Rolling the R's
Describe your reaction to the selections from Rolling the R's. What story is Linmark telling, and where does the author position the reader in his construction of queer Asian American subjects?
Chickencoop Chinamen
What kind of distinctions does Chin draw between being "made" through language and biological birth? How does Chin "gender" certain language and do you feel that Chin's language could be described as masculine? Is it appropriate to speak of Asian American subjectivity as being a product of language and not birth? Does it make sense to even "speak" of it at all?
Chickencoop Chinamen
What kind of distinctions does Chin draw between being "made" through language and biological birth? How does Chin "gender" certain language and do you feel that Chin's language could be described as masculine? Is it appropriate to speak of Asian American subjectivity as being a product of language and not birth? Does it make sense to even "speak" of it at all?
On language
Neither grammar nor style are politically neutral. Learning the rules that govern intelligible speech is an inculcation into normalized language, where the price of not conforming is the loss of intelligibility itself...It would be a mistake to think that received grammar is the best vehicle for expressing radical views, given the constraints that grammar imposes upon thought, indeed, upon the thinkable itself. (Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, xix)
What sort of political work does language perform in Linmark and Chin's texts? How do their words relate to "intelligible speech" and "normalized language," and how do the authors frame what is "thinkable"?
Response to On Language prompt:
ReplyDeleteLinmark combines prose with poetry, Tagalog with English, Pidgin with Hawaiian Creole - in using all these forms of language together and showing the spaces in which they are deemed to be unacceptable or acceptable, he reveals the power relations that exist between them and exert themselves upon the many narrators of the story and their friends and families. He also refuses to privilege one form over another in his own writing, effectively making devalued forms of speech - and thus devalued voices - into intelligible speech for the reader.
In the selection "Remixing America," we see the pervasive influence of American pop culture on the lives of the characters through a pastiche of disco song lyrics. It also further develops the reader's understanding of the disidentificatory relation the characters have with American pop culture - Scott Baio and Leif Garrett help Edgar discover and nurture his sexuality in an otherwise hostile environment while Farah Fawcett brings an entire group of young queer people together through shared fandom. In this sense, disidentification can been viewed as an act of resistance - the characters are not passively soaking in American pop culture, but rather reworking it so that it becomes relevant to their own lives and helps them survive and thrive in the world in which they live. They are not assimilating into a white, American, colonial norm, but rather forcing those norms to assimilate to them. They are working to define their own speech as intelligible within the context of a society that ignores their voices.
Later in the text, we see progress reports sent to the parents of the three children whose families have most recently immigrated to Hawaii - Vicente, Mai-Lan, and Florente. In all three of the reports, the focus is on the children's use of language. Their teachers commend each of them for having "the most beautiful and unique penmanship," but are concerned that they are spending too much time with Trina and Edgar. In Florante's progress report, the teachers write, "[Trina and Edgar's] use of pidgin endangers Florante's appreciation and skillful use of the English language" (54). In a brief paragraph afterward, we see the teachers correcting Florante's pronunciation of his own name and ethnicity. Linmark is exposing school as an ideological state apparatus - a source of power exerted to shape young people's ideas of morality, success, and their own identities to fit the normative ideals of the state. In this instance, the ideological state apparatus of school is trying to normalize English and position other languages as existing below English in a linguistic hierarchy. Pidgin, Taglish, and other languages that seek to queer the standard of "pure" English are seen as a threat to the state, as they reveal the pride these young people feel in their ethnic identities and their modes of resistance to American imperialist forces.
Also, I am not able to edit pages outside of the main "Posts" section (or at least it's not apparent to me how to do so), so here are some of the articles I have found for my topics - videogames and the media industry.
http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/84/89
http://anbmsource.com/node/118
Rolling the R's
ReplyDeleteThe narrator's relationship to the reader is as unstable and as mercurial as his own relationship to his queer identities. I posit that Edgar compensates for the lack of stability in his various names by branding and distancing himself from his audience, thus conferring him the power to define the relationship.
In the prelude (if I may be allowed to call it that, if only for practical reasons-- I feel quite strongly that Linmark does his best to unseat the reader from preconceived notions about narrative structure, and to label the sections of this excerpt in a way that connotes chronology seems distinctly out of touch with his intentions), Edgar positions himself simultaneously as the voyeur and the voyé: he culls favorite poses and glances from celebrities such as Scott Baio and Matt Dillon to compose sexual fantasies, which he proceeds to describe in defiant and assertive detail. But in an abrupt shift at the end of this section, Edgar pins down the reader as an accomplice of the voyeur/voyé dynamic when he gleefully accuses the reader of "actin' like you knew the ropes by trade, spreadin' your legs." At this point, Edgar forces the reader to become the subject of eroticization. Furthermore, Edgar's triumph appears to be flavored with a condemnation of the hypocrisy of the closet-- is the malice directed at subject of the closet or the closet itself?-- while posing, perhaps, as an attempt at inclusivity and/or possessiveness.
The same relational tensions surface in "Proof #2: Queen of Contraband Books & Whispers," where Edgar addresses Katrina's interest in Judy Blume-produced erotica (agh, my 10-year-old self is retching a little). Here, Edgar continues in his role as a moderator of his audience's sexualization. At once condescending and teasing, he aligns his apparent sexual maturity with his knowledge of international economics; he places himself in a superior position to the reader, in part due to his more extensive experience. And yet the very next paragraph hints at Edgar's youth/helplessness. His relationship with the custodian is illicit, which Edgar finds exciting, but is also highly inappropriate and vulnerable to dangerous power imbalances, given the age disparity: "He say I make him young again. I tell him he make me feel so mature." The troubling nature of this relationship echoes others that also involve father figures such as his father and his priests.
Also, ZACH, I just gave you admin privileges. :) You just have to click on the little pencil at the end of a post to make edits.
ReplyDeletePlaying Both Sides
ReplyDeleteI am in awe of "Rolling the R's." Linmark manages to achieve extreme clarity through a prosaic style that is at once highly convoluted yet innocently direct. The trick here is the balance between authntically subordinate English - that is, subordinate to a first language, a region, a different education, etc. - and visible mastery. Much of the structure and lexicon used in the piece are truly what of a young gay Filipino-American child - or rather, this young gay Filipino-American child - would use, yet it is also unmistakably constructed as such by an adult on second reading. And I do not mean this in a bad way. The piece has a thematic clarity, and while the childish style adds a true flavor of authenticity, the adult writer's thought provide an undercurrent on which to put this wildly inventive (relative to "proper" American English) prose. And it is through this same prose that we can find the messages.
Linmark, in constructing this dualistic structure, sets the reader along the same lines. Personally, I was able to delight in phrases like "get Hanes-naked" and "lollipops and roses" (1) both as cute sayings and very adult ideas. When Edgar share's his insights on who is ugly (10), what at first seems to be one of those uniquely childhood insights turns, on second reading, into a more thought-out reflection on what young gay children must endure in many cases. Admittedly, it felt a little heavy-handed the second time, but any heaviness is dispelled by the youthful bounce of Edgar's slang.
If the beginning of our section is indeed the beginning of the book, then Linmark also places the reader in Edgar's world by addressing them directly. While Edgar is ostensibly talking to a peer, lack of indexical (pro)nouns attached to this character allows identification with this spot, and thus entry into Edgar's world. Yet, in other sections, the tone formalizes a bit, closer to that which Edgar might take with an older confidant, and again the reader is put in this new role. Again, it is a collapsed child/adult dualism that makes this piece incredibly entertaining and poignant at the same time.
Think people have already analyzed the hell out of Edgar’s story so I’ll just concentrate on Remixing America.
ReplyDeleteRemixing America lyrically runs through popular music and catch phrases giving glimpses of the narrator’s view of America. The piece paints America as a glutinous party and sex driven land of consuming bodies and substances. Without directly saying who they are talking to, the piece opens the reader to enter the arena and get lost in the frenzy that the narrator is wrapped up in. Lines like, “baby, you started this fire down in my soul, can’t you see it’s burnin’ out of control” and “I want you, baby, need you” adds an air of distress and helplessness for the voice of the narrator. It’s like they’re waiting for the reader to rescue them from the draining madness and promiscuity of America. I don’t think there was anything particularly “queer” about this piece though. There only was the mention of “nasty bad queens” in the beginning.
"Rolling the R's"
ReplyDeleteFrom the very first passage in this piece, "Skin, Or Edgar's Advice to Closet Cases," we are able to see a shift that the author draws out more in the other pieces. The second sentence is broken English: "Like me teach you how for French kiss, make hickeys, and M&M too." This, I'm guessing, is meant to make the reader feel disconnected to the narrator, make the narrator an outsider. However, the juxtaposition of this sentence and the word "Dumbass" seems to work to tell us to drop our preconceived notions, to listen. The first paragraph then goes on to corrupt many innocent, childhood images. I think this acts to show that Edgar must grow up much faster than other kids, as the next short goes to show. The second paragraph leaves behind all child-like images. In this paragraph, we really feel the bitterness of a kid who grew up feeling like he was an outsider. Lines like, "Of course was one dream, stupid head," makes us, the readers seem very naive, and really separate us from the narrator. Even before we read "Blame it on Chachi," we know that Edgar is extremely wary and guarded to a point that makes him come off mean. What's interesting here, and this is developed more in the next piece, is that Edgar breaks a lot of asian male stereotypes. We don't actually know he is asian in this passage but upon a second reading, equipped with this knowledge, we can see how he breaks the passive stereotype. In fact, he's incredibly aggressive.
Initially after reading the story my reaction was to sit back and take a deep breath. The style of the writing made it difficult for me to connect with the reading because I struggled to stay on point with what the author was saying. This is not to say I did not like the readings or find them especially interesting because of their departure from what I normally am asked to read, but they was still quite difficult for me to read. I think the difficulty is not a downfall. For me at least, it forced me to read more carefully, and to almost read it “aloud” in my head, trying to hear the authors story through his own voice and words and not through my own. It also definitely required me to reread the stories and the second go around, being prepared for the unusual nature of the piece, I was able to learn more from the reading. I do think this does put the reader at moments in opposition from the author- specifically at times I felt Edgar yelled me at for not being open to his story. But this opposition (not sure if this is the exact word I mean, but I cannot think of another one) gives Edgar a very strong and powerful voice, one that is able to speak over the voices of those around him and assert himself (even at a young age). For the piece “Remixing America” there was a part of me that wanted the writing to be put to music. I tried to read it in a lyrical type of way, but found myself often stopping or rereading, making it difficult to read it in a fluid manner. Certain sentences reminded me of other songs, and I would begin to sing them not noticing that the lyrics were not what was written on the page, “I want you, baby…” turned into the Andy Williams song “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” (though I realize the lyrics are actually “I love you baby”… the words just reminded me of it). It was amazing to have lyrics I am so familiar with turn into something completely different but also a little disconcerting while trying to read the piece. The selections from “Rolling the R’s” I was both confused at moments by the style of writing, intrigued, and also at times a bit confused.
ReplyDeleteChin troubles the distinction between made and born in this Scene. Tam's speech shifts smoothly and abruptly transitions in the next line. The attention Tam pays to the "Hong Kong Dream Girl" dress and mannerisms is the viewer's first exposure to Chin's exploration of appearance and identity. With the line "Chinamen are made, not born, my dear," Tam functions to destabilize markers of identity. Even as Tam shakes up racial identity, Chin uses the "female figure" as a foil to Tam's rambling dialogue.
ReplyDeleteOkay so I am kind of going to be the Debby Downer here and say I actually did not like the selections from Rolling the Rs. I do not mean to diminish their important or artistic merit, because I feel they definitely have those and do make a point, but honestly I just get so annoyed reading literature written in extremely broken English (whether it's Pidgin, a dialect, etc), and honestly I don't understand what point the author is trying to make about queerness or whatnot, save that there were a couple of boys in a school in Hawaii feeling very experimental in the bathroom and one of them really likes Donna Summer.
ReplyDeletePerhaps this is the author's intent though. As an outsider to that community (and someone who does not speak their language), I do not think I am supposed to understand, and honestly that is fine. I do fully support bathroom blowjobs though, so more power to the author for including that.
All that being said, I did think Remixing America was very interesting and provided an outsider's view of mainstream American pop culture. I think it would have been cool to expand on it with different songs though.
On Language, particularly applied to Linmark
ReplyDeleteThat stylistic and syntactical differences, without changes in content, alter both the message of a text and how it is interpreted is exemplified well in “Blame it on Chachi.” When I read that passage, particularly toward the latter half of the text, Edgar’s poor grammar (unintelligible speech) highlights both his context and the sincerity of his message. Although “Blame it on Chachi,” does not explicitly reference much on his background, namely his class, Edgar’s unconjugated verbs, which is stereotypical of Asian immigrants, implies (or at least, this is what I infer) he is either an immigrant or his parents are immigrants. In addition, his usage of “cuz” further suggests that his motives for writing are more for emotional purging than they are seeking redress.
In fact, I believe that Edgar’s “poor” grammar more effectively conveys his message, both interpreted as purging and prescription. When I read “You think you are tough and hot because you are the youngest ones in the JV football team. Win one game first before you start acting macho. Have you no shame, or what?” rather than his actual passage (Linmark 5), it normalizes Edgar’s language, undermining his pathos, mitigating his “political work.”
Although unrelated to the prompt, I liken how grammar constrains expression to how PC rhetoric does with some discourse in our class. I am a firm believer that the words we select affect reality. I do find value in being PC, but I frequently question whether using the most “unoffensive” word, or spending half an hour on rhetoric alone, alters the message that we attempt to convey. How do we remedy the dichotomy between being considerate and being ourselves?