Qiao Zheng

Week 10

From the article Teaching justice and living peace: body, sexuality, and religious education in Asian-American communities, the author states different perspectives on the topic of sexuality within the Asian American community. For the cultures that effected by Confucian, people are more likely ignoring topics of sex on education and communication between parents and kids. For the topics of homosexual, parents are strongly disagreeing. If their kids become homosexual, this will be seen as big failure for the families.

For the topic of homosexual, many religions are also against homosexual by staking. However, I believe that giving the kids idea of what is homosexual is necessary; and it is their freedom. For the topic of sex, I think it is very important to have kids learn about sex. Ignorance is never the right way to protect children. In addition, it will make things worse. The lack of education can only increase the chances of infecting venereal diseases and unexpected and insufficiently prepared pregnancy.

So the question comes out: How to spread the idea that education of sex is important and necessary?

Yellow Art

Mary Moua
ASA 002 Section 1
Blog Entry #10
22 November 2015

Yellow Art

 

As I was reading Yellow Art by Phuong T. Vuong, I could feel the intensity and anger that Vuong was emitting as he wrote about the many issues that plagued the Asian American community that isn’t talked about often. I found that I could relate to a few of the references he included such as the Vietnam War or problems of poverty and oppression and because I could relate to them, the poem spoke to me on a much higher level. I love how strong and passionate Vuong felt about the silence of Asian Americans and how his poem advocates for more representation. The invisibility of Asian Americans is an issue that is ever so present and alive in the world but there are actions and things slowly being done in order to combat this issue. Asian Americans are making a voice and name for themselves whether that’d be through entertainment, media, or politics. I think there’s still a long way until Asian Americans are heard but as long the community keeps trying to create that voice like how they are doing now, it can happen.

Question:  Other than poems like this one, what other tactics or methods are being used to discuss and confront this issue of the invisibility of Asian Americans?



Hans Anthony Galvez
Section 1
November 22, 2015
Blog 10

In "Teaching Justice And Living Peace", Boyung Lee discusses how Asian American communities typically view sexuality as a taboo topic; some even refuse to have it implemented into the education system. As an Asian American, I have noticed how sexuality is treated as something that is not talked about very often. Aside from questions about having a significant other, my family has never really talked about the concept of sexuality. I think that Asian Americans' tendencies to avoid such topics are viewed negatively in society and also play into negative stereotypes of Asian Americans; for instance, Asian American men are usually viewed as emasculate and shy. On the other hand Asian American women become fetishes based on the assumption that they are shy, yet hyper sexual. 

Question: How can Asian American communities, including religious and educational factions, incorporate the topic of sexuality into their teachings in compliance with their current ones?

Week 10: Sexual, Racial, and Religious Identities Response

Joshua Rivera

Asian-American Studies – A01

Blog/Week #10

In “Teaching Justice and Living Peace: Body, Sexuality, and Religious Education in Asian-American Communities”, Boyung Lee discusses the connection between race, religion, and sexuality in creating one’s identity. He believes that all of these different aspects of someone’s being should be taught in conjunction with one another so that those within Asian-American communities can learn to accept other individuals who are considered part of any minority group. I disagree with this and would like to argue that although each of these topics should be taught to everyone including those in the Asian-American communities, these topics should not intertwine at all unless desired and it should be up to the individual to create their own opinions and ideals. For example, throughout the article, Lee claims that existing churches should include different interpretations and opinions about religious teachings so that topics such as sexuality are brought to people’s attention and can learn more about it. He argues that this would help open avenues for individuals to create more educated opinions about others such as homosexuals. However, this would not be very productive because for some people, by broadening how the Bible and its story are interpreted would mean altering religious teachings, causing religious conflict. Instead, I believe it would more beneficial if schools in compulsory education had an option for students to take classes in sexuality because individuals would not be forced to learn about sexuality if they don’t want to, they are presented with the opportunity without having to make a commitment, and it won’t alter or change already existing curriculum. By incorporating different topics into an already existing topic/curriculum, people would be trying to instill ideals in areas that people didn’t ask for. Although it’s critical for people to create their own identities and to look at other people’s identities by considering all aspects of who they are, these identities should not be forced onto one another unless desired.

Question: How can topics such as sexuality be taught to Asian-American communities without having to alter pre-existing educational curriculum?

Sexuality in Asina American cultural

Xinlei Wang
ASA002
11/22/2015

Blog 10

In the article "Teaching Justic and living peace“, author argued that the demystification is fundamental to Asian American discussions about sexuality. In my opinion, I highly agree with that. Just like author mentioned that In most Asian American culturals, sexuality is a taboo subject, which means there are almost no Asian American people have a deep knowledge about sexuality. The lack knowledge about sexuality will casue a lot of discrimination problem in Asian American communities such as homophobia. Therefore, open Asian American peoples' mind  about sexuality is the way to help them know more about sexality then reduce some discrimination around the topic of sexuality. For instance, Chinese people used to avoid the discussion about sexuality and consider talking about sexuality was dirty. However, In nowdays, there are a lot of courses about sexuality that set up in high school and college in China and people treate sexuality rationally rather than treat it as a taboo. Thus I agree with the we should suggest pedagofical strategies for the teaching of sex, body, and sexuality in Asian American contexts.

Question: Since in Asian American culturals sex is a taboo, how can we successfully promote the sex study in Asian American communities?

[Week 10] Religion and Sexuality: The Integrated Pillars of the New Health Economy

Leslie Do
ASA 2, Professor Valverde
TA: Josh Watkins, Section: 1
Week 10 Blog

                   Religion and Sexuality: The Integrated Pillars of the New Health Economy

Although it's important that Boyung Lee's essay Teaching Justice and Living Peace examines the suppression of discussions (especially female sexuality) on Asian American sexuality in specific "Asian faith communities" more interested in framing religion and Asian American sexuality as the supporting pillars of the new health economy (Lee, 419.) To expand Lee's quest for "appropriate strategies for teaching sexuality education" through a social justice lenses, believe that we should discuss about Asian American sexuality as a important, crucial element to the holistic maintenance of our health and positive cognitive behavioral therapy (Lee, 419.) As a part of connection to consumption of genetically modified food , exposure to biochemicals, and practical protection of reproduction capabilities in order to spiritually cleanse the body of toxins, and of maladaptive psychological beliefs that correlates to offsetting extreme levels of stress and physical ailments. Therefore, both religion and sexuality should be seen as collaborators that evolve holistic health techniques and professional medical practices. For example, although my Asian American friend cannot change the queerphobic sentiments of some members of his Asian American faith community, he decided to see his queer identity and religion as interconnected, social constructs that cannot be divorced from one another and that spiritually and holistically maintain his physical, mental, and psychological health.

Questions 

How can we make religion and Asian American sexuality as pillar of the holistic health maintenance understandable to adolescents (from Asian Americna faith based communities) in sex education classes?

Through a culturally competent framework, Dr. Zuribriggen discusses about framing sexual health as a holistic norm of taking care of our overall health.

Zekun Chen
ASA 002
Section A01
Week 10 blog

In the article “Teaching Justice and Living Peace: Body, Sexuality and Religious Education in Asian-American Communities”, the author Boyung Lee points that Asians treat sexuality as taboo subjects and does not express their opinions on it as frequent as westerners. Meanwhile, such a thinking prevails into the Asian American communities. Consequently, Asian American families deem that sexual minorities (LGBTQ) to be difficulty to understand. To make the matter worse, once an Asian or an Asian American come out their sexual minority identities to their parents, they strong believe their children with sexual minority identifications to be disgraceful to the whole family. 

As far as I am concerned, the shared belief in both Asian and Asian American families that we should not talk about sex often reflects a certain degree of transnational concept. Asian American, living in US and expose to western culture, are still influenced by traditional Asian culture and such influence reminds that they belong to both nations. However, these biased opinions on sex and sexual minorities limit the young Asian American generations to understand sexuality and have an overall understanding on sexual minorities.  Therefore, in order for young generation to wider understanding and acceptance on sexuality topic and sexuality minorities, they should learn to get access to sexual information analytically on both western and Asian cultures.

Question:
What are some practically means to raise Asian Americans to talk about sexuality more frequently and analytically?