Author: Yashoma Boodhan

American perception of the Chinese fuels many stereotypes that have become widespread. So common are these stereotypes that one simply begins to assume that they reflect the truth. The popularity of these stereotypes has influenced Chinese authors and illustrators to either play on their absurdity or challenge their validity. In The Shadow Hero by Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew, one can see the authors both engaging and challenging stereotypes regarding Asian Americans.

Hank’s mother plays a significant role in the book because she reinforces and challenges many stereotypes that Americans have of Chinese American women. Hank’s mother is depicted as a physically short, judgemental, “mouthy ching-chong”, “AIYA!” saying woman, who agrees to a loveless marriage and ruthlessly forces her son to pursue her ambitions. At the same time, the audience sees Hank’s mother beyond the callous facade that is presented in American stereotypes of Chinese American women. By the end of the book, the audience sees that Hank’s mother cares for him enough to look for him all night and to cheer him on in his endeavors. At the end of the book, Hank’s mother is an understanding, accepting, encouraging and happy woman.

The authors also depict American stereotypes surrounding the Chinese through the physical depiction of other characters in the book and the structure of the criminal underworld dynasty. Take for example the crooked Moe who is shown disguised as a Chinese man with unrealistically bright yellow skin, slanted eyes, crooked teeth, exaggerated arched brows and a long, thin mustache. In all, Moe is presented as one of the “the sneaky slant-eyed bastards” that Detective Lawful explicitly describes. In addition, the Chinese traditions regarding rightful power are shown through the leadership of Ten Grand. Ten Grand refuses to choose a female heir and hosts a fight to find a rightful male heir. When Ten Grand dies and fails to choose a male heir, his daughters take power. However, Red Center and her sisters are shown having trouble leading the criminal empire. The authors show that it is not common in the Chinese tradition for women to take such powerful leadership roles.

After presenting all the stereotypes and traditions, the authors subtly challenge them. The authors show that many of these stereotypes and traditions that many Chinese Americans are bound to can be abandoned for a new start. This becomes clear when the turtle and dragon spirit converse. Dragon, the eldest brother, hangs on to the idea of creating a dynasty and ruling it; meanwhile, turtle, the youngest brother, strives for something new. In the end, turtle triumphs over the dragon. This shows the acceptance of Chinese Americans for new ideas and a new start. More importantly, through the 19-year-old Hank and his role as a Chinese superhero, Yang and Liew break the stereotype that a superhero is a Gwailo (white). Hank succeeds in being a superhero and in protecting his people with the help of the turtle spirit. Together Hank and the spirit represent the new and Americanized generation, unrestricted to stereotypes.

Reitano Summary 205-214, 221-226

First Edition of Book

Pages 205-214:

New York’s mayor, Rudolph Giuliani was an international figure whose complexity and spirit mirrored those of the city. Still, Giuliani can also be seen contradicting basic New York values. Throughout his mayorship, Giuliani made several questionable moves which included a call to blow up the education system and attempting to sell off the city’s water. However, his leadership during the events of 9/11 earned him the respectable title of “America’s mayor.”

Giuliani was known to spark personal and public controversy about several issues including race, law enforcement officers, welfare, education, the arts, and civil liberties. His mayoral decisions clearly indicate that he opposed minorities, labor unions, small street businesses and affordable public services. In spite of all of his questionable choices and goals, Giuliani was often compared to Superman and seen by many New Yorkers as an effective leader who helped to reduce crime in the city. Giuliani’s mayorship was one of substantial rise, fall and resurrection.

Living up to his superhero title, Giuliani was known to promote law and order and fight crime in the city — especially crime surrounding the Mafia. However, he failed to understand the Gothamites and their cherished liberties. Giuliani believed that the authority is the driving force of freedom and this contradicted the traditional New York view of freedom.

Giuliani was strict in combating crime using the “broken windows” theory and creating a “zero tolerance” campaign. He worked to reduce public offenses and disturbances, but some thought that, in the process, he showed a blatant disregard for the city’s struggling communities. In the meantime, courts were being filled with cases for petty crimes, suspects were being strip-searched, street businesses were being targeted and people were being held in jail before later being free of all charges. Giuliani was beginning to see public opposition for violating New York’s free spirit.

Giuliani was still effectively fighting crime by increasing the size and resources of the police force. He created the Street Crime Unit of undercover cops and started the Compstat program. However, issues surrounding racial profiling arose when there was an increase in stop-and-frisks of minority men.

Despite the efforts of the public and his colored co-workers to bring to light the issues with law enforcement and people of color, Giuliani missed the message that something was wrong. As a result, several fatal confrontations between minorities and the police continued to occur. Giuliani made some effort to address the issues when running for reelection but after he won, the issues were once again dismissed.

New Yorkers were fearful and angry. Their feelings led to public protests led by activists like Al Sharpton. Together, New Yorkers urged for political action regarding police brutality and justice for the innocent minorities who suffered at the hands of the cops. Throughout this public outcry, Giuliani acted callously by claiming justice had been done when cops were cleared and releasing criminal records of the deceased.

Giuliani made big strides to reduce crime by increasing policing but his excess pride and power abuse, along with the power abuse of the police force, eventually led to his transformation from a mayoral superhero to a mayoral supervillain.

Giuliani sought to make changes to public services by privatizing them. In the end, he hoped to reduce the role of the government in public service and increase its role in businesses. Giuliani opposed the welfare system because he believed such a system would encourage lazy dependents to live at the expense of the hard-working. He even urged for the poor to be moved elsewhere.

Giuliani encouraged other efforts. He created job centers and allowed welfare qualifiers to work for their stipends. He wanted the people to work for their privilege.

Second Edition of Book

Pages 221-226:

New York attracted many diverse peoples and was often the stage for conflict. The city was constantly changing and many people admired that trait of the city.

Giuliani worked toward his efforts and on the way, many people qualifying for welfare were denied aid until they got jobs. In addition, many of the workers had to work in unsanitary conditions without proper protection and safety equipment.

*The rest of this section in the second edition was a repetition from the first edition.

Second Edition of Book

Pages 205-214

In the 1990s, New York was changing as there was a large number of immigrants. In fact, at the time, approximately 37.8% of the population were made up of immigrants from all around the world. Small ethnic communities were popping up in New York and included people from the Caribbean, Asia, Latin America, and parts of Europe. These “minorities” had a large political impact.

Gotham was diversified. It had many different peoples and as a result brought together many different cultures, each with their own food, music, language and religion.

Among the new immigrant population were Russians who arrived in two consecutive waves. Many of the Russian immigrants who came to America at the time settled in Brooklyn. They didn’t face many issues that other poor, uneducated immigrants faced because they were educated and migrated from large cities. As a result, they became successful entrepreneurs in the United States.

Unlike the Russians, other immigrant groups had a difficult time assimilating into American culture. They settled and stayed within their ethnic neighborhoods. The Chinese immigrant population from Asia exemplified this because they lacked proper education and as a result, were forced to work in the industrial labor sector for cheap wages. Wealthier, more educated “uptown” Chinese separated themselves from their poor, uneducated “downtown” Chinese counterparts. They ended up settling in parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

Another Asian population that came to the United States was the Korean population. Although they were more educated than their Chinese counterparts, they still lacked the language skills needed to rise in New York. As a result, they projected their dreams onto their children who were more easily absorbed into American culture and had a better chance of becoming successful. They were still able to take control of previously owned Jewish and Italian businesses.

People were also coming from places near the United States. Immigrants from Latin America included Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. The Puerto Ricans came to join the industrial workforce after World War II. The Puerto Rican and Dominican population faced many challenges because they struggled financially and has poor educational backgrounds. Despite these challenges, immigrant Latinos, with the help of the women in their respective ethnicities, were able to create a sense of community and help other members of the Latino community.

West Indians were also a large immigrant group during the time. Like the Latinos, they strived to create an ethnic community. They joined together in social events and celebrations like the West Indian Day Carnival. However, the West Indian immigrant group faced many racial issues. They had dark skin colors and as a result, many people considered them to be blacks. Still, because they mostly spoke English and had a strong educational background, they were able to get respected jobs in the city.

The undeniably large immigrant population during this time period made changes in the New York; by 2010, minorities were beginning to play a large role in the politics of the city.

In Nella Larsen’s Passing, one of the main characters, Irene, highly influences the tone and subject of narration. The reader begins to look at situations from the point of view of Irene and believe Irene’s speculations because they are the only ones shown to the reader. Only Irene’s thoughts and mental conclusions are captured in the third person narration of the novel. As a result, Irene becomes an unreliable source for narration because her ideas are taken to be the truth, despite the one-sidedness of her ideas. However, in Wallace Thurman’s The Blacker the Berry, the protagonist Emma Lou is anything but unreliable. In The Blacker the Berry, the narrator creates a balance between the truth and Emma Lou’s version of truth due to her extreme color consciousness. As a result, the narrator is able to present Emma Lou’s ideas and pokes holes in her ideas — inevitably, leaving it up to the reader to settle the score.

The narrator neutralizes Emma Lou’s emotional states and color conscious fits in order to get the truth across to the reader. The author allows Emma Lou to spill her ideas but makes her look foolish and delusional in the process using Alva’s character. Alva acts as a neutralizing voice of reason for Emma Lou in the part where she cries and Alva soon leaves her. Emma Lou shares that she was a target at the theater and at the gathering with Alva and his friends because on those occasions, she felt her dark color was being ridiculed. In response, Alva says, “You’re being silly, Emma Lou.” Then Alva points out Emma Lou’s color consciousness and her obsession with “color, color, color,” to the reader and to Emma Lou. Depending on the reader, equal weight can be given to both arguments. The narrator accounts for Emma Lou’s exaggerated ideas that might make her an unreliable character.

Another part that shows Emma Lou’s reliability under similar technique is when she returns home, has a fling with Weldon. Emma Lou shares with the reader her fantasies about making a life with Weldon. Then, the narrator “makes it real” by making the reader aware that Emma Lou has constructed this fantasy world within her mind unaware of other people’s feelings and other elements. It’s the narrator’s way of stepping in and setting it straight for the reader that Emma Lou’s feelings are highly influenced by who she is. After Weldon had to leave Emma Lou to pursue money, Emma Lou once again resorted to color as the issue. The narrator clears up Emma Lou’s distorted thoughts by saying, “It never occurred to her [Emma Lou] that the matter of color never once entered the mind of Weldon.” Once again, the narrator steps in to keep the story straight. The narrator is able to share Emma Lou’s ideas in their entirety and make them reliable by explicitly pointing out the flaws in Emma Lou’s thought processes to the reader. In this way, the reader is well informed of the situation and of Emma Lou’s character and thinking processes. The narrator in Passing failed to do this and as a result made Irene’s account of events the only account and an unreliable one at that.

In her novel, Passing, Nella Larsen uses the relationship between Irene and Clare to show the effect of racial “passing.” Passing, as it is discussed in the novel, is when a black person pretends to be (or passes as) white in society because of their white physical traits. Both Irene and Clare pass as white for different reasons. In the end, both characters suffer devastating consequences as a result of pretending to be someone they’re not. Still, Larsen manages to make the reader sympathize more with Irene than Clare because of the focus on Irene’s point of view, her strong black identity, and the destruction of her lifestyle at the hands on Clare.

The novel is written in the third-person but it follows Irene around. The reader gets to see Irene’s personal life without Clare and then get to see how Clare’s presence turns it all into turmoil. The reader knows more about Irene and start to think of her as caring and motherly because of her family role. On the other hand, the reader knows very little about Clare and why she is the way she is. When Clare and her family are the focus, they’re hardly presented in a positive light.

Irene also has a strong black identity. Irene passes for convenience, not because she identifies as white. She wants access to public places that she wouldn’t have access to as a black woman. She simply wants to take advantage of resources that she deserves (as a human being). The reader sees Irene’s pride in having dark children and a dark husband. When Irene suffers, the reader is quick to sympathize with her. On the other hand, Clare is presented in a way that says she sees everything as a game and simply isn’t aware of how she condemns blacks. Clare doesn’t defend her black friends in front of her husband but she doesn’t reinforce his words either. She bluntly states she doesn’t want dark colored children. She wants to lead a white lifestyle and attempts to do so with her white husband. The reader sees her as a coward and as a phony and is less likely to sympathize with her in times of trouble.

Lastly, the author shows the negative effects that Clare has on Irene. Clare’s presence only brings pain in Irene’s life. This is particularly clear when Irene concludes that her husband is having an affair with Clare. Clare’s role in breaking up a marriage and putting Irene and her children in jeopardy makes the reader resent her. The reader gets to see more of Irene’s feelings of hatred, anger, jealousy and helplessness. It’s extremely pitiable when Irene decides that as long as her husband stays with her and her kids, she will let the affair go on. Clare is the mentally and socially destructive force in Irene’s life.
All in all, the Larsen makes it easier for the reader to sympathize with Irene. The story follows Irene around and as a result, the reader gets to know a lot more about her life and why she makes the choices she does. The reader also admires Irene for claiming her identity as a black woman and defending her children. Finally, the reader sees Clare’s destructive role in Irene’s marriage, mental health and social life. The reader’s ability to better understand and admire Irene makes Irene easier to sympathize with than Clare.

I’ve never been much of a “free-writer” and the truth is, I’m still not. I find it difficult to let my thoughts flow and then arrange those thoughts in a smooth and concise manner. When I note all my thoughts and all the potential ways my writing can go, I find it hard to pick just one and get rid of the rest. That’s why I always try to pick a direction I want my writing to go and then to come up with the ideas afterward. It’s sort of like making the mold and then pouring the mix. I’m not sure if this process is effective and haven’t even thought about it, until now.

After reading my blogs, I see that I have different patterns for different types of writing. My prompt pieces follow a short formal essay structure. It introduces, develops and then concludes on an idea. My summary pieces are more random and are ordered according to the text being summarized. These pieces lack my voice and passive writing style. My film response pieces are sort of formal but are much more descriptive and analytical than my other pieces. They also include images from the film. All of my pieces stick to the third person (with the exception of this one). I find that these patterns help with flow and organization.

Out of all of my pieces, the summary pieces are my least favorite. Not only are they longer than the others, they allow the least freedom. Although I generally dislike writing the summary pieces, they are beneficial in helping me find information because they are a simplified and more concise version of the original text. I also didn’t really like my blog on “Bread Givers.” The reason for this is that I wanted to write about the author’s simple language and how it is sort of imagist. Maybe I should’ve chosen a different prompt so that I could’ve incorporated that thought.

My favorite pieces are my film pieces on Gangs of New York and Godfather:Part II. These pieces were descriptive and analytical. They also show my growth as a film watcher. They share my new-found knowledge about film techniques and symbolism. Looking back, maybe I could’ve let my thoughts flow more freely for pieces besides my film ones. This would’ve made my other blogs more personal, enlightening and creative.

After looking at my blogs, I realize that I could’ve gone a different direction, and I actually wish I had gone a different direction, for some pieces. Still, as I see them now, I am proud. I always feel like my blogs are terrible as soon as I submit them but for some reason, I am proud of them now. They are concise and to the point, yet deep and thought invoking. I think that my blogs developed to that level because of my note-taking.
I think of note-taking as a step toward writing about a piece. Whereas note-taking records the explicit details of a work, journaling provides a platform for analyzing and presenting the implicit meanings. Journaling is more effective at allowing you to take ideas, add your thoughts and make them your own. In other words, journaling is the big picture that you put together after gathering the little pieces using note-taking. The process of note-taking also tends to be much more tedious. In the end, note-taking, especially for longer texts, helps me successfully decide which direction to take my blogs.

Name: Yashoma Boodhan

Type: Video Project

Description: A short personal interview with my aunt, Nadia, about her immigrant experience from Trinidad to the United States. At the moment, I am thinking about incorporating still photos with the interview. I will be using iMovie to help me put the video together.

Shaun Tan, the illustrator of The Arrival, documents the immigrant experience in his book through a series of hand-drawn images. The book follows a man who migrates alone to a new land and struggles to make a living. The man, initially lost and confused in the new world, finds a job and is able to bring his family over with him. He establishes a life in the new world with his family and new friends.

Shaun Tan doesn’t only share the man’s story, he gives the reader a way to share the man’s experience. Tan does this by incorporating realistic images in an imaginative world that is strange to both the protagonist and the reader. The illustrator puts e
asily recognizable and familiar human faces in a fictional environment. The protagonist is surrounded by strange creatures, buildings, modes of transportation and food, all of which make him feel lost and confused. However, the strangest thing that both the reader and the protagonist encounter in the book is the language. Shaun Tan uses language in his book to help the reader connect to the protagonist and share the protagonist’s feelings of fear, and helplessness in a new land.

The first glimpse of language serving as a barrier for the protagonist is when he arrives in the immigration center and seems to be doing an interview. The page shows the protagonist in a series of images with small pieces of paper containing symbols stuck on his clothing. The protagonist’s body language suggests that he is confused. He puts
his hand near his ear, shrugs, scratches and lowers his head, and then holds up a picture. The final image in the series shows the protagonist looking to the side and gripping his hat which suggests that he is worried. In these images, the protagonist is facing the reader directly and it’s almost as if the man is speaking with the reader and having trouble understanding what the reader is saying. The reader feels shares the man’s sense of confusion and uncertainty.

When the protagonist finally arrives in the city, he ends up drawing a picture of a bed to ask for housing and using pictures to find food. The buildings all around him are covered in the strange letters. The reader and the protagonist both have trouble knowing what to do next and it’s almost as if the reader figures it out with the protagonist. Because the language is strange to both parties, they both learn and experience the new world together. For example, when the protagonist gets a job putting up posters, the reader is happy for him and shares his sense of triumph. However, the reader also shares his sense of confusion and helplessness when his boss arrives and shows that all the posters are upside down.

Being able to connect with the protagonist on an emotional level allows the reader to really appreciate the immigrant experience. Through the strange language and letters, Shaun Tan is able to make any reader, immigrant or not, feel what it is like to be a person in a new and unfamiliar world.. In turn, this creates a bond of sympathy and understanding between the reader and the protagonist because the reader has a greater grasp of the struggles of an immigrant.

The Godfather: Part II is directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola simultaneously tells the stories of Michael Corleone and his father Vito Corleone using a technique called the parallel action. This technique switches back and forth between two time periods and relates the lives of Michael and Vito. Coppola is able to use this technique well because he knows just the right time to cut a scene and enter another. By the end of the movie, the two story lines are complete and united.

The unity between Vito’s and Michael’s story lines is clear when Michael remembers gathering with his family for his father’s birthday. The scene starts with a wide lens shot of the dining room area from a point of view behind an empty chair, which the audience knows will soon be occupied by Vito Corleone.

Young Michael sits surrounded by his brothers, sister and family friends. The wide shot lens captures the room with its dark-decorated walls. The room is lit by a source of light that seems to come from above the bright, white-clothed table. Of the men gathered at the table, Michael is wearing the most “white.” He stands out because the other males in the room are wearing gray, brown or black.

Michael seems nonchalant as he remains quiet and smokes a cigarette. He only starts conversing when soldiers are referred to as “saps.” At that moment, a conversation is initiated between Michael and Sonny, and the director begins to use the shot-reverse-shot technique. When the shot focuses on Michael, it lingers a little longer, staying on Michael, even when Sonny starts to speak.

Michael is already seen as “different” because of how he carries himself but he further isolates himself by saying that he didn’t want a deferment from the army and that he has his own plans for the future. All the while, there is no music. Aside from the sounds of Sonny’s children in the background, the only sound is the dialogue between the characters and it forces the audience to hang on every word.

The director carefully places this scene at the end of the movie where it holds the most significance. This scene shapes the audience’s understanding of the narrative by touching the issues of power, violence, innocence and family — all which build upon the events that take place throughout the movie.

If this scene was placed earlier in the movie or edited to be shorter, it would not hold the same profound effect. At Michael’s lowest, when he has lost his wife and his brother, he remembers the moment shown in the scene. The moment when he was naive, when the family was the priority and when he thought he could make his own future, maybe even away from the family.

Michael’s hope for innocence is shown through Sonny’s children, who are dressed in white and say, “Daddy’s fighting again!” Michael, dressed in colors resembling white, seems to want something different than what his brothers and father want. He wants to step away from the violence of the family but ironically chooses to do so by joining the marines, as if violence is a cycle unpreventable to the Corleone family.

The audience clearly knows at this moment that his efforts prove fruitless and that he ends up entangling himself in a world of crime and violence passed down by his father. Even after marrying Kay, and wanting to be legit, it’s impossible for someone like him. The audience is also aware that Michael will lose what he has in this scene, family.

The scene constantly switches to shot-reverse-shot and then to a far shot enclosing the scene. Slowly, one by one, people around the table leave. The way Sonny treats Fredo and the other characters in this scene because of his “power” closely resembles the way Michael does in the future when he possesses the power. The audience sees Fredo picking up Sonny’s chair and being ushered off to make a drink. This explains Fredo’s actions and his plea to Michael shortly before he is killed. Everyone leaves to meet Vito and as they leave and walk away from the brightly lit table, they enter a dark hallway, together.

The scene ends with only Michael sitting at the table and the use of the wide lens emphasizes his loneliness. He seems to hold no loyalty to the family as Sonny describes. He gets someone to kill Fredo, his own brother. Michael’s wife is gone and he holds no close relationship to his children. He didn’t even know what his son got for Christmas. To the audience, there starts to become a clear distinction between the lives Vito and Michael have created.

Vito has built a life around family and loyalty. He values his children and despite his violent public figure, he is portrayed as a loyal and sweet father. He cherishes his children and his wife. On the other hand, Michael’s wife aborts their son and leaves him. For Michael, maintaining both power and family values seems like an impossibility. The only thing that ties these two men together is the unpreventable cycle of violence.

All of this becomes clear in the scene. When the wide lens lingers on a far shot of Michael sitting alone after everything has taken place, the audience says in their heads, “If only Michael knew then who he becomes…”