cosplay and colorism: on cosplaying while poc

Pidge cosplay, Fall 2017, Halloween

i’ve been cosplaying for a while now. i think i started getting into the art form (yes, i call it an art form. it takes a lot more work than you would think!) around middle school. i had a friend who was really into anime and cosplay, and they wanted me to dress up with them. i’ve come a lot way since then, as you can see in the photo above. i can’t make a cosplay is my life depended on it, but i know how to do my makeup and style a wig and put in colored contacts, so that’s pretty cool! plus, cosplay is a nice way to use those talents and show my love for my shows and fandoms to the world, or just at little anime conventions like Sakura Con, our local anime convention in Seattle, or at really small ones like Chibi Chibi Con here at Evergreen, or Tamago Con which will be happening this December as SPSCC (and i might be tabling there, so please come check it out! buy my art!).

Rem cosplay, Spring 2017, Sakura Con (Seattle)

one thing that really bothers me about the cosplay community is the colorism and racism that runs rampant in our community. i’m hesitant to consider myself part of the anime and cosplay community because many folks who are a part of it are, to be frank, hot garbage people. weeaboos, “otaku,” and many cringy folks that remind me of myself back in middle school, but who are well-meaning people who are really just excited about their various hobbies, can be a hassle to deal with at times. many folks who see people dressed in cosplay with ask you for pictures, often with baited breath, waiting for you to say yes. i don’t get asked for pictures too often, but when i do i realize how much different i look from other cosplayers around us, mingling back and forth through the dealer’s hall, who are mainly white or east asian.

 

Ichimatsu cosplay, Spring 2016, Sakura Con (Seattle)

my nose is bigger than other asian people’s noses, my skin is more tan (but still light, i’m not at all a very dark skinned person), my eyes have double lids and are set deep into my skull, my eyes are dark brown. many features that i have are usually seen as socially unacceptable in the cosplay community, and even more so for folks who identify as BIPOC (black/indigenous/people of color) who want to participate in cosplay and meet new friends through the medium.

Hinata Shoyo cosplay, Spring 2016, Sakura Con (Seattle)

many black and brown cosplayers get attacked, both in person and online, for trying to dress up as their favorite characters, mostly because those folks have narrow-minded views on what their characters are supposed to look like, and mostly because they’re racist and hate seeing brown folks enjoy anything. i’ve seen many cosplayers get called racial slurs, get body-shamed for cosplaying people who are drawn as skinny, get told they’re too dark to cosplay this or that character, and other really vile things that should never been said to anyone. it makes me worried for my friends who would love to cosplay if it wasn’t for the danger they could face for even expressing interest in dressing up as their favorite character.

Mirai cosplay, Spring 2016, Sakura Con (Seattle)

but in reality, none of these characters are real. it shouldn’t be the norm that all of these characters that we know and love have to be white or east asian, and skinny and other ridiculous beauty standards that people keep saying that characters that we love are “supposed” to look like. fuck that! we can interpret them any way we want. you want to see a black hermione? go for it. a transgender james from team rocket? sure! please, i would love to see that. cosplay and anime and cartoons would be so much better if we had more leeway and time to experiment and branch out into new territories, and to see ourselves represented in the things we love! that’s why i continue to cosplay, and why other BIPOC continue to do the same. fuck all that racism and other oppressive shit. i’m just here to have a good time while i sweat under the heat of my wig and laugh at funny jokes with my other anime and cartoon nerds.

next cosplays to do:

  • rock lee from naruto
  • izuku midoriya from boku no hero academia
  • ryuji sakamoto from persona 5
  • noctis from final fantasy XV
  • josuke higashikata from jojo’s bizarre adventure part 4
  • tsuyu asui from boku no hero academia (but i’m scared about cosplayign girls because of harrassment!)
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criminal activity, military service, boxing: on survival tactics in the US

content warning (CW): abandonment, drug mention, descriptions of abuse, death, police, war

these books really get me thinking about everything i’ve gone through in my life thus far, and it doesn’t feel like it sometimes, but 20 years is a long time and i’ve been though my fair share of shit, so to speak.

i have some considerably morally gray opinions on criminalization, or at least stealing and thievery. i remember while reading peter bacho’s dark blue suit, there way a part in the beginning of the book where buddy recalls many of his father’s friends having criminal records of some sort, and is confused about why his father insists on calling his former friend a thief. i wrote in the margins of that page something along the lines of “well, did he steal for the sake of survival? or did he steal without morals, and break his friend’s trust? people who steal can still have morals and good intentions toward others. they’re just trying to survive”. as someone who grew up poor, it’s not uncommon for folks to have to steal something because they couldn’t afford it, whether it was food, or furniture, or other goods. it might not be socially acceptable, but sometimes that’s what you have to do for yourself, your family, etc. in order to get what you need. not everyone can afford all this nice shit that college kids buy for their dorms, like new blankets and happy lights and candles and vegan food stuff. we got that stuff from goodwill and value village, or the dumpsters/the streets if rich people were ever throwing out shit like their nice new pillows or other things like that. my mom still gets many things second hand from food banks and from our neighbor’s lawns if they ever decide to leave their stuff on the curb for others to grab.

i also feel some type of way about the military. i’ve realized over time that this generation is mainly connected by war, specifically WWII. in some way or another, we have been brought together by the shit that went down during the 1940’s. my mom was born in ’58, for example, and my grandpa paul, her dad, was born in ’10 and served in WWII when he came to the US. he probably saw some shit there and in korea when he served there. i’ll never know, because he passed before i could ever pester him with endless amounts of questions. reading parts of we should never meet, like when the family is hiding in the bunker in the first couple chapters, make me think about what he went through here as part of the coast guard. what do coast guard people even do? i have very little knowledge on military stuff. if you know, please feel free to tell me, just know that i’m not a big fan of militarization.

i found out a bit ago that my grandpa was a boxer for a time, but no one ever told me where. probably in washington or california. i searched for his name when we watched the filipino boxing documentary, but i didn’t see it in there. maybe i’ll find some records in the future, but for now i just need to focus on our final essay. grandpa research can happen when i have less homework to do. i have time.

i decided to write another poem thing for this post, so feel free to read it below. it’s another personal one but i’ve just accepted that i’m an extremely vulnerable and honest person when it comes to my background, so read at your own discretion. and please let me know what you think! i like feedback.

 

i’m in preschool. my mom and dad are fighting again. they scream at each other in a one-sided battle, passing swears between their mouths left and right. the sound is intoxicating. i can’t breathe through the anger, the resentment between them. i scream at them to stop. no one answers. i get shoved away my a hand that may have hit me away, with the face of a man behind it that i can’t recognize to this day. i fade into the background as he lands another blow against her cheek. he stomps out the door. he never returns. he never tells why. i hold my mom that night as i cry into her chest.

i’m six years old. my mother has a stroke while me and my grandparents (white grandparents) are away in las vegas for the week. i find out it was because of a bad mix of cigarettes and alcohol. i find out when i’m older, as i see my mother walk slower, more slurring and stuttering in her words, recovering from the stroke that paralyzed the right half of her body for some time, that both her and my runaway father used many, many drugs before i was conceived. what kind, how much, for how long, i’ll never know. they never tell me, and i find out these details in secret, through the walls, thin as paper, as my mom and grandparents and uncle’s talk (fighting? it was probably fighting) goes on behind closed doors.

i’m in second grade. my grandmother just passed away. i sit in my room after school, mindlessly playing my n64, wondering what happened to her. i wasn’t there when she passed, and it is hard to grasp the reality of her passing. my mother and grandfather get pulled over in the middle of an intersection on their way home. immediately they arrest my mother, for previous crimes (could you even call them crimes? i was never told what happened) as well as this traffic violation. a traffic violation. they take her away and put her in a jail cell for a week for a traffic violation. my grandpa comes home in his car alone. my school’s principal calls me into her office in the middle of class. i get up to leave, feeling a million things all at once. i can feel the children in the room staring at my retreating figure as i travel down the hall. am i in trouble? she looks me over, her blonde hair blinding me as i walk in. are you doing well cassie? she knows. i hold back my thoughts, my loneliness, the depression of a lost child seeping through the cracks of my smile as i tell her i’m okay, and go back to class. everything is fine, right?

i’m much older now. i learn that both my grandparents, both grandpa richard (who is white) and grandpa paul (who is filipino) both served in WWII, with them serving in the vietnam and korean wars, respectively.

i look into the glossy, watery eyes of my grandpa richard. his gray hair sits limply against his scalp, his sky blue eyes staring into the brown abyss of my own as he smiles at me gently, kisses my cheek and calls me squirt for the millionth time in my life. he pokes at my stomach and makes me laugh, like how he did when i was a baby. he passes during my last year of high school, and never get to sees me graduate. i long for his smile and goofy laughter as i cross the stage and receive my diploma.

i’m now in college. my aunt messages me over facebook at my request, as i had posted that day asking all family members if they had any information on my mother’s father. she sends a photo of a man that i recognize but faintly. i stare at the black and white photo of my grandpa paul, a beautiful tan man behind the grayscale of the photo, with a wide nose and almonds for eyes, as he smiles gracefully, almost giddily into the camera. i never remember meeting this man. he passed much too early in my life for me to know him. i long for his presence, one that i wish i had the privilege of being a part of. i long for his teachings, his guidance, his knowledge as various questions of what if’s pass through my thoughts. i miss the connection we could’ve had, had i been born earlier.

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on filipino/pilipino diaspora: my experience

content warning (cw):  descriptions of diaspora, racial identity, multiracial experiences, abandonment/loneliness, mention of abuse, body horror mention

as a multracial student of color, i’m very confused a lot of the time, and it’s hard to feel like i fit in, especially in my ethnic communities and the diaspora*. i’m mexican and pilipinx**, as well as white, but with my skin i can’t really claim that (and i don’t want to, but it’s not something i can deny at the same time. it’s a lot). in both communties i feel isolated, like i can’t find a way to fit in; for mexican folks, i’m too asian—for filipino/pilipino folks, i’m too latinx. for both communities, i feel very alone because i wasn’t given access to my cultural traditions and practices because much of my family is white or mixed with white, and for many reasons we didn’t talk about race, or ethnicity, or anything. i’ve learned a lot of my cultural backgrounds alone, away from my family, because they either don’t realize they’re people of color too, or they don’t care. i might also be thinking about that wrong, but i think i’ve been so alone in this experience of being mixed for so long that i’m not in a place to be understanding of what they think or feel. as a result of that, though, when i approach these communities or find other people who are full mexican or full pilipino/filipino, i freeze up because i don’t feel like i’m enough

 

enough

enough is the best word for it.

where are you from?

what are you?

how can i dissect

your entire self

piece by piece

limb from limb

with just one look at

your face?

one glance

of the eyes

over your heart

that lies

heavy in your chest

on your sleeve?

where are your parent’s from?

did they grow up in

(insert city) here in (insert country) here?

how can you not know?

aren’t they

your family?

how?

when you look asian

one moment

and latinx

the next?

oh, you’re pilipino?

have your ever visited family in the phillipines?

what?

your grandpa died when you were too young

and your mom is mixed

and you never got to learn

about being pilipino?

that sucks

sorry, i don’t think you

are pilipino.

if you can’t tell me

what kind of pilipino

you are

then you don’t

belong.

oh, ¿hablas español?

eres mexicana?

no entiendes por qué

tu no entiendes hablar español

fluidamente.

your dad abused your mom

and ran away from your family

ran away from his responsibility

to raise you

to teach you

and see you grow into the blossoming of your

culture?

lo siento, no es mexicana.

but i am!

i am these things!

please believe me!

i’m learning!

i was denied my right to

my culture

and i am denied

access

to my community

to top of that unique as fuck experience of

living

the diaspora.

what a wonderful way to spend my life.

in isolation

for things that i will

battle

constantly

with the vague memories of my ancestors

in this

complexly constructed, multiplied soul.

why am i forced to feel like this?

when all i want to feel

is feel like i

am enough.

 

 

wow. i didn’t mean to make this a poem but i guess that’s how things go sometimes, haha.

 

definitions:

*diaspora: a scattered population of people whose origins stem from a smaller geographic area/location. people of color in the US often use this word to describe their feelings about being separated by our ancestor’s countries of origin, and various other feelings of separation and isolation from each other

**pilipinx: gender-neutral term used to descrise filipino/pilipino people, can be seen as problematic, but i use it as a non-binary person in the pilipino diaspora.

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asian/americans, hip hop, and the complexity of black/brown relations

content warning(s) (CW): discussions of antiblackness, cultural exhange between asian folks/black folks, music, car culture, cursing/swearing

i live in tacoma when i’m not stuck in the overwhelming space that is olympia. i’ve lived there for a while now, and my experiences of living in tacoma inform a lot of my understands of the stuff that we’ve been studying in this class; we’re learning everything academically, but i live this shit, to be blunt. some folks will know what i mean when i say that—others will never truly understand, which sucks for y’all, but it is what it is.

i’m writing this post while listening to dean ft. zico, two korean artists/rappers/musicians, while they sing/perform the song pour up. the high hats tapping in the background hold my attention and get the gears in my head to turn with the beat, and while listening to this song, bobbing my head to the music while typing this up, i remember that this music wasn’t created in a vacuum. the korean community didn’t just start producing hip-hop music out of nowhere—they had to get it from somewhere, someone.  as the familiar sounds of 2010 era music flows through my ears, as we reach the end of the song, it reminds me that there’s a lot of cross-cultural interactions between asian and black communities.

after watching the debut (2000) film in class this friday, as well as reading peter bacho’s dark blue suit, i’ve been a lot about the dynamic between the asian community and the black community, and the cultural interactions between the two groups. there’s a very specific way in which asian folks (and all non-black poc communities, consequently) navigate the binary of black and white race relations, which we’ve talked about a few times in class and is something i’ve seen play out before, especially as someone who lives in the 253. because we are in the proverbial middle of the race binary/race spectrum, asian communities either follow the paths set up by white supremacy and try to identify as hard as we can with whiteness and/or the model minority myth, or we rebel and subvert whiteness by practicing our cultural traditions, coming together with our communities, but often at the expense of blackness and black culture. we saw it happening while watching films like better luck tomorrowthe debut, and in books like dark blue suit, and probably some other texts that i’m not remembering while writing this. with better luck tomorrow, we saw it the most with virgil’s character; his persona was very much crafted in a way to make himself as different (from whiteness) as possible by embodying parts of black culture, such as his clothing, his vernacular or the way he spoke, and his use of the N-word, unprompted, completely of his—and the director’s—own volition(s). the same thing applies with the appearance of street racing and car culture that is displayed in both better luck tomorrow and the debut. ruben’s cousin augusto, or gusto for short, and his gang of pinoy boys during the scene outside of the gym where rose’s debut party is going on inside are surrounded by many other filipino folks with cars at their hips, chains on their necks and hip hop playing from the speakers of their cars while ruben and gusto duke it out on the basketball court. we see in their fight later that night as well the complexity of their understandings and practices of their filipino cultures, the class between ruben’s struggle to accept his filipino-ness and decision of hanging out with as many white people as he can and gusto’s resentment of whiteness (and of his mother’s decision to marry a white man, but this is my analysis of their relationship) and subversion of whiteness, embracing his filipino heritage with the appropriating blackness as a part of that dynamic.

in dark blue suit, especially, we saw the tension between asian and black communities, if only for a short moment. buddy’s character drives aaron away with his frustration of not seeming to fit in to either “side” of the race spectrum, screaming at aaron for answers. “what about me?!” to be honest, i’m glad that aaron disowned buddy in that instance; it sucked that aaron had to go through that bullshit interaction. buddy was a shitty friend anyway, and never had anything nice to say about aaron all throughout that chapter.

i think there is solidarity practiced between non-black and black communities. i think that’s definitely possible; there was a strong sense of community between asian and black folks in seattle for a time, for example, during the time when bruce lee and jimi hendrix were attending school before their rise to fame. i see these things play out at home, between friends, between classmates that i remember fondly from my middle school and high school. i see that between me and folks that i know and communicate with in our community here at evergreen. i believe, though, that in order for these communities to really cooperate well with each other, we as non-black people need to realize that we have a certain amount of power, a certain amount of privilege that grants us a lot of leeway to fuck up, and i think for the sake of many people, we need to hold ourselves accountable when we fuck up, or are called out for anti-blackness and internalized racism. it would be good for all of our communities if we could practice that, and not just say it to say it and make ourselves believe things will happen by saying words without putting actions behind them. also, understanding that we are inherently antiblack as non-black people, and at the same time cannot speak for the black community because we don’t know anything about what that experience is like. it’s all very complicated, but manageable nonetheless.

i think, for the sake of relating this topic back to my essay topic, this can definitely apply to the anime community and, more specifically, the cosplay (read: costume play) community, but that’s something i plan on writing up after halloween is over. i look forward to writing that post next week, and i hope this post was coherent and that people take something away from this post for future understandings—that is, if anyone reads these besides me. haha

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seminar notes on Dark Blue Suit

  • buddy’s maturity at such a young age
  • borders + boundaries
    -> adults vs children
    -> racial boundaries
    -> gender boundaries
  • directly talks about race more than the other books
  • dads taking up so much space/moms as background characters (weird to see as someone who grew up without a dad)
    -> the kid’s liking their dad’s more even though they’re less empathetic (applies to all the books, but doesn’t make them bad people though)
  • non-verbal communication as a sign of closeness
  • rampant misogyny (also all the books)
  • accents and FOB
  • remarriage and half-siblings
  • family + sibling + generational differences
  • antiblackness + asians inserting themselves in black/white relations
    -> the complexity of black/brown relations
  • august 1968 chapter title and its significance
    -> change + transition in himself, his community, the country, black power and white supremacy, vietnam war
    -> DNC (democratic national convention)
    -> his fight with aaron mirrors the dynamic of the events happening around them
  • coming of age: for buddy, for the pilipino community, etc
  • colonialism + overbearing parent dynamics (ex. england + america)
  • self-fulfilling prophecies
  • the american dream
  • religion (toward the end)
    -> mainly catholicism
  • dark blue suit -> filipinos practicing conservatism (politically) to appear more american
    -> sign of class + capital (the suit itself)
  • criminalization + stealing/”criminal” activity as a means of survival
  • death + loss as a coming of age time
  • half-white pilipinos and stephie -> “my mom says i’m gonna be on tv, but even if i’m not, i’ve got a future. i’m half white, you know.”
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The Debut (2000) film notes

  • Dante Basco -> filipino actor + voice actor (VA)
    -> zuko (avatar: the last airbender), jake long (american dragon: jake long), Rufio in that one peter pan movie
  • fight with his dad about his college/career choices
    -> “you’re ungrateful!”
  • “your just as brown as the rest of us” – his sister, plus the auntie saying “come inside, you’ll get dark”
  • at the debut:
    -> their uncle + the hand-to-forehead greeting to elders
  • language loss – ruben not knowing tagalog
  • his aunt’s white husband – “you shouldn’t use ‘oriental’; filipinos aren’t even asian, they’re considered ‘malay'”
  • ruben and augusto (gusto) as foils of each other
    -> ruben: ignoring being filipino + hanging out with lots of white kids to fit into american society
    -> gusto: resentment of whiteness but also appropriating black culture as a form or rebellion + resistance
  • FOB: fresh off the boat -> the (best) character w/ the accent
  • intergenerational trauma between grandpa+dad+ruben
  • fight between ruben + gusto and the white girl being racist at the white part as catalysts for ruben realizing his mistakes
    -> “coconut”
  • gusto’s gang + car culture + dancing and DJing
  • the difference between rose being very immersed in filipino/pilipino culture (the debut, the dancing)
  • the fake deep pilipino guy speaking truth about pilipino history
  • similarities between latinos and pilipinos
    -> spanish colonization, spanish last names, spanish words in tagalog, United Farm Workers
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the (dysfunctional) family: thoughts on Twinsters (2015) and Forgotten Country

content warning(s) (CW): abuse, trauma, drug abuse mention, abandonment, diasporic language, death, loss

this week’s reading of Catherine Chung’s Forgotten Country and the screening of the film Twinsters brought up a lot of my feelings about home and family. my family’s always been a very dysfunctional one. there are a lot of secrets, a lot of untold stories that aren’t discussed or were never brought up, at least, to my attention until much later in my life. why did grandpa Paul never tell my mom or her siblings about his life in the Philippines? why didn’t he teach them tagalog, or the language that him and his family spoke in Pangasinan, where he was born, a place i never knew about until one of my aunties shared that information with me? why did grandma marry him? wasn’t that illegal at the time (misegnation laws)? why did they divorce? why did dad hit mom so much? why did he leave? why did they both do so many drugs when my mom was pregnant with me, and my mom with my sister’s dad when she was pregnant with her? why did grandma and grandpa take me away from my mom? was it because of the drugs? why were my grandparents white, but my mom is brown? why did we have to move to washington? why is grandma sick? why did she have to leave us so early? why did my uncle hit my mom like my dad did? why does sissy hit and yell at mom like my dad did? why did grandpa have to pass before he could even see me graduate from high school? why are all my family members, my cousins so much lighter than me? why does no one talk about being pilipino? why did no one tell me i was mixed? is it because they all knew that i was already, or because they didn’t care about race? why does my mom not understand when i talk about race stuff? why does my sister think her writing about being pilipino for a grade means that she knows what the hell she’s talking about?

i think i relate a lot to how anais felt about her childhood experience. i think there were some happy times during my childhood, but i feel like with all the loss and trauma i’ve gone through, my childhood felt pretty lonely. i think the only places i’ve felt solidly a part of have been san diego (which i can barely remember now. i hate having bad memory) and tacoma. i was the youngest grandchild of my family. i wasn’t an only child, but when your sister is 18 years older than you, it’s kind of hard to communicate with each other. she was more of a parent figure than she ever was a sister.

forgotten country was probably the most difficult book for me to read so far, but difficult in terms of content, not comprehension. my time in college is my first time away from my family, and it’s both a relief and a source of stress. i go back to visit my mom every month or so, but being back home is immediately being back in the fire so to speak. the constant fights, the yelling out of nowhere, the exhaustion all come back in waves whenever i’m home, and it’s more bearable than it was in high school when i was all alone thanks to my partner often visiting with me, or letting me stay at his place if i can’t bear being home. it’s bittersweet, for sure. i love my family but our home is painful and hurtful, so i’m glad that i’m able to be away from it while i’m in college, i just worry sometimes about having to return after i’m done here. i feel a lot of jeehyun’s stress, having to go between her parents’s expectations, reaching out to haejin, and working on her dissertation all at once. her abusive relationship was also really messy, and reminded me too much of my sister and my dad. i also feel for haejin, i respect her desire to leave her family and find a healthier space, and even though she left she still cared deeply for her family in little ways. they both had it really rough, and the communication issues really didn’t help. i’m also really surprised that neither of them fought their aunt. i have an aunt on my dad’s side who’s also super religious (read: christian) and has tried many times to force her ways of thinking onto me via facebook but i just kind of ignore her now. it’s easier than trying to tell her no or asking her to respect that i’m agnostic. reading those last couple chapters made me think back to when my grandma passed, and later my grandpa. i never got to see them when they passed, which i guess i should be thankful for, but i find myself still grieving over them years after they’ve passed. those two are my white grandparents, and i grieve over them a lot because they were the folks that raised me for a lot of my early childhood, but i grieve over my pilipino grandpa as well. i wish i could’ve connected with you in some way before you passed, lolo, but i was too young to even think about asking you about our heritage. i’ll forever be sorry about that. i hope i learn more about you, about our family, as i grow older.

i’m starting to tear up thinking about all of this, haha. family stuff is so complicated. i probably overshared but i mean, it’s probably better than not talking about any of this.

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seminar notes on Forgotten Country

sorry if these notes are a little less organized than usual, i was sick during seminar so it was hard to pay attention + i was a little delirious from my oncoming fever

  • expectations
    -> jeehyun’s responsibility over haejin
    -> parent’s scolding her over Haejin’s disappearance
    ->their frustration over not having a boy
    -> jeehyun’s disseration
  • expressing love, “you know we love you right?”
  • l.oss -> of country, of language, of people/family members
  • flow between past and present
  • jeehyun/janie’s warped perception of haejin/hannah due to stress and pressure of parent’s expectations
    -> feelings of insecurity + no outlet
    -> janie’s struggle between tradition + modernism, double expectations
  • racism and asian privilege -> model minority
    -> the privilege to ignore/brush off racism
  • “my parents couldn’t do this so i have to do this”
  • immigrant vs. citizen -> when the cousins come to visit
  • “don’t cause trouble” + silence on issues
  • miscommunication
  • janie acting as a scapegoat for their family
  • korean civil war and family conflict parallels
  • illusiveness of the american dream
  • how family changes when ppl leave (feels this w/ me and my family)
  • filial duty
    -> was filial duty causing their trauma + conflict? (definitely)
  • tree roots/hands/intertwining, suffocating each other
  • assimilation + “normality,” fitting into american culture
    -> who defines “normal”?
    -> their name changes—jeehyun/janie; haejin/hannah
  • same w/ how the parents had to have japanese names during japanese occupation (colonialism)
  • dad’s home in the soil, in gardening, growth, setting down roots
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essay drafting: guided autobiography exercise

when i was 4… (or at least in elementary school)

i loved pokemon. in san diego, the kids who lived in my trailer park needed constant entertainment—we were those kids who loved making mud pies, running around the park and watching saturday cartoons. some of them, mainly the boys, started collecting pokemon and yugioh cards and showing them off to their friends. i started collecting them myself (i still have all of my 600+ cards in a folder at home), but i didn’t know how to play the card games at all. i just liked looking at them and adding to my collection. i remember one time i gave away a really rare card to someone on the school bus because i didn’t like the drawing of the pokemon on the card—i found out later that it was a mewtwo card, a legendary pokemon that was kind of rare for its time. i still regret giving away that card, but i hope the kid i gave it to got some use out of it. in any case, i preferred watching the pokemon show as well as yugioh on the 4kids channel instead of playing the card games. this was probably my first and earliest exposure to japanese animation or anime, but due to the censorship from 4kids (ex. ash holding a sandwich instead of a rice ball in one episode), i never knew these weren’t american cartoons until i was a teenager.

when i was 16…

i watched a lot of shows on cartoon network, nickelodeon, disney channel, toonami, jetix, as well as various animes (mostly on Click!On Demand until i got my first laptop) very regularly. this time period was the height of my cartoon and anime consumption. i used to have my clunky gray box of a tv on at almost all times; i often used my tv as background noise and a nightlight because of my intense fear of the dark. all my friends in high school were nerds like me, and we would always talk about the latest episode of our favorites shows and even watch them together whenever we would hang out. some of the most memorable ones from this time were hetalia: axis powers, adventure time, naruto, haikyuu!!, avatar: the last airbender, avatar: the legend of korra, attack on titan… the list goes on. the only thing, though, was that most of my friends at this time were either white, latinx, black, or multiracial like me. i was really into asian media and culture without really understanding my place in all of these things.

(i cut off right about here because i couldn’t figure out what i was trying to say after this. gotta love getting stuck in the middle of ur writing process. at least it’s a start? haha)

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notes on Margaret Cho and Fresh off the Boat screenings

Margaret Cho

All American Girl (1994-1995)

  • all american/korean family (margaret = only korean actress)
  • margaret’s character considering herself American + dating a white boy, mom + grandma criticizing her clothes
  • parents = immigrants, children = “american”
  • unrealistic portrayal of a family (especially an asian one)
    -> made for a white audience (accents, stereotypes, etc.)
    -> first asian american show so not much else to go by

I’m The One that I Want (2000)

  • stereotypical portrayal of her mother – facial expressions + physicality, accent
  • self-depreciating humor
    -> in margaret’s case, tap dancing for the white people
    -> self-hatred + self-protection
  • using comedy to tell her personal stories

Fresh off the Boat (2015?)

  • taiwanese family in the 90’s
  • went from “laugh at me” (margaret) to “laugh with me” (FOB)
  • anti-blackness + eddie wong – hyper interest in hip-hop
    -> binary of black/white
    -> romanticizes relationship between racial groups
  • how would we change this?
    -> eddie’s character being held responsible instead of being considered cute for appropriating black culture
  • dynamic of being the best asian for their family/the whites or immersing themselves in subcultures (aka black culture) as an act of rebellion
    -> we are not a monolith
    -> model minority issues
  • refuge from dominant culture/rebellion
    -> ex. the last dragon + black community’s interest in kung fu
    -> cultural exchange? almost but there’s still a big power imbalance between asian people + black people
  • more room to pretend issues never happened -> no discussion
    -> not much internal dialogue (at least in first season)
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