Author: Swathi

Sonny Liew both defies and engages many stereotypes about Asian Americans in The Shadow Hero. The mother in the story is the stereotypical tiger mom. She decides what she wants her son to be like and tries to create a life for him as a super hero. By forcing this new lifestyle, upon Hank, she exemplifies the overbearing Asian mother stereotype. However, towards the end of the story, she begins to develop as a character. She is proud of her son and let’s him fight without interrupting him again. Liew also portrays Americans in the United States as xenophobic towards the Chinese immigrants. He shows Hank being called a chink. Additionally the superhero before Green Turtle was caucasian.

There are some stereotypes that Liew does challenge in his book. He portrays Red Center, daughter of Ten Grand as a strong female. Normally, Chinese women and girls are deemed shy, quiet, and submissive. Red is nothing to that image. She defies her father and follows her gut by forcing Hank to fight. Not only does she rely on no one but herself, but she is very resourceful and has a will of her own. Similarly, the stereotype of the scrawny and nerdy Asian was challenged in the story through Hank’s character. After training and working to become a super hero, Hank overcame this stereotype. He became a superhero, just like Anchor Man. His heritage did not stop him. 

The tradition of killing others to qualify to be the new leader was broken by Hank. Rather than killing his opponent, Hank arrested him and put him on trial. He broken the old culture and perhaps this symbolizes breaking connections with one’s home country after immigration. However there wasn’t a negative connotation behind this; I took it to mean that sometimes reform can be good.

Rudolph Giuliani’s title as mayor or New York had extended to mayor of America due to his admirable command during 9/11. While this instance is one in which he can be seen to be a positive force in New York City, there are other instances in which is leadership counters the core values of the city. The decisions he made in office suggest that he did not support the small businesses and small minority groups the resided in New York.

Giuliani was successful in reducing crime in the city. Seen as a hero, he implemented the “Broken Windows” theory and the Zero Tolerance Campaign. He increased the size of the police force as well as forming the Street Crime Unit of Undercover Cops and the Compstat Program. He believed that eliminating public disturbances would help to reduce crime. However, he had a very broad definition of what classified as one. Because of this, a large number of crimes that were being brought to court were very minor offenses.

The people accused of these petty crimes were subject to strip searches and were held in jail even before they were realized to be innocent. This time of suspicion and doubt left New Yorkers feeling that their freedoms were under attack. Moreover, the Street Crime Unit of Undercover Cops and the Compstat Program were guilty of racial profiling which angered minority New Yorkers. Although Giuliani claimed to want to solve the issues between the minorities and the police as he ran for a second term, but did not make any measurable progress on this conflict.  

The people of New York were not pleased with the mayor of America. Activists like Al Sharpton held public protests and rallies to raise awareness and provoke some sort of social change to serve justice to those that suffered undeservingly by the police. Giuliani was dumb to the feelings of the people. Moreover, he reassured them that the innocence of the minority groups accused of crimes were released after their passing. This nonchalant attitude towards the injustice left him to be an unpopular mayor.

Not only did he not address the conflict between cops and minorities, but he also opposed labor unions and welfare programs that this group of people largely relied on. He believed that people had to work and earn their benefits, however this contradicted the activist leadership and values that were native to the city of New York. Although Giuliani led the city admirably during the events of the 9/11 tragedy and had good intentions for New York, his public policies and suppression of labor unions, welfare causes, and small businesses made him foreign to the true spirit of the city.

With the 1965 immigration reform, people from all over the globe came to New York City. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Jews migrated to New York and settled in Brighton Beach, where they worked hard to reform their lives. Dominican and Puerto Rican immigrants established themselves in Washington Heights on the Upper West Side and Corona, Queens. The Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and West Indians that arrived in New York were particularly conflicted between their native cultures. They often went back to their home country to visit and continued to practice their cultures in New York. Chinese immigrants settled in Chinatown in Manhattan. This group was outcasted for a period of time where they were not allowed to move up the social ladder. They were known as the Downtown Chinese. After the immigration quota was raised, Chinese immigrants chose to settle uptown distinguished themselves from their inferior Downtown counterpart. They settled in Sunset Park, Brooklyn as well as Flushing, Queens. Chinese soon became involved in politics and society by electing a Chinese councilman John Liu.

 

Emma Lou, much life Irene, does give the narration of her story a subjective point of view. Just as Irene tries to make the readers sympathize with her stance on passing and racism, Emma Lou’s narration has several flaws in remaining objective. Since we are seeing the story through an unreliable narrator, Emma Lou’s upbringing is imbedded into the story throughout. She grew up believing that having lighter complexion is desirable. Her entire family, other than Joe, sees themselves as higher or superior compared than their black ancestors. She rejected two relationships on the basis that the other person was too dark skinned. In the end, she remained with Alva in an abusive relationship because he had fairer skin. I found that Emma Lou did not embrace her heritage as Irene did (on the surface).

This held me back from relating to her and rooting for her. Although I knew she was a product of her society, I couldn’t help but wish that she would stand up for herself and learn to love her roots. As Irene did. Of course, I too, am a product of my own society. I grew up to believe that we should embrace all cultures and fight for human rights, so I am judging Emma Lou harshly for her actions. From my point of view, it is natural for me to connect with Irene, who is having an internal struggle but overall wants to be proud of her heritage, as opposed to Emma Lou, who has no intention of associating herself with her ancestors.

After reading Passing, I can definitely sympathize more with Irene. Clare admits herself that she is manipulative and selfish. She seduces Irene on several instances and takes advantage of the fact that Irene is genuinely trying to help her simply because they share the same race. I cannot sympathize with Clare because she chose to live her life as a white woman, but relies on her black ties to get her through life. If she truly wanted to be among Irene and Gertrude, why didn’t she remain a part of their culture? She had a welcoming community that would accept her, but she chose to outcast herself for someone who didn’t even know her true self. Even after choosing to leave the community, she expects Irene to be loyal to her.

The ending of the book is unclear. I could not make out the cause of Clare’s death. Did she fall out of the window intentionally because she couldn’t face Jack after he knew the truth? Did Irene feel so threatened by her that she pushed Clare out the window herself? If Irene did push Clare, then I might change my stance on who is character more deserving of sympathy. However, if Clare brought her death upon herself, she should have known the risk she was putting herself in. If she didn’t, Irene told her on several occasions that she was playing with fire by not telling Jack of her race before marrying him.

Clare not only lied to her husband, but she betrayed her one and only true friend. By cheating on Jack with Irene’s husband, Brian, she provoked Irene’s bad side to reveal itself. When Clare threatened Irene’s family and her marriage, Irene had to put an end to Clare’s manipulations. Despite Irene’s genuine efforts to be friendly with her old classmate, Clare never respected Irene’s feelings or her person.

19th century New York City, home to social reformers and labor union leaders, manifested that having the ideals of the working class– integrity, diligence, and a little luck– would help you move up in the ranks. Several men including Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst, and Horatio Alger published newspapers and books gave a more welcoming and promising portrayal of social darwinism. Other writers like Stephen Crane, however, chose to depict the unfavorable consequences of survival of the fittest. New York, at the times, was as powerful and prosperous, as it was corrupt and impoverished. Mark Twain deemed this era the Gilded Age because although social darwinism shaped Americans to work towards material earnings, these things were merely gilded.

New York City’s economy surely benefitted from robber barons like John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gould, and J.P. Morgan. Some of the wealthiest names in the country lived in New York. Eventually, the city had the capacity to greatly impact American economy due to the spur of business and innovation. Growing up on a farm and working hard to become a successful businessman, Rockefeller would seem to embody the working class ideals. However he soon owned a monopoly over the oil industry and people like this caused the gap between the rich and the poor. On the surface, New York was the center for growth and opportunity, but in reality, a large majority of its inhabitants were impoverished and the political leaders of the city were corrupt.

William M. Tweed was one such leader. Through immoral modes of getting votes such as bribery, Tweed was able to put several of his men in noble government positions. He never became mayor, but he worked on the campaigns for nominees of the Democratic Party and Tammany Hall. In this way, positions for office were dictated by Tweed. He controlled the system. Not only did he bribe voters, but he also gained the favor of businessmen who provided Tweed supporters with work and Tweed made money off of them as well. Riots between the Protestants and the Catholic Irish immigrants surfaced New York; they were deemed “the Tammany Riot” because Tweed often bribed immigrant for their vote. Tweed’s corruption surfaced when his bookkeeper died and the new bookkeeper exposed Tweed’s ways. He was arrested and died in jail at the age of 55.

This instance showed New Yorkers that corruption plagued their political system. Jacob Riis was the one to show the city that poverty was unfortunately just as prominent. An immigrant from Denmark, Riis came to the Five Points via the New York Tribune and took photographs of the living conditions in that area. In 1890, he published his renowned book, How the Other Half Lives. The book depicts lives of immigrants and poor people in slums, not prostitutes and criminals like they were previously made out to be. Riis’s work called for social reform. The mayor at the time implemented public bath houses and better sanitation. Education reforms required children under the age of twelve to attend school. Women’s rights was another area for improvement. Josephine Lowell took part in boycotts and worked to provide a standard of working conditions for the overworked women in stores.

New Yorkers realized that there was power in numbers and labor unions were a way to fight for their rights together. Samuel Gompers  formed the Cigarmakers’ Union in 1877 and led organized strikes. Unfortunately, no matter how much Gompers wanted to keep labor unions and politics separate, protesters backed Henry George for mayor because his policies included labor reform. However, the democratic nominee won the election due to Tweed’s rigged voter system.

Perhaps the most effective labor union was the Newsies. The fact that the group consisted of young people who were able to negotiate with the big newspaper companies brought light to the children being the future of progressivism in New York.