Fascinasians

CALL FOR BLOGGERS: Rethinking “Race” in Yellow and Brown

colorblinding:

I posted this earlier in the month, but I feel it’s a good time to reblog now:

What does it mean to be a person of color? How can we think about communities of color as also yellow and brown? I am attempting to put together an online colloquium/dialogue series on Tumblr consisting of Asian American bloggers (APIA/SEA/SAALT). While discussions of race amongst people of color frequently take place on Tumblr, like most discussions of race that occur in the real world, these discussions oftentimes are not concerned or interested with Asian American issues. This call for bloggers is attempting to create a coalition of Asian American bloggers on Tumblr to begin a dialogue centering upon Asian American issues, history, and identity as people of color in the West. 

The focus of this dialogue is to begin as a starting point by calling attention to Asian Americans and members of the Asian diaspora as people of color, in order to raise awareness of Asian American issues and include Asian Americans within the larger community of color on Tumblr. 

Possible topics of discussion may include (but certainly are not limited to):

- Model minority myth
- Migration/transnationality
- Undocumented workers and working class issues
- Sex and human trafficking
- History of Asian diaspora in the West 
- Fetishization and exotification
- Hypersexualization of women/desexualization and emasculation of men
- Interracial relationships and conflict
- Intergenerational conflict
- Orientalism
- Anti-Asian hate crimes and experiences
- Interracial coalitions and political activism 
- Western imperialism and colonization in Asia 
- Citizenship and nationality
- Whitewashing 
- Coolies/indentured servitude in the West 
(This list can keep on going on and on, but this is just a starting point)

If you are interested in participating, please reblog or send a private Ask to colorblinding here. I am hoping to get a good group of bloggers who do work in this area together so we can organize, plan, and figure out how to start this dialogue! 

Since I first posted this a month ago, I have spoken to several people about this — namely fascinasians.  What we envision is a month-long virtual conference held on Tumblr with a group of bloggers committed to writing and talking about these issues.  One way it could work is to have a weekly schedule organized around a few themes: participants could then volunteer to write a piece on themes and other participants would respond to advance the dialogue. 

I have personally spoken to the following individuals about participation: xoericxo, weexist-weresist, aslantedview, stfuasiaphiles. 

A few of you have sent me Asks, but I somehow misplaced the list of people who wanted to participate. If you don’t see your name on this list and you would like to participate, please send me another Ask or an email at colorblindingly @ gmail (dot) com. I am most interested in knowing how you would like to contribute, and what themes/issues you would like to cover. 

At this time, we are still looking for participants and organizers*. 

We are tentatively slating the month of January 2012 for this virtual conference to occur.

Thoughts, ideas, questions, and feedback of any kind is welcome! 

*If you would like to be an organizer, some background information on any previous experience would be great! If you don’t have any previous experience, that’s fine too — tell us how you would like to contribute! 

Please contact me or Colorblinding if you’re interested! I have reached out to several bloggers out there, but if you would like to participate or learn more don’t hesitate!

PLEASE REBLOG: Crowd sourcing development of an Asian American seminar!!

colorblinding:

xoericxo:

colorblinding:

Dear Tumblr,

I need your help! Please reblog and respond and spread the word because I am trying to get as much of a response by crowd-sourcing. 

I am developing an undergraduate introductory course in Asian American Studies/Asian American Literature. Usually, it would be easy to simply draw together canonical texts and material, but I thought that it could be a good idea to crowd source people interested in learning more about Asian American issues, literature, history, and cultural productions to see what you would want in a class.

The idea of the course is that it would cover APIA as well as South Asian cultural productions, history, and issues in America. This means a range of theoretical material, literature and poetry, film and music may be included in the curriculum. 

I am trying to figure out how to organize an introductory survey-like seminar that will trace the production of the Asian American racialized body through history to present-day representation. This means, of course, looking at issues in pop culture in addition to canonical material. 

So this brings me to YOU, Tumblr! What would you want to see in a course that deals with these type of issues? What kind of literature, media, materials? What questions and issues would you want to be addressed?

What films, in particular, would you be interested in watching and writing about? There are not too many films that deal directly with Asian American identity in particular that star Asian Americans. And to be honest with you guys, I am not really sure what films are even out there that 18-21 year olds would be interested in watching and also would want to talk/write about that either star Asian Americans or deal with Asian American issues. Any suggestions? 

I am taking suggestions for any literature, poetry, slam poetry/spoken word, film and music/pop figures that any of you might find really interesting. 

Right now, I am considering the following materials (this is a big list, I need to pare it down): 

LITERATURE
“Leaves From the Mental Portfolio of Sui Sin Far,” Sui Sin Far; The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston; Excerpts from China Men, Maxine Hong Kingston; Obaasan, Joy Kogawa; All I Asking for is My Body, Milton Moriyama; Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri; American Son, Brian Ascalon Roley; The Gangster We Are All Looking For, le thi diem thuy 

POETRY/SLAM POETRY/SPOKEN WORD
Broken Speech, I Was Born With Two Voices; Attack! Attack! Go! Beau Sia; Song I Sing, Bao Phi

HIP HOP/POP ARTISTS & FIGURES
Far East Movement; praCh
(NEED HELP HERE…) 

And of course, I am considering YouTube sensations like Wong Fu Productions, Ryan Higa, and Team Andrew (gunnarolla and songstowearpantsto) and their general reception. 

FILMS
Better Luck Tomorrow, The Namesake, and even Harold and Kumar. (Could use some help here, too!) 

THEORY/CRITICISM

Excerpts from:
The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois; Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon;  Woman, Native, Other, Trinh T. Minh-ha; Bodies That Matter, Judith Butler 

Full text: 
“Racist Love”, Frank Chin 

To anyone who reblogs or responds, thank you for any input you can provide and for trying to help me crowd source a fun class that is hopefully as interesting as it is informative! 

Best,
colorblinding  

fuck i accidentally closed the tab and lost everything!!!! let me try to remember what i wrote:

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This is fantastic! Thank you so much for your suggestions. 

In regards to the Okada and Said — keep in mind that this is an intro-level APIA class and I need to get in as much material as possible without it being too difficult or too overwhelming. In general, I have to limit the amount of novels I can teach to maybe 5 or 6 if I want to also teach history, theory, film, and pop culture on top of literature. 

I might offer an excerpt from Said — but honestly, I have my own quibbles with Said’s work. It bothers me how, for example, Said figures the Orient as like this passive female body, or how the Orient for Said does not actually deal with the “real Orient” as such or “Oriental people.” In that sense, theoretical works on American Orientalism might work better if I want to talk about Orientalism within the context of America. (Bear in mind that Said’s work was also driven by a desire to expand the notion of what was “literature” in the academy during the 1970s.) 

I am definitely thinking of including the Charlie Chan is Dead anthologies since they include so many writers. I do not want to or am interested at all in teaching Amy Tan. I don’t find her writing compelling, and I also feel that the issues that she deals with are dealt with much better by Maxine Hong Kingston. 

Anyway — again, this is a great list. You are awesome.

(Incidentally, Wang Leehom is totally not what I’d consider a real AsAm artist. He is Taiwanese Mando-pop! As is Van Ness Wu, Will Pan, Nicholas Tse, Edison Cheng (lol), and all of the other ABCs who work in Asia.)