In Schein’s case study of the Hmong diasporas, she quotes James Clifford on the importance of looking at “decentered, lateral connections” as well as a “teleology of origin/return” (Schein 707). In other words, Schein offers a different way of discussing Asian home(s) as not merely one place of origin or eventual return. My own immigrant parents have no burning desire to return to S. Korea, explaining they have a life/history in America, too. Similarly, Schein emphasizes instead the hybrid cultures (insert “What is diaspora?” here) or history produced and shared among “lateral ties” (Schein 707) between various sites of “home”. Culture production also includes what I took as a politicized role of sexuality and gender. However, I am still unsure on what Spivak meant by how “changes in the determination of capital are recoded simply as cultural changes” (Schein 699). Do they mean we should not view the production of culture as independent of political forces? This connection could be seen in Valverde’s chapter on the transnational “production, distribution, and consumption” (Valverde 30) of Vietnamese pop music which has some tensions with political ideologies (e.g., anti-communist/communist).
Works Cited:
Kieu-Linh Valverde. “Popular Music: Sounds of Home Resistance and Change.” Transnationalizing Viet Nam.
Louisa Schein. “Diaspora Politics, Homeland Erotics, and the Materializing of Memory.” Displacement
Image Source: By Anna Pak. Sewed tapestries representing culture production in various sites
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