the truth, she later had to confront her own understanding of
the two worlds of Vietnam that do exist. Stitching together the flags
was her artistic and symbolic contribution to this methodical epiphany,
and came from a place of not meaning to offend, but really in trying to
comprehend her life. In
this chapter of her book, Valverde shows us that extremist Vietnamese
Americans who are very anti communist obtained political control through
cultural control.
Sunaina Maira. "Mixed Desires: Second-Generation Indian Americans and the Politics of Youth Culture" in Displacements.
By
protesting Huynh’s “Pedicure Basin” they are able to shape the
Vietnamese community and how Vietnamese Americans are perceived.
Valverde’s point here is that by dominating the media and news outlet,
anti communist groups succeeds in putting fear into the Vietnamese
American community and silencing their free speech. These anti communist
ideology has censored so many in the Vietnamese American Community,
resulting in many Vietnamese Americans being unable to voice their
freedom of speech because the fear of being labeled a communist and
attacked by the community. This
acceptable harassment continued with F.O.B. II: Art Speaks exhibit,
ironically an exhibit of 50 Vietnamese artists that was meant to end
self-censorship and simultaneously open dialogue from various groups.
With an unacceptable showing of communist symbols, the anti-communist
protests continued with zeal about what was the ‘wrong’ sentiment to
show, while still continuing to ignore the significance of the artwork
presented within the community. It later went into rather ugly personal
attacks, using patriarchy and slurs such as ‘con di’ or whores to
describe the women who ran the exhibit, showing that the cultural
control that is required to keep an appropriate, homogeneous form of
view regarding Vietnamese communism.
Other
incidents that were similar to Chau Huynh’s case were the 1999 Hi tek
protest, and the case of Kim Oanh Lam Nguyen being fired as
superintendent of Westminster’s School District where Kim Oanh she was
fired shortly after being hired because people from the Vietnamese
American community had label her as a Communist. Valverde sees that
these tactics are currently the predominant type of political actions in
the Vietnamese Diaspora community. Valverde suggests that these
incidents might be signs that the Vietnamese American community today is
at a crossroad, more and more people like Huynh are attempting to
challenge the dominance of the anti communist ideology, in order to
grasp the complexity of their existence, rather than running high on
anti-communism sentiment.
In trying to comprehend homeland and new traditions, Sunaina Maira’s article describes the experiences of South Asian American youth who struggles to define notions of authenticity that work to position these youth in relation to hierarchies of race, class, gender, and nationalism that mark them as “local” in America. At the same time, they want to include a transnational imaginings of India or their homeland. They do this by incorporating popular culture music hip-hop into India’s music to evoke a sense of “place” in a social hierarchy. In conjunction with the production of remix music, the youth constructs a culturally hybrid style, such as wearing Indian-style nose rings and bindis with hip-hop fashion, and dancing in traditional folk dance gestures while gyrating to club mixes.
According to Maira, popular culture is a critical site for understanding the ways the youth position themselves in the landscape of ethnic and racial politics, because we see ethnic authenticity, cultural hybridization, racialized gender ideologies, and class contradictions. The youth thinks that it is “cool,” which also implies that they have racialized and classified themselves in the United States. Popular culture offers youth to re-appropriate or symbolically transgress existing racial, gendered, and class boundaries. The second-generation youth are able to socialize with ethnic peers while reinterpreting Indian musical and dance traditions using American popular culture. The hip-hop culture is mostly adopted by middle-class/white/suburban youth, as well as Asian American, Latino, and white youth from the urban.
Since most Indians lived in urban or suburban (cities), this fits them in the same “local” category. Hip-hop also expresses sexuality for women and men, but for Indian women the female “hoochi” outfits for nightclubs are against their Indian cultural beliefs of Chastity, but expresses femininity in America. For the men, the male black hip-hop style is machismo in the U.S. This is why the South Asian youth flaunt hip-hop styles while incorporating some Indian accessories and details.The hip hop culture alienates them from their parents or as a symbol of rebellion from their parents’ expectations. This alienation from their parents help make them “cool” like the youth in America, because they do not want to be classified as full Indians. They want to also feel belonging to the American culture. She argued that the cultural forms that responses to diasporic or transnational experiences take cannot be understood only in terms of the nature of migration but also be
understood in terms of relationships to local cultural and political
economies.
Questions:
1. Do you believe that under-covering hidden histories is the solution to cultural identities? Why?
2. Why do you think the Vietnamese Americans that are anticommunist are so vocal? Do they really represent the voice of the Vietnamese Americans?
3. Does hip hop culture influence other Asian American minority group as well? What does this hybridization of the culture mean?
4. According to Hart, what are ways to see identity? How does cultural identity form overtime?
1. Do you believe that under-covering hidden histories is the solution to cultural identities? Why?
2. Why do you think the Vietnamese Americans that are anticommunist are so vocal? Do they really represent the voice of the Vietnamese Americans?
3. Does hip hop culture influence other Asian American minority group as well? What does this hybridization of the culture mean?
4. According to Hart, what are ways to see identity? How does cultural identity form overtime?
5. In the discussion of anti-communist sentiment towards Huynh's art,
what do you suggest to be a way to open dialogue about the presence of
communism in the Vietnamese diaspora's person's past? More specifically,
what is a possible solution, if the dialogue about art, war, and
politics is currently at a standstill for not being able to transcend
such ideology wars?
Blog 6 by: Gaukue Xiong, Shoun Thao, Fanny Wong, Susan Xiong, Iris Xie
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