More Emo Musings

In chapter 25 of this week’s book, Paper Bullets by Kip Fulbeck, Kip describes an episode in his life where he worked with a group of at risk children during the summer intervention group. In this chapter, Kip spends a lot of time explaining an exercise that he uses often for such groups where the participants write down the worst things and then the best things that people have are said to them. (P.247-258) I was inspired by this chapter and the exercises mentioned in it. I give them a try and did them myself. I admittedly am currently trying to sort my life out after some major changes and figured if nothing else this might be enlightening.

I am not going to share what I came up with here in part because a lot of it is stuff I can barely stand to write down for me to see. I’ve been in classes and/or programs like the program Kip described in this chapter. As a kid I had issues and was labeled “high risk”among other things. The program I participated in was not anywhere as cool as the one Kip describes in this chapter. That would’ve actually been helpful. Instead what I ended up with was yet more things to add to the bad side of the paper in the exercise that I completed last night. Supposedly this labeling was supposed to help me but it really made things worse. I know if someone had helped me and my classmates in the way that Kip describes having conducted his program it would have been a different story. While admittedly I can’t speak for all of my classmates, I know a lot of them did not go on to have successful academic careers and quite a few dropped out. We still don’t know what the point of the program I participated in was but I really hope that things have improved since I was a kid.

Refrences

Fulbeck,Kip. Paper Bullets: A Fictional Autobiography. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001.

Copy, Cut, Paste, Type- Repeat….

Progress on my final paper has been ongoing. A lot of typing, editing, and refining has happened this week. Things are going well so far and what I’m writing is making sense to me. While I don’t know yet if this makes sense to anyone else, I am optimistic that it’s at least something that others are able to relate to. The new format of writing for this paper has come surprisingly easy to me. I think honestly this is much closer to my natural style of writing. Many academic papers are a challenge for me in part because of the formatting. This format really has simplified the process a lot and I wish I could use it in more of my classes. While admittedly I know there are valid reasons why I can’t it still nonetheless nice to be able to just come out and say “I think this” and or “this is how I understand things”. The ability to utilize such personal connections has really enhanced this paper. For one thing it would be really awkward if I was writing a paper involving personal connections but could not use the word “I” at all.

The Universe Gets Bigger-Again.

I was not able to get any of the films from this week, but I did some web searching, found Kip Fulbeck’s web site and found out that I have encountered some of Kip’s work before. I was intrigued to find out that his work was a part of the American Anthropological Association and The Science Museum of Minnesota’s work Race: Are We So Different?. The exhibit website was utilized as a thinking and talking point though out of my class on race that I took at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Having read Kip’s work, his involvement makes a lot of since. The exhibit website deconstructs many of the same topics that Kip did in Paper Bullets, and I understand why his work was included.

While reading Paper Bullets I often thought of the way’s in which Kip’s account of his identity and how complicated it is, meshed with and enhanced what I learned from my study of Race: Are We So Different?. I have again had to reassess my understanding of race and the impacts that the concept has on individual lives. In the past I bought into the colorblind ideas that were taught to me as a child. The idea that we are all who we are and race is an invention that is not real, and no longer matters. I had friends of all races as a child and I did not see how anyone’s life was any different because of their skin color. I did not understand why some people made big issues out of who my friends were. I just did not get it. I thought everyone was playing with the same rules. I now have a way more complex understanding of race, and that complex understanding has expanded further because of this book.

References

Fulbeck,Kip. Paper Bullets: A Fictional Autobiography. Seattle: University of Washington Press,               2001.

Fulbeck, Kip. “The Hapa Project- Links”. Kip Fulbeck. 2011, http://kipfulbeck.com/the-hapa-                   project/links/. DOA: 12/28/2017.

S2N Media, Inc. Race:Are We So Different?. American Anthropological Association and The Science        Museum of Minnesota, 2007, http://www.understandingrace.org/home.html. DOA: 12/28/2017

Old Ideas In A New Light

This week’s book and general topic of Hawaii have been very enlightening to me. As a child I was taught that life in Hawaii is very similar in many ways to life in Alaska. There are even whole books about the connections between the two state’s political, economic and cultural struggles that I have been assigned to read in my college classes on Alaskan history. What I did not know was how the AAPIA components of Hawaiian life fit in. In all honesty, I had not considered the way that even in Hawaii’s melting pot culture, issues such as race, gender identity, language, and class are still things that can create separations.

In the assigned reading, as well as the two films of the week, these issues that are used to divide people in mainstream American culture take on a new light. The Hawaiian traditions of using differences to make their society stronger stand out in stark contrast to the American tradition of xenophobia and segregation. In Hawaii, people of different races intermix throughout all levels of society, in spite of efforts by Americans to change this. While this is now not as unique, for many years it was a unique quality of Hawaii, that scared Americans. Native Hawaiian cultures use of non-binary gender identity is something unique, that American’s are scared of. Hawaiian Pidgin is something unique, that American’s are scared of. Hawaii’s tradition of accepting that poor people are real humans who are unique individuals that have dreams, a since of morals, and even pride- scares Americans as it breaks down the traditions of classism which make up key components of American society.

Hawaii is a place were the dishonesty of what are presented as the American ideals becomes very obvious. Because if Americans really did support the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then the Hawaiian way would fit right in and there would be no need for the US to try to systematically wipe out key components of Hawaiian culture. Sadly, however this is not the case and much of Hawaii’s history is the evidence of this contradiction. Understanding the lengths that US efforts to make Hawaii “fit in” went to and comparing these efforts to the history of Alaska that I have learned makes even more sense out of these connections.

References

“Kumu Hina”, 2014. Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/watch/80038909trackId=14277281&tctx=0%2

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“Pidgin: The Voice of Hawai‘i”, 2009. Kanopy, https://evergreen.kanopystreaming.com/video/pidgen-             voices-hawaii.

Yamanaka, Lois-Ann. Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers. New York:Picador,1996

Some Anchors Are Hard To Pull

A lot of the content of this week has reminded me of my class I took at the University of Alaska Fairbanks on the anthropological concept of race. As a concept race, is something that seems so real but in reality is a figment of Western societies culture. Race is an invented concept and is far from a universal concept even within the United States. Part of this is because of the ways that Americans understanding of race (and thus definitions) has changed over time. Geography has also played a role in the concepts development. Race played a significant role in how and why it took Alaska and Hawaii years to gain statehood.

While absurd to the modern observer, the fact that Alaska and Hawaii had majority populations of nonwhite or so-called “colored”peoples barred both states from entry into the United States for years. I can’t help but wonder if this is also why no other territories have been converted into states despite the fact that the laws that allow us keep territories mandate that there be an end goal of converting such places into states. While officially race no longer impacts such decisions the reality is much more complicated. The same ideas that barred Alaska and Hawaii from entrance because of their “skewed”population ratios are no doubt the same ideas that bar the entrance of other territories to statehood. It’s disturbing to think that such antiquated issues still have such an influence on modern politics, but after the events of the past few years it sadly not surprising. More than anything else, the concept of race in the United States still serves its purpose of separating and dividing people within this nation. The results of this division is keeping us all from achieving our full potential as a nation. All of us lose because of this concept and yet it still remains.

A Place With Good Food and Music!

Progress in my final project has once again transitions to an intellectual phase. Piecing together the different pieces of information in my mind is taken up a lot of my thoughts in the last few days. My original concept for the project is not much so much changed as more of the evolved. I’m still keeping the same ideas, but I have gained some new insights and understanding how these things fit together to make up significant components of my life. When initially I thought of combining the ideas of jazz and food I thought I might be a little crazy. While on personal level this combination made perfect sense, on the academic level this seemed like walking into a giant minefield of abstract ideas. One of the key ideas that really has brought things together in my mind for me, is the revelation that if nothing else, photo and music go together in Western culture. This seems like an obvious revelation to many, but because of my life experiences, this was a massive brain way for me, and is going to be very relevant in my execution of my final paper.

A Recap of Things So Far

The books chosen for this quarter have panted an interesting picture of what it is to be of AAPIA descent. Starting the quarter with reading the history of AAPIA immigration really helped set the scene for many of the books that fallowed. In the past, I have taken courses that looked at the legal issue of immigration and it is an interesting parallel to many of the cultural challenges for immigrants. It is chilling to think of how truly xenophobic American culture is. It is also interesting to see how different peoples have reacted to this. In the past I have learned about European immigrants lives, both because of a want to know of my own history, and because that is what is taught in school when the idea of immigration is introduced. It is good to see the other stories and to see how much of a different experience so many AAPIA peoples have had in immigrating to the US. Even with in the AAPIA community every group of people’s experiences are different, an idea that is often left out of many efforts at describing AAPIA experiences in immigration. This course has provided much food for thought.

—- Note:

I was unable to obtain the film for this week.

Our Demons of The Past

The Beautiful Country is a hunting film. In so many ways, this story is something an effort at trying to shed light on something that needs to come out of the dark. The era of the Vietnam war bread many many demons that continue to haunt the US to this day, but of all of them, I think this one in many was is the worst. Its something that is not talked about openly, but yet everyone form that time knows about. It is left out of history when it can be because it is just too shameful to admit. The war went on so long, that people involved in it made a life for them selves in Vietnam. It happens in every war. Yes, there was also the usual trail of war baby’s from lonely men and poor women, but there was also people like the family in this story.

But something just really stings about the situation when the war is lost. People on all sides are told to just forget it all, to pretend it never happened, to just assume the parties from the other side of things are dead. But their not, and everyone knows it. Which makes things even worse for the people “forgetting”. How many of us who have fathers or grandfathers who fraught there have family there still? How many of us have family among the evacuated “orphans”? How many of our family who “never came home” are that way because of this? They can’t even tell us, and more then anything that is is what is so chilling about this film. It could be any of us who has family who “never came home” from that war. It could be those of us who’s family did. How many people will take these secrets to their grave? The whole thing is just such a mess everyone wants to just forget it, but how can anyone forget that?

Resources

The Beautiful Country. Directed by Hans Petter Moland, 2004.

I Think I Can Land This Fish… Maybe.

Thinking back to when I was a kid, I remember that my family always went fishing somehow during the summer. Whether it was deep-sea fishing, dip netting, lake fishing, or river fishing we always did one of them at least once during the summer. There is even a few years where we went ice fishing. My parents idea of a fun family activity was required to have fish, or game involved. Admittedly I enjoy fishing, and not just because we always did it when I was a kid. I enjoy fishing because it’s both relaxing (it’s always done somewhere beautiful) and thrilling. There is always the anticipation of what kind of fish will we really catch? How big will it be? Can I get this one to take the bait? Can I land this fish?

My favorite kind of fishing when I’m in the mood for a good thrill, is always deep-sea fishing. The fish your attempting to catch are almost always never visible. Admittedly there was one time when we finished a reef, and it was especially calm and sunny out when we could see the fish we were attempting to catch but even then there was massive amounts of distortion because the fish were actually 250-300 feet below us. But that day was a serious outlier on the average of my experiences deep-sea fish. Usually you can’t see anything at all. You spend a good minute, or longer just getting your hook and bait down to the bottom where we usually fish from. Then you’d sit there and feel the boat move up and down as your weight (the big chunk of lead in the shape of the cannonball usually no less than 6 pounds) bumped up and down on the bottom at a slight delay from the movement of the boat. You just sit there for hours sometimes, waiting to feel a fish nibble on the bait at the bottom. Then he would have to manage to set the hook correctly, without knowing what kind of fish it is that you are catching. With every fish having a slightly different mouth shape, the best bet was to just pull up on the pole, but if you knew what kind of fish you would likely had (based on advanced scouting of the location) you could specialize how you set the hook a little bit. It was still a gamble, as the ocean has no rules about where fish can go, as long as the fish in question stays within their depth range. After setting the hook, you then have to pull the fish up from way way far down. And the fish moves when you do this. You can make an even more educated to guess about what kind of fish it is by how it reacts to being caught, but you still can’t know for sure until you pull it up. This often takes a ridiculous amount of time. The weight that keeps the bait at the bottom, alone, weighs at least 6 pounds, and the fish in question is going to be over 10 pounds (fish smaller than that can’t pick up the hooks we were using), there may be a current that you have to fight, and don’t forget the fish is moving. This process seems like it takes hours, but usually it is only a few minutes. You can stare into the deep water beneath you and try to see the fish, but you can’t until they are within the last 20 feet or so that you have to pull them up.

This quarter in school may possibly have topped my list of quarters that have sucked, and that I am not confident that I am able to finish. I feel as though I have hooked a fish, but the fish is fighting really hard, and feels suspiciously as though the hook might not be quite set right. I hate not being able to finish things, but I have never been this far behind. Not even in elementary school when I got chickenpox did I have to spend this much time out of school. Not even last quarter, when I was involved in a high-speed crash the first day of the quarter, did I get this far behind. I am seriously scared that I will never see this fish. I’m seriously scared that I will never finish this damn degree. There are so many things that have happened to me during my time at school and I have had to cope with things many of my classmates have never even considered. I have watched my parents get divorced, I have watched my dad wither away during chemotherapy, I have watched my mom freak out about it, I have had to go over my dad’s funeral arrangements and will, I have moved so many times, including a move from Alaska to Washington (a move considered even by the military to be on an international scale), I have had to coordinate with my little brother to get mental health care for my dad, I have had to receive the news that my father has tried to kill himself – and failed – three different times. And now this latest struggle with my own health. I am tired, and I just don’t know why I am continuing to try to go to school. Am I just trying to finish this to prove a point? Or do I actually have something worth fighting for here? Will I ever land this fish? The best answer I can give now is maybe.

An Old Friend From Day’s Past

Ward, Geoffery and Burns, Ken. Jazz : A History of America’s Music. Knopf, 2000.

In this book, Ward and Burns work Jazz, is an effort at documenting the origins of the uniquely American music of the same name. The work covers the era know as the jazz erra, and stretches from 1900 to the late 1970’s. The work contains a significant collection of historical images of the era in addition to the stories of the people who Ward and Burns credit with making the music what it is.

This book is going to be very reverent to my paper, less because of what is in it specifically, but more because of what it has been in my life. I got this book when it first came out, as a kid. I would sit and read it in the quite of my room for hours on end, soaking up the images and stories of what jazz is. Or so I thought. I also watched the series that this book goes with in school as a part of my music education. I thought I knew about what jazz was. It has only been in retrospect, that I realized there is a lot missing form this story, and it is written form a very biased perspective. There is a whole bunch of stuff that is not even mentioned in this book, including a lot of things directly relating to AAPIA people’s involvement in jazz. More then anything else, this book is the reference point at which I stated this class at. This is the history I learned, and it is incomplete.