David Henry Hwang is the protagonist in this movie that accidentally cast a Caucasian in an Asian American role but has to protect his reputation as an Asian American role model. He struggles and also many Asians struggle with having many role models in America as their influence isn’t really big in the film industry. In the film industry it is not saturated with many Asians and this is a problem to David because he is a role model in the community and if this surfaces he will be looked down upon in his community.…
Before this assignment I never knew anything about Asian history until I got to this class and received this assignment. I can’t believe how much Asian history influenced the way we as Americans look at history now. In Steward Gordon’s When Asia Was The World, I found the story of Xuanzang very interesting. Xuanzang was a Buddhist monk who traveled all over to learn more about Buddhism until he became confused and decided to go to the center of Buddhism, along the way he faced many difficulties, he decided to go back to China and share what he had learned.…
* Chung, H. S. (2006) Hollywood Asian: Philip Ahn and the Politics of Cross-Ethnic Performance. USA: Temple University Press…
I chose to write about this topic related to LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) because since I was 15 years old I have been able to relate and I have had many friends who are of Asian (Oriental) extract. Also, I have also had a roommate who was from Bankcock Thailand. This critique will cover an article written by Alice Y. HOM titled, “Stories from the Homefront: Perspectives of Asian American Parents with Lesbian Daughters and Gay Sons”, that was published in the Amerasia Journal. Vol. 20 no. 1: 19 to 32. In the article the author covers mutually exclusive stores about the “emotions, feeling and attitudes” of Oriental Asian parents from the “homefront”, as the author Ms. HOM coins it, who have sons and daughters who are described as gay or lesbian. Most of the stories describe people who mostly live on the swinging West coast in California where the largest populations of Asian Americans live including the state of Hawaii which has the largest concentration and populations of Asian Americans in the U.S.…
The four centuries covered in this chapter mark a transitory phase in the history of East Asia. During this time, the threat of conquest from Mongol tribes dissipated. On the other hand, western European merchants and governments encroached upon the kingdoms of Japan, Korea, and China. More and more, East Asia was connected to the broader global trading patterns that western Europeans established during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Unlike in native civilizations and kingdoms in the Americas, European encroachment in East Asia did not result in the collapse of local political and cultural traditions. Indeed, cultural and political traditions continued to evolve along historical patterns. In 1800, East Asian societies were still remarkably cohesive despite the dramatic changes in global economic and political patterns occurring all around them.…
In the story Fish cheeks, Amy Tran uses vivid imagery through out her story. In her story she uses a nervous and embarrasment tone while she was telling the story. Tran should except her culture and her family’s ways she shouldnt change nothing for no one, no matter who they are. Tran starts the story by telling the readers about when she first “fell in love” with the ministers son, she kind of gave off the nervous vibe when her mom had told her she invited the minister and his family for there christmas eve dinner. By the way Amy Tran’s race is Chinese and her first ‘’love’’ has a american tradition.…
The graphic novel American Born Chinese (2006), by Gene Luen Yang, is a very modern and influential piece of work that can be compared to the short indie film Two Lies (1990), directed and written by Pamela Tom, which had preceded the novel by 16 years. These two different forms of work, both utilizing their ability to teach the audience, are used as powerful venues for the topic of identity crisis among the Asian people in a majority European American world. In the film, we have Mei and her family who are all having some trouble adjusting to their lives in Southern California but more specifically we have Mei and her trouble to understand her mother 's cause and intent for having undergone double eye-lid surgery. In ABC, we have our protagonist, Jin, who is having trouble fitting into his new school in San Francisco since he is one of the very few Asian admitted to the school. Another time line in the novel is the story of the monkey king who does anything to get rid of the fact that he is a monkey in order to fit into society. The third is the story of Danny, a European American who has trouble and often becomes embarrassed with his hyperbolic Chinese cousin, Chin-Kee. This character is first introduced by saying "Harro Amellica!" while Jin 's father, carrying giant Chinese take out container says "I 'll put your luggage into your room, Chin-Kee" (48). All three of these time line show our characters having some sort of shame or embarrassment to the fact that their own image or background is different from those around them.…
As America fell under the spell of industrialism, our leaders had begun to set their eyes on a new goal of conquering western land, specifically Asia. Western countries were the perfect place to establish trade, they were able to produce silks, pottery, and unique spices which America was unable to access.…
From 500 to 1500 CE, Asia was the most powerful economic force on the planet. It was in Asia that mathematicians invented zero and algebra, astronomers learned to track the stars more accurately and invented the astrolabe for navigation, and poets and writers produced literature that is still well thought of today. The history of Asia is a broad subject to cover in just four to five pages. The entire book of Qiu Jin Hailstork’s Interpreting the Asian Past covers the history of Asia. However, Stewart Gordon’s When Asia Was the World does a great job with covering the main aspects of the history of Asia in a simpler way. Each chapter is broken down into different aspects through a series of memoirs. When Asia Was the World explains how religions, philosophy, and science each helped create Asia into the most dominant force in the world.…
The plot focus on two themes: the American Dream and the tension between Jing-mei and her Mother. To Jing Mei’s Mother, “America is where dream do come true, pushes Jing-mei to have such a high expectations of her daughter by hoping that her daughter would be a great success one day. She has “no idea exactly where her daughter talent lies on”, but she thinks that her daughter has great capability. It is a matter of finding what exactly Jing-mei talent is. First, Mrs. Woo tries to transform into a child actress, then tries intellectual tests, lastly she thinks she might be a pianist (p.385-388).…
The first director of this movie was Feng Xiaogang. He is a highly successful Chinese film director and is renowned for making comedies as well as dramas. He was a member of the Beijing Military Region Art Troupe as a stage designer, and he began his cinema work as an art designer in the Beijing Television Art Center in the 1980’s. Given his experience working in the field for an extensive period of time, it is clear that he has learned the necessary cinematography skills to accurately portray the economic struggle faced by many Asian American immigrants. I will be using this as an evidentiary source to show that many Asian Americans have had to forgo their passions in order to be successful financially. They have allowed for economic factors to be the primary motivation sources in their lives, and they measure their success based off of their financial success and not their happiness. I will be using this in conjunction with “The Rise of Asian Americans” to build connections and show that Asian Americans are now…
Plato's philosophy towards citizenship, in simplest terms, is an implicit decision between state and resident to obey all institutions inherent in a society. "Decisively did you choose us and agree to be a citizen under us." And such is the way that Asian Pacific Americans, a term coined not more than forty years ago, choose to tackle prejudice, ignorance, and greed throughout their four hundred year history. Citizenship is defined as broadly as: "Democracy" by Manuel Buaken, "loyalty" per Mike Masaoka, and "equality" according to Amy Uyematsu. Asian Americans always resort to accepted means within American society to pursue favorable ends. Despite a stacked deck, Alien Land laws prohibited alien ownership of land, the Immigration Act…
“Asian American Actors have experienced a series of constraints driven by what Wong (1978) describes as institutionalized racism within the movie industry. Within those constraints is the relationship between profit making priorities (therefore the need to draw mass audiences) and concepts of White American social ideals as epitomized by the big stars of Hollywood. It is not so much individual racism, as Wong (1978) suggests, as it is the institutional barriers which bar Asian actors from major roles, relegating them for the most part to extras…”…
The United States has become the most diverse society on the face of the earth. For more than a century, most immigrants to the United States were Europeans—Germans, English, Italians, and so forth. However, according to “Globalization and Contemporary Immigration to the United States” by Min Zhou and J. V. Gatewood, “non-European immigration to the United States began in the late 1960s and has accelerated at rapid speeds since the early 1990s after a long hiatus due to restricted immigration.” More than one million people a year migrate, mostly from Asia and Latin American- is transforming America into a multicultural society. At the same time, diversity became a distinguishing characteristic of contemporary Asian American. Cultural, social, economic and geopolitical factors have contributed to the diversity and also has brought new challenges for immigrants and their children to adapt themselves to the new environment. (Min Zhou and J. V. Gatewood) There are four aspects about “the development of a coherent vision for future Asian American” as what Min Zhou and J. V. Gatewood described. Firstly, variously national origins, which make impact on both the immigrant generation and the second and third generation in language and religions. Secondly, socioeconomic diversity brings about different kinds of mobility patterns. Thirdly, diverse settlement modes influence the development of Asian American community. Finally, “immigration complicates intergenerational relations and ethnic solidarity.”…
One of the major ICC themes in the movie is the conflict between individualism and collectivism. Although not explicitly expressed, it has a strong impact on the whole course of the movie. The 4 immigrant Chinese mothers, having spent their childhood in Mainland China, embodied a strong collectivistic value. This is a dominant value in Asian culture, especially that of China. In such society, the priority of a group far exceeds that of an individual, and group-oriented interdependence is greatly emphasized. The negative experiences in China have, to a large extent, shaped the mindset of the 4 mothers. This is not the case for their daughters, who were born and raised in America, and embeded with the American values. They see themselves as independent individuals and their outlooks on lives greatly reflect the individualistic nature of their generation. This gave rise to a series of conflicts between them and their mothers.…