Four Quotes from Mimi Thi Nguyen and Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu’s Alien Encounters
“… the imagining of the “third-world” city as a criminal underbelly—to dramatize the narrative of “ethnic subjects in pursuit of social equality, law, order, and economic rationality, rendering grotesque an invisible global network of discipline that enacts violence akin to the torturing of the body under the ancient regime.”
There are parallels of this to the popularity of the dystopic setting such as 1984, Hunger Games, and Brave New World which depict a powerful regime suppressing the masses. The reimagining of Asian Americans shows the protagonists as similar to the ones from The Goonies. Underdogs, outcasts, lower class, and the marginalized are adjectives that best describe those that fight for a form of social justice.
“… does not “reflect” an image of the overseas Vietnamese as much as it constructs a new, bourgeois diasporic subject in the seemingly contradictory spectacle of luxurious excess and morality plays.”
While this quote talks about the shifting image of Vietnam after the Vietnam War, some of the aspects of cultural shift has occurred before in history. Take for example Germany after World War One, with propaganda films depicting an elite, high-class image with an emphasis on nostalgia for tradition.
“the imaginative reach of cultural work is too often foreshortened by the demand that it redress political, economic, or social inequities (and even more persistently within the time frame of “right now “!)
Public perception of cultural work is that they must address an issue of inequality within society. Regrettably, this comes at the expense of cultural work as a form of expression. The right now part of the quote is a reflection of the Digital Age, where instant access to content via the internet has conditioned a generation towards instant satisfaction at the expense of patience.
“The sporadic revival of “Eastern” influences in fashion and the rise of Asian American designers such as Vivienne Tam have been accompanied by the continued, and increasing, exploitation of immigrant laborers in “flexible” industries such as garment production and restaurant and domestic work.”
There is a counternarrative here that serves to reduce the influence of Asian American culture within other countries. By exposing the horrors of “Chinese sweatshops” and child labor, it serves to reduce the potential power of Asian culture. This also neatly diverts attention from issues such as billionaires having bank accounts in offshore tax havens to avoid being taxed.