Community organizers

So here is my OMG from today's class:

OMG they don't know why or how "community organizer" became such a loaded term! Ok, one person knew that Obama considered himself a community organizer. But no one remembered that Sarah Palin disparaged them. Where were they?!?!?! Just 5 months ago, right? Sheltered? Inattentive? Selective? Or maybe Palin's comment didn't have that much play except among those of us who got offended. Hmmmm.

But today was a good class. We discussed "Philip Vera Cruz: A Personal History..." with questions like these:

• Let’s call Philip Vera Cruz a community organizer. A loaded term, I know. So let’s reload it. How do you think Philip Vera Cruz would define “community organizer”? Think in terms of knowledge, qualities, skills and other factors that you think are important.

I also asked about his lessons in leadership and coalition building and participation. Most importantly, I threw all sorts of current events into the mix: harassment of day laborers, "illegal immigrants," the stimulus package, majority rules, bi-partisan "compromise", driving while brown. What does Philip Vera Cruz's personal history have to tell us about these issues? Got a lot of participation! And my favorite, we got some disagreement and surfaced some prejudice. Teachable moments! Yeah!

Diana Ross

I came out to my Asian American Sexualities class today (3rd meeting). I'm never sure how to do it (oblique reference? or ellen-level declarative?) and it's always a bit unnerving. And as usual with this generation, the class is nonplussed. Next subject.

Of course, I don't think my students are representative of the school. The title of the course, I'm sure, selects for a certain set of students.

Today was declarative, minus ellen's elan.

History live!

There's nothing like hearing history from the history makers themselves. Today in class I was lucky to have the two fierce pinays whose activism created Asian American Studies at UMD, Christina and Angela Lagdameo. If I can figure out how to link to the Washington Post article about them (Aug 31, 2000), I'll post it. And then Juanita Tamayo Lott came by too, so that we could also hear about her experience in the 1968 student strike at SF state. Hearing them speak reminds me of how much history does not capture. The passion, the enthusiasm, the moment, and fascinating tidbits get freeze-dried and abstracted for our textbooks. Of course we should still clamor for inclusion in those books. But never let books be the only tool for learning.

My course is titled (not by me) Filipino American History and Biography. But today it dawned on me (or maybe I'm just admitting) that the more appropriate title is Filipino American Activism.

We hear over and again about the Asian communities' lack of activism and interest in engaging politically. About our meekness and desire to not rock the boat. And I hear this mostly from other Asians. But maybe that's the narrative we've been fed to keep us down (and that we believe it means we've internalized the racism it represents). Maybe it's that we don't know where to look for the activists, because Asian American studies isn't around in enough places to raise our consciousness about how much we've actually done. And because people like me often do complain, why aren't we being louder? Where are we (on x issue)?

We need to hear more stories about ourselves to repudiate, complicate and diversify this portrait of the non-activist Asian American. And in recognition of my very diverse class, I should clarify that "we" and "ourselves" is not just Filipinos or Asians. My class will leave knowing who the activists are.

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.