Week 6_Miguel Flores_ASA 114

The overarching theme for this week’s reading has something to do with cultural representation and how art becomes a media of inquiry, questioning, and a platform to rediscover the history of the past. Stuart Hall in his essay on Cultural Identity and Diaspora tackles the formation of identity and how that in itself can be evaluated and perceived in two ways: (1) Cultural Identity as a collective – meaning an identity is comprised of homogenized identities that make up the community’s identity and (2) Identity as What We Really Are – meaning our identity is comprised of histories of colonial struggles that became embedded in our origin culture; we begin to recognize these struggles as our own and start to form a cultural identity around it (223-225). In Hall’s evaluation of Cultural Identity, he set the Caribbean culture as a case study in defining the formation of culture and how it is perpetuated and depicted through media like film, poetry, and photographs. He positioned Caribbean culture within other “presence” such as Africa, Europe, and America. Hall discussed that even though history is situated in the past, through artistic value, the depiction of such cultures (i.e., Africa) is reframed and transformed, however, the perception of the past will still remain as the “known” depiction of that community. Hall, for example, although new Africa is being situated through the representations of artists, the original Africa will still have a lasting denomination as being “primitive” – a labeling perpetuated by the West to the world (231-232).

Prof. Valverde’s chapter on Chau Hyunh’s work underlined how art becomes a rallying point for many displaced members of the Viet Nam war. Valverde analyzed anti-communist sentiments of the Vietnamese American community and argued that this movement to counter art as a rational mechanism and promotion of communist propaganda hinted at the fact that many, especially the older generation, felt compelled to express their views simply because they need to hold on to a history of fear that is expected and exercised (112). In the confines of art, Valverde explored how exhibits, installations, and literature triggered these anti-communist sentiments and how it detests and or justifies the identities of Vietnamese Americans. These controversies which involved the works of Chau portray a narrative that depicts Vietnamese Americans as overly protective of their cultural ties and trauma of resisting communist forces. They believe that every single art that depicts, in some way, shape, or form, communist propaganda should be countered to preserve history. This outlined a premise that Vietnamese in the United States are trying to resettle their afflicted memories of the past. In both readings, it tries to cover a discourse within the formation, creation, and portrayal of culture in our contemporary society. In these literary works, we can address the question surrounding the justification of culture: Culture seems to be uniquely practiced and exercised by every individual, is there even a definite culture for each community? Can we come into terms with what culture is really ours and what is not ours?

Citations:

Kieu-Linh Valverde. “Defying and Redefining Diasporic Art and Media as Seen through Chau Huynh’s Creations.” Transnationalizing Viet Nam.

“Representation and Media Stuart Hall 1997 (Definition of Culture)” YouTube. uploaded by lila2727, 28 July 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGh64E_XiVM

Stuart Hall. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.”