Sunday, November 22, 2015

Week 7 - Charles Miin

Charles Miin
ASA 114
November 22, 2015

Week 7 - Diaspora Politics, Homeland Erotics, and the Materializing of Memory


Louisa Schein highlights one of the largest issues that has affected the Asian continent and continues to do so through the present day. As long as there has been external contact in the region, there have been accounts and occurrences of the abuse of “women of the Homeland” who are taken advantage of by foreign men who often promise extravagance and adventure only to disappear at the first chance. For a long section of history, these perpetrators all had the same breakdown, Western, White men who arrived in the form of rich merchants to soldiers on a mission. However, with the advent of transnational breakdowns of borders, that image has morphed to include men of the diaspora “returning home” to what is familiar to them and promising the same thing as men before them only to disappear as well. The point of the matter does go beyond the feminized homeland being used by the native foreigner. Especially in regards to the Hmong people as this article focuses on where the homeland is less a geopolitical site that does not exist and more what is made by the people who consider themselves members of the population. Again, the plight of the Hmong being forced out of their proposed lands by larger neighbors can be compared to the refugee crisis of the present who similarly have no geographic land to call home and are persecuted by all sides that they encounter. Is it possible for the communities who have longstanding experiences with oppression and mistreatment in the U.S. to help educate and change the wider perspective on modern communities fleeing strife?

Works Cited
Schein, Louisa, "Diaspora Politics, Homeland Erotics and the Materializing of Memory." 1999. Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique7(3): 697-729.

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