For week 3, we moved from the previous topic of WWII Japanese-Americans to Chinese-Americans living in the modern-day time. In “Donald Duk”, a boy named Donald Duk absolutely despises his name, due to always being compared to the Disney character “Donald Duck”.

While his family poked fun at it in good jest, a majority of the jokes came from people making fun of his Chinese name, causing him to gradually hate his name more and more (as he went on about how much he hates it for the first two pages). Ironically, I found Donald Duk’s personality to be similar to the cartoon character’s; both are often jolly, but have a quick temper. Both are also often getting into trouble and acting overall immature. However, in the end, the jokes were used in a harmful way, affecting Donald’s viewpoint on Chinese people, as well as himself, in a negative way.

His school did not help in relieving this “hatred” about his Chinese heritage. In fact, Mr. Meanwright instead paints Chinese people as “passive”, “introverted”, and overall weak compared to the Americans. While Donald knows the oversimplification of these types of statements, he nonetheless feels embarrassed to be partially Chinese due to the fact that this is how typical white Americans view the Chinese, as well as Asians in-general. He doesn’t want to be viewed as weak, or passive, or even different. This is why he tries to push away Chinese culture: to try and be like a “normal” American.

Throughout the book, Donald struggles with his self-identity, not understanding who he truly is. He meets a few different characters in this path of self-discovery, even including people who are already long dead. By using his dreams, he learns more about how Chinese people worked very hard on the Union Pacific Railroad, only to have the white people take all the credit from them. The press even purposefully ignores the Chinese workers, not learning any of their names while asking Crocker for the names of the white, European workers. Going through all of this definitely helped Donald understand that there are many points in history where Asian accomplishments are covered up (to the point of his teacher not knowing the facts), and this slowly helped him become more proud of who he is, both is Chinese and his American side.

During our discussion in class, we brought up the theme of racism, and how the book describes some different types of racism, and how many of these does not make a person evil. For example, a little white after Donald starts having his dreams and realizing how white Americans treated the Chinese-Americans, he started to say things like “I hate white people.” This, in turn, offended his friend, Arnold, making him believe that Donald disliked him due to his race. Donald’s father later mentions how not all racism is meant as bad, and that people who spread purposeful hate upon a race are the bad racists. He describes how people can be racist due to their current society, and that they are doing it unconsciously. A great example of this is with Donald’s teacher, who asks for Donald’s input upon explaining false (or rather, oversimplified) information. He wants to learn and did not know that what he has been saying was discriminating against Chinese people. I really enjoyed the way we broke it down as racism vs. prejudice, defining the split between discrimination that is not on purpose vs. the discrimination that is. A good example of purposeful racism were The Big Four during Donald’s dreams. At the end of one chapter, when one of The Big Four explains that the Chinese were not a part of the company thus do not need the credit, another member states something along the lines of “… While I appreciate what they did, we will let the white men take credit.” (will add in actual line later), going on about how the “white” will be remembered. This is purposeful erasure of history, in an attempt to make white people look as though they had more of an impact on history than any other minor group.

There were also a lot of symbols for multiculturalism in the book, though there were three in particular that stood out to me: Lee Kuey; King’s restaurant; and the airplanes.

Lee Kuey was an odd character overall, having adverse effects of Agent Orange from back in the Vietnam War. Lee was just like Donald, wanting to push away his Chinese heritage and “become an American”, and I feel as though this was to show Donald of just what happens when one tries to push away who they really are; they suffer. Even Lee points out the similarity at the end of the second-to-last chapter, stating that he originally thought that Donald and him were very much alike, only for Donald to finally love himself for him.

King has traveled all over the world and has learned from the best cooks. However, one in particular stood out to him, being a Cantonese chef. This chef barely ever cooked actual Cantonese food, and instead cooked many foreign foods, to allow foreigners to feel like they are at home when eating his food (plus, they barely ever ordered Cantonese anyways). King was inspired by this, and so he established a restaurant that served a whole bunch of food as well, from American to Cantonese. This shows that a mix of cultures is not bad at all, and instead allows one to feel in their most comfortable state, as though they are “home”.

And finally, the airplanes. These were a very major symbol throughout the entire book, and it is understandable why. The planes represent Chinese culture, and Donald’s actions shows how he was feeling about himself. For example, when Donald lit the plane on fire, that represented Donald attempting to rid of his Chinese heritage, in his attempt to be “normal”. Later on, he is given another plane to build and replace for his father, showing him trying to put the pieces together and figure out who he really is. Later on, his mother also has another plane, and the two have a quick conversation about how Donald would only be able to build one plane within the next two weeks and that he should focus on one. I took this as one plane being his American heritage, while the other being his Chinese heritage. He needs to focus on figuring out if he wants to accept his Chinese background, rather than forcing himself to be “more American”. He should stop focusing on the American part, and instead build up his Chinese side.
Finally, at the end of the book, the plane is built, and this is when Donald finally accepts who he is. He has put all the pieces together, and now he has a sense of identity.

Like the last two, I really enjoyed reading this book; I feel like it definitely expanded my mind, opening up the discussion for many topics, such as racism and multiculturalism.

“Those who sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.” ~Benjamin Franklin

Now that it is week 2, we are starting to get into the nitty-gritty of our studies.

The most impressionable thing to happen this week was definitely our trip to the two museums and Chinese Reconciliation Park. To be honest, I didn’t expect to find much of Asian-American influence on Washington; in fact, I thought the first museum we went to would have a small section in a corner dedicated to their impact. I’m glad to find that this was not the case.

A majority of the countries mentioned in the museum, just like the first book we had to read, was China and Japan. While there were small mentions of the Philippines and India here and there, China and Japan was definitely a major focus.

When it came to Japan, as expected, a majority of the things I read related to World War II. I liked how the museum acknowledged the conspiracy theories surrounding the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, going in-depth of Japan’s surrender prior to the action taken. For example, it described how people have speculated that this was to test the bombs and/or assert their dominance to the Soviet Union. When I was in high school, I wrote a paper about the latter, so seeing it finally acknowledged felt like a breath of fresh air, since I had always seen the basic set-up of “Japan surrendered after the bombings,” and nothing more.

I also liked how there was one section dedicated to describing Takuichi Fujii’s art and diary, rather than having it mixed with a whole bunch of other art. While he was an issei, like everyone else, he had no intent on returning to Japan, but also makes no declaration of loyalty to America, thus he stayed in an internment camp for around 3 years. During this time, he made so many beautiful oil canvases and drawings, many of which were the buildings and his surroundings. With this art, he created his own personal diary, which did not become discovered until one of his grandchildren decided to display it.

When it comes to WWII, one fact I found really interesting was how this war allowed more African-Americans and women to gain jobs in Washington. They found jobs in the defense industry, since white men were going out to war. “They had to hire everybody, you know, to have sufficient laborers.”~Henderson Grayson
“That was the first time I ever seen girls in overalls.”~ Eugene Coleman

I think one story that really pointed out the discrimination in Washington was the story about 200 South Asian men working in Bellingham, only to be gone one week later. One night, hundreds of white men had decided to get together and drag them out of their homes, since they saw their presence as a “threat to their livelihoods” since they all worked at local lumber mill companies and were of Sikh faith. After being pushed onto the streets, with nothing but their pajamas on, the Asian men left, causing a plummet in the population.

A similar event happened with Chinese-Americans who were living in the Tacoma area. Around 800 Chinese-Americans worked/lived near the tide flats, and Euro-Americans did not like this, “fearing” them as an economic threat. These white men told them all to leave, and soon after started burning down Chinese-American houses. Lum May was one particular person affected by this incident, originally coming to America to set up a store, only to be kicked out, moving to British Columbia soon after.

A common theme I noticed here was how the museum more-so focused on different people’s experiences with white American’s actions, rather than just describing it from a point-blank view. I think this is why it was my favorite place to go to out of the three, since it allowed the readers to gain a different viewpoint, rather than just relying on white America’s eyes.

The Chinese Reconciliation Park, in my opinion,was very interesting in its origins and set-up, but the location was disappointing, mostly due to its location. According to the website, this site was made primarily to “.. allow the park to stand both as an acknowledgment of the forceful expulsion of the Chinese population of the City of Tacoma by municipal leaders and a large crowd on November 3, 1885, and as a celebration of the city’s multicultural past, present, and future. The expulsion was an act of exclusion in response to complex conditions of the time, among them economic decline and anti-Chinese sentiment. The park is an act of reconciliation and inclusivity toward appreciation of the people of diverse legacies and interests who are part of the city as a dynamic community.” The effort and meaning if definitely portrayed in the area, from the Fuzhou Ting to the Stonehenge-looking area, but I wish that it could have been placed in a wider and discrete area, to give the area more of a calming and nurturing feeling to it. The area was placed next to a noisy road and docking area instead, which takes away from the significance.

Overall, I hope we have more field trips like this, it was a lot of fun!

Asian-American influence has affected the U.S. for far longer than the typical American thinks. In fact, Asian-Americans are in a very similar position as the African-Americans we learn about in our U.S. history classes, having been brought to the Americas originally as slaves, only to be denied citizenship upon gaining their freedom.

After reading “Asian-American History: A Very Short Introduction”, I have very much been “enlightened” about the treatment of Asian-Americans by white people throughout the history of our country. I put “enlightened” in quotations due to the positive vibe that comes from the word; I am happy to learn about this but am also disgusted by how they were treated like they were heathens and practically monsters, like they were coming over for the sole purpose of “taking over the country”. The author, Madeline Yuan-yin Hsu, does a fantastic job of describing all of this briefly yet in-detail, while also balancing it out with many Asian-Americans of the past who overcame these obstacles and made a life for themselves in their prejudiced home country.

In our seminars, we discussed most of what is written above, as well as a few other topics, such as how Hsu brings up examples of popular movies and books near the end to help the reader relate to the text and understand the background of those forms of entertainment. If the reader didn’t know what they were, they would watch it for another time, an example being one student in the seminar who had written down the sources to watch/read them himself. This was also the same for the main Asian/Pacific Island countries that were mentioned throughout the book. One student mentioned how countries like Laos were mentioned very briefly, while countries like China, Japan, Philippines, etc. had much more of a focus for this book. There was a map in the book that showed where the Asian ban applied to, and it included countries from China to the western part of India, including places like Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Since this was only a short introduction, Hsu chose countries that the reader would most likely be familiar with, to help them relate more with the book and continue to be interested. In my opinion, that was a fine decision on her part.

In all, this was definitely a very interesting read; I am not much of a fan of American history, but since I have an interest with Asian countries, reading about their struggle in America definitely had me glued to my book.