Week 2 / Melanie Manuel / A03

Week 2 / Melanie Manuel / A03

Between Kaozong Mouavangsou's The Mis-Education of the Hmong in America and Linda Trinh Võ's "Transformative Disjunctures in the Academy: Asian American Studies as Praxis", the most common theme is the importance of educating Asian-American youths about their culture. There's an unspoken discourse against ethnic groups that have been ingrained in the United States' "seamless" narrative in which the country itself has done no wrong, and the reasons for their actions are always justified i.e. the U.S. imperialism of the Philippines, St. Louis World's Fair of 1904, the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia around the time of WW1, and many more. When an ethnic group, in this specific case Asian-Americans, they are told to move on and remain silent on the matters that have ultimately effected their lives and even ways of thinking. And it's important to understand that we need to be informed of our own histories. 

Nearly all those things I mentioned, I had either little or no absolute knowledge of any of those things. Like many Asian-Americans, I went along with the curriculum about Christopher Columbus and the Civil War. A part of me had a feeling there was more that history classes were letting on, and it wasn't until my first Fall quarter here at University of California, Davis (UCD) when I took Asian-American Cultural Studies and began to learn a little more about these "bumps" in the seamless narrative. And it's a clearer picture to know that we are profoundly marginalized and mis-educated.

 The authors mentions both describe this push against Asian-Americans in critical ways, because Mouavangsou (2016) says
"I came to realize that my answers about my people came from a deficit perspective: “no written language,” “no country of their own.” These are phrases did not appear out of thin air – I was taught – I had read – I had heard it repeated over and over these ideas that I came to internalize." Not only are these marginalization issues made by the U.S. but it's only by our doing that we push ourselves out, try to avoid the trouble that we could possibly cause by shifting away from the 'norm', and by adhering to the limits presented around us. We see the same consistent phrases like Mouavangsou and that's what will stay. If it stays then that's what gets shared. 

This brings in another thought about what is worth sharing. Trinh Võ (2012) mentions how Asian Studies and Asian-American Studies are grouped together because the majority of what makes up Asian-American studies is based on theory over actual concrete statistics; however, this debate is important regardless of those things because what isn't concrete may not have been written or it was erased. It's hard to say for certain, but there's a concept of "memory films" that Asian American scholars will study to understand these kinds of histories. They compile events that have happened and try to create their sets of narratives to pieces together the missing bits in their family histories. Sometimes... trying to get a concrete story is just too hard when others (the U.S.) do their best to make sure it doesn't make it into the history books. And that's why we need to keep these classes alive and focus on papers like Mouavangsou's and Trinh Võ's.

Sources: 
1.Mouavangsou, K. N. (2016). The Mis-Education of the Hmong in America (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Davis)
2. Trinh Võ, L. (2012). "Transformative Disjunctures in the Academy: Asian American Studies as Praxis," in Transforming the Ivory Tower: Challenging Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia in the Academy. Honolulu: HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2012, 120-144.
3. [PBS]. (2008, April 8). INDEPENDENT LENS | New Year Baby | PBS. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/YSA8D8nMoak.

Questions: 
We're often faced with racial prejudice from the U.S. need to provide young students with a seamless narrative of their accomplishments without a bump in sight. In what way, can we provide a better ethnic studies course for young, impressionable Asian-Americans and other ethnic groups?