Butterfly kisses and consequences

Today in my Asian American Sexualities class, I had the students share their first writing assignment with each other in small groups, a 1-page paper entitled, "AAPI Sexualities are..." Their responses were many and varied, and that was the point. It's the first week of class and I'm trying to assess what they know and think coming in, and to show them each other's perspectives.

And to let them sit there in that ambiguity. I told them that I would rarely try to push our conversations toward convergence or agreement. I value the ability to entertain a thought without accepting it (Aristotle). Good thing I have a high tolerance for ambiguity.

At the end, one student remarked, "Well, there are no right or wrong answers." To which I replied, "True, but there are answers with consequences, and we'll be learning about how severe some of them can be."


Somewhere in the sharing, there was occasion to bring up the annual fertility festival in Japan (http://www.wordpress.tokyotimes.org/?p=2088) which I called the penis festival. They got a kick out of hearing about such a thing. But as I was driving home, I thought to myself, if it's a fertility festival, and couples go for good luck, why is the phallus the only symbol for fertility? I'll ask them next class. Shout out to my sistas in the Pukengkeng Liberation Front.

Immediacy

so my unwritten (until now) goal is to blog within the first few hours after class...to capture my reactions before they become reflections and resolutions. i met that with the last entry. reading it now, i see that i captured the incident that i need at the beginning of every semester that reminds me to adjust my expectations. i'm still flummoxed that no more than 2 or 3 students vaguely recognized the hooded prisoner. and i'm wondering if i could really appreciate what reagan meant since i was only in college at the time.

but on the point of whether a student can get it, well it only takes one to make me feel good. this is what made me feel good at the end of last semester:

"The International Hotel story was one that touched me greatly. I had never heard about the struggle that Filipino Americans faced. What was even more heart wrenching to me was it was not that long ago, in fact my parents were both alive at this time. What happened to the Filipino Americans living in the International Hotel at this time was monstrous and disgusting."

this excerpt, a response to a final exam question, reminded me why I teach Filipino American studies--and it's not about academics. the film, the Fall of the I-Hotel--as dated and slow-paced as it is (probably cuz I've seen it a dozen times)--is still worth showing. when i told the student how this made me feel, he thanked me for a class that taught him some truly valuable lessons.

~:'-)

Abu Ghraib has no meaning

OMG they did not recognize this image. It was only 6 years ago (Spring 2003)! Are they really so sheltered? So unaware? But okay, they were teenagers. Maybe their parents kept them from seeing the images from Abu Ghraib.

Still it makes me wonder how to teach the meaning of this and other events. I teach from a place of experience, of having events in the real world propel me to look for meaning. Of working with others to "sense-make", and in turn, to create change.

That's what I, and I'm sure other ethnic-studies professors, bring to teaching. And yet, what is this image to my students? I can express myself passionately, I can tell them the meaning, but will they feel it? Will they get it? Will it make them feel connected to other's suffering? Will it propel them to action, or at least to look for meaning, too? So what is the whole exercise of ethnic studies about, anyway?

Anyway, this isn't a soul-searching moment that I'm expressing. Just a reaction to my second day of class. I've got 38 students, though today only 23 showed up because of snow. I asked if anyone knew who Maj Gen Antonio Taguba is. As expected, not many knew. I pulled up this photo, thinking I would then make a point about how only parts of a story get embedded in the public psyche, and that we often forget really important people. But their psyche was empty. Al laa.

I got a similar shock when I first started teaching and no one could tell me what People Power was. It had meaning for me when it happened because I was a whitewashed 2nd year college student with a politically connected roommate. So even though I didn't really want to care, he kept the TV on the story and I, like many others, was gripped by the nuns kneeling in front of the tanks. It was one of my consciousness raising moments. But most of my students weren't even born yet. That really woke me up.

But 2003?!?!

The Final Final of the Year

So I'm sitting in the front of class watching my students take their final exam. I'm nervous as usual because this is a test for me too--to see if I've covered everything thoroughly (but they're resourceful and sometimes inattentive so if I didn't cover it, they probably thought it was their fault and went to wikipedia for the answers instead of my assigned reading), and to see if they get the meanings I want them to get.

oops interrupted by late arrival due to traffic, it's a dreary day out there

I let them bring in notes, mainly because I don't want them to memorize dates and events. We all have access to those. But history, I tell them, is not about what happened, but about the interpretations and biases and filters we put on the past. I want to see if they can add up the dates and events and create history. Even rewrite it. The study of history is a thinking exercise--not a memorization one.

oops another one. now all 28 of them are here.

The 29th student is getting commissioned today as an officer in the Navy. I let him take the exam yesterday. He did well. Answered the two questions with essays that showed he read and understood the material. He's an older student (with a wife, two kids and another on the way) and in my limited sample of 100 students in the past 3 semesters, I believe they are more thoughtful students. I enjoy having them in class. They filter these lessons through the experiences of their lives, which is the way I learned Filipino American history. They have more context with which to understand American politics, ideology and hypocrisy. They get it when I say that I'm teaching American history as it has been experienced by Filipinos.

I had a 30th student too. He did not show up for the midterm. Came to one class after that and never bothered to ask me for a makeup or even acknowledge that he missed something. He dropped the class officially after Thanksgiving. I wonder what happened to him?

But it's been hard this semester to feel connected to the class. First, I've never had a class this large (and I know some of you teachers are wishing your classes were this small). Then, I decided to hold the class once a week for 2.5 hours rather than twice a week for an hour and 15, which is the normal schedule. This was a pragmatic decision to give myself more time for other projects--which did not materialize. I feel like I had less interaction with the students because I only saw them once a week. Canceling one class (which I did for election day), was the equivalent of canceling two.

Oh, first one done in less than 45 minutes. Now see, I would have liked to get to know him better. He really needed help with his writing skills. He did badly on the midterm but he tried hard to make up for it in his research paper.

Gotta get up. Nervous energy. More later.

My Horoscope

It energizes you to think. Your best ideas come while you're walking, showering or doing the dishes. A lot of what you imagine may not have a direct application right now, but keep dreaming into the future. (Today's Horoscope by Holiday Mathis, The Washington Post, Saturday, 12/13/2008, C11.)

I wish I had a direct link from my brain in the shower to the keyboard. I towel off a lot of good ideas.

Human rights and the whispered threat of neocolonization

Oooh, isn't that a title worthy of a (pseudo)academic!

Anyway, this post comes about after hearing from some guest speakers I invited to my Filipino American studies (FAST) class. Katarungan is a group of volunteers who are tracking human rights violations in the Philippines. When I mentioned this to one of my informal advisors, she honestly could not understand why young Filipino Americans would or should care. From her standpoint, the yearning for Filipino/Filipino American identity should "look forward" and be planted here in America, not in "looking back" to the country from whence we (or our parents) came. And that to intervene in Philippine affairs is simply an extension of America's neocolonist ways--only now with Filipino actors as well as white ones. I don't think it would surprise too many of you to know she is Fil-Am, though some of us might call her "Fil-Fil"because of her accented English and fluency in Tagalog.

Anyway, I didn't invite this group just because I wanted to have the class hear about human rights in the Philippines. I invited them because I wanted to show off community building and activism, and to have the class think about the role that Filipino Americans should play in Philippine affairs (after having read a history of the KDP by Helen Toribio). So I asked the speakers to address the issue of "why should we care?" and "whether we are just being the new colonists by intervening in Philippine affairs."

You can read Redante Reed's thoughtful response here (or look on my blog list, he's An Ordinary Person).

So my thoughts on "whether we are just being the new colonists by intervening in Philippine affairs..."

FIRST, the charge of neocolonialism can be easily dispensed with when you look at the intent: no colonizer, whether old or neo style, ever cared about human rights.

But SECOND, the language of American involvement in human rights (anywhere in the world) is easily reminiscent of the benevolent assimilators who sought to Christianize and civilize the Philippines.

NEOCOLONISTS take over the affairs of other countries not (just) by military might, but through infrastructure building, social programs (like teachers), and trade agreements that favor the colonist. The US did this in taking over the Philippines in 1898 and again in giving the Philippines independence in 1946--independence with strings. One could argue that the ubiquity of American media (film, television, music) in the world today further hegemonizes American pop culture (I don't usually use such academic jargon but hey that word has my name in it) such that any country hoping to make it big must imitate American ways of storytelling, downplaying its own cultures.

But whatever dressing colonists put on it, what they really want is economic supremacy. The US wanted the Philippines for military bases (to protect economic interests) and a stepping stone to future economic riches in China. Portugal and Spain competed for God, gold and glory, claiming lands all over Asia for the ultimate prize of India (which neither got).

But no colonist ever concerned himself with human rights. Magellan didn't die in the Philippines defending human rights, and McKinley and Teddy's war against the Philippines might have been exhibit A at the Geneva Convention's "what not to do" seminar. So intervening to protect human rights is not a neocolonist's goal.

But it could be a neocolonist's strategy. It's the language justifying America's role as the world human rights watcher that concerns me. True, as Redante points out, we in America have the enviable position of being able to speak out without fear of losing our lives, unlike many places in the world. But justifying action on the basis of America's role as a world power (which Katarungan does not do, but other groups do), as a beacon of democracy and human rights (which you might laugh at nowadays, but the fact that we are so concerned about this image shows its priority in our national identity), and because we have the resources and know-how is eerily reminiscent of the benevolent language used by Americans in the Philippines. They sought to Christianize and civilize us--never mind that Filipinos had already spent 300 years under Spain's civilizing and spiritual tutelage. All as a cover of course, for what the colonists really wanted.

When our leaders (in the Administration and in Congress) speak about human rights, and attach conditions on foreign aid, what will those strings be? What might will we use to make our way right? Groups like Katarungan probably won't be in the room when those deals are made, but may unwittingly provide the cover for these hidden agendas.

So what to do? Well, the answer is not "nothing." Katarungan, more power to you. In the marketplace of community activism, of volleying for human and financial resources to do good in the world, social reformers can and should stay focused on their missions while not worrying too much about the unintended consequences of their work. Control is an illusion. All we can do is pray. The serenity prayer is a good one.

Papers

I've piled myself under papers...student research projects, creative writing, weekly reflections... magazines, powerpoints, Washington Posts... hence no posts...

Lesson for next semester: When I assign work to the students, I assign work to myself. When I assign lots of work to them, I assign lots of work to me. Simple, yet another lesson best learned the hard way. Oof!