Lawson Fusao Inada

Last week we discussed Angel Island Poetry and witnessed how the island itself held individuals in this no-where land, isolated from their home country and their destined country, imprisoned by walls in the middle of an ocean. This week we will discuss Lawson Fusao Inada, a third-generation Japanese American poet who was interned along with thousands of other Japanese and Japanese-American citizens during WWII. Please keep the notion of entrapment in mind while you read, paying close attention to the way in which the poems help create and break the bars of captivity. Also think about what it means to be a “hyphenated” individual, a Japanese-American or a Chinese-American etc… Who is identity shaped by both sides of the hyphen? How does Inada’s poetry reveal this notion of a ‘hyphenated’ individual, and what steps does he take to weave Japanese-American experience inside American history? 

These poems are all found in a collection published in 1993 entitled, Legends from Camp. Look at the poem entitled “Legends from Camp: Prologue”- Look at how this poem is structured, how it moves between both poetry and verse, mimicking the testimonial form and the poetic. What is the overall effect for you as a reader while reading this poem? The line “10 camps, 7 states/ 120,113 residents” is used in order to emphasize the historical inside the poetic realm- history becomes EMBEDDED in this poem. The following line however, “Still, figures can lie,” seems to criticize the historical. How does this poem, among others by Inada, work to create an alternative history? What did you think of his discussion of “among others”? Do a close reading of the following lines: “until the event, the experience, the history,/slowly began to lose its memory,/ gradually drifting into a kind of fiction”— think particularly of this notion of historical amnesia and how poetry/literature tries to recall memory.

Why do you think all of the poems are “legends” of one kind or another? What is a legend? What is Inada trying to do in establishing these legends? Look throughout the rest of the poems, notice that each one takes on its own rhythm. Inada is an avid listener and admirer of jazz and we can surely feel certain beats in his writing. Look for example at the “Legend of Leaving,” and notice how the rhythm drives the poem forward, as if the words are packing themselves away from the camp as well.  After reading all of these poems what sense are you left with? What did they help create for you? How do these poems illuminate both a sense of entrapment and release?

http://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/index.html—- If you want to read more about the Japanese Internment Camps, this is a good site!

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Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/angel/exclude.htm

In discussing issues of immigration and the immigrant experience, we must keep documents such as this one in mind. Read this over if you have a chance and think about how contemporary immigration issues are dealt with and formulated. How is the Chinese immigrant objectified in this act? What happens when we view individuals as economic objects? How does “law” (such as this one) serve to justify a human rights abuse (such as Angel Island)? Why are immigration issues in this country of particular interest to the rest of the international community?

The following is a political cartoon printed in late 19th C. which deals with the Chinese Exclusion Act:

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Timelines

In order to save some paper I have decided to put the historical timelines here. If you find better ones please feel free to post them for us all!

African-American History Timeline: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aap/timeline.html

Asian-American Timeline: http://www.cis.umassd.edu/~gleung/nacaf/Timeline.htm

Native American Timeline: http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/notes/nativeamericanchron.html

Mexican-American Timeline:http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/mex_am/chronology.html

Chicano/a Movement Timeline: http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/mecha_timeline.htm

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Angel Island:Wall as Paper

Angel Island is located in the San Francisco Bay and is now a National Historic Landmark. From 1910 to 1940, however, Angel Island existed as an Immigration Station, which processed the cases of thousands Asian (mainly Chinese) immigrants entering into the US. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prevented many immigrants from leaving this detention headquarter, forcing them to spend years on the island, waiting to enter the mainland. The individuals detained on the island found a way to mark their stories, to testify, leaving their impressions upon barrack walls. These poems were made available to the public only 30 years after the doors opened in 1940, after a park ranger named Alexander Weiss saw them and began working on “Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940.”  The inscriptions are a mark of testimony, a mark of witnessing and as we read them, we are transported mentally and physically into another world. These writings set up a network of communication between prisoners as well as ensuring that future generations remember the stories of their mothers, fathers, grandfathers, and grandmothers.

Think about the idea of writing something on a wall—what happens when a poem or phrase is removed from its original location and repositioned upon a page of print? How important is the original location? All of these poems are acts of MARKING the location, of bringing attention to the very walls which confined these men and women. Each act of writing is an act of protest, a way of etching upon the walls which hold them prisoner. The writers of Angel Island use the oppressive walls as a means of free expression.

Look at writing 31 from The Detainment. This individual, in witnessing the other poems, has to make his own mark. How do you read these poetic fragments? Are the poems? Are the simply notes of distress? What qualifies something as a poem?

Are these writings any good? Or does the traumatic historical event provide them with artistic merit? Think hard about this question, there is not right or wrong! How does history serve to justify literature?

 Think a little about the problem of translation -most of these were written in Chinese -what are some problems that arise with translation? There are two translation process- one from the Chinese to the English and the other from the wall to the page. Which one is more problematic?

Choose any of the ‘poems’ from the course packet and do a close reading. What are some of the overall themes? Almost each fragment has a question mark, what do you make of that?

Think a little about what was said last week in section with respect to the slave song and the master’s inability to understand. How are these writings also representative of that theme? How does writing become an act of protest and rebellion but also an act of alleviation?

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Zora Neale Hurston’s Sound-Novel

(1891-1960)

Mules and Men (1935)

 It is really important to keep in mind that Hurston studied anthropology under Franz Boas (who wrote the preface to the novel) and we can see that anthropological inclination in “Mules and Men.” She took quite a few trips to the Caribbean and to the American South to study black folklore and storytelling practices it is these trips that served as inspirations for the novel.  Folklore is transmitted only through voice, it does not exist as a textual artifact and thus Hurston takes the oral medium (sound) and transcribes into into the written medium (printed words). This is a process of translation, one which many scholars have criticized her for, suggesting that in translating oral tales she is silencing them… what do you think about that? How does Hurston both empower and disempower the African American folklore tradition?  What is lost when an oral history is codified into the printed medium? What do you lose when you read this novel silently?

Think about the written versus spoken dialect in the novel. Like Langston Hughes, particularly in “The Weary Blues,” Hurston combines dialect with standard English. What do these combinations enable the author to accomplish?

 Is this fiction or non-fiction? Does Hurston position herself inside the novel in order to create a less fictionalized realm? The labeling on the back of the book labels it “fiction” however, we must question these things— is Hurston fictionalizing her own status as an author/anthropologist here?

The book begins with the word “I”- “As I crossed…”- How does Hurston’s “I” compare to Hughes’s “I”? How does Hurston’s own history/story fit inside the fiction she creating? This book sets out to construct African American folklore, and thus constructs a piece of African American art and history. How does art empower the construction of culture? Whereas Langston Hughes used poetry as his medium, and jazz as his background sound, Hurston uses the novel and the oral storytelling tradition as her background sound- in your opinion what are some of the strengths/weakness of the poetic or the novelist form in defining cultural boundaries?

This reads a lot like a travel narrative and its thus fragmented, one story, one character, one thought leads into another. There are not a lot of points of intervention on Hurston’s part, she hardly enters inside the text to criticize mainstream society and hardly discusses racial inequalities and abuses. Why do you think that is? Why is Hurston providing the reader with such an objective view of African American folklore? Why do you think she strays away from engaging in acts of criticism against the horrendous discriminatory practices of the 1930’s?

Think a little about the illustrations inside the novel… how do you read them? How do they interrupt or reinforce the preoccupation with the oral tradition? Look for example on page 62: how does the illustration help reinforce the written text?

How does laughter/humor fit inside the cultural artifact that Hurston is creating? Look for example at page 72: “Everybody laughing with their mouth wide open. If the foreman had come along right then he would have been good and mad because he could tell their minds were not on work.”

Do a close reading of a paragraph or sentence in the novel if you wish and post it here…in section we will concentrate on such close readings,  turning to Hughes and Hurston.

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Langston Hughes: A Glimpse into Some of his Poetry

(1902-1967)

“The Negro Speaks of Rivers”

In looking at this poem we must first turn to the following quote: “Nobody ever cried in my grandmother’s stories. They worked, or schemed, or fought. But no crying. When my grandmother died, I didn’t cry, either. Something about my grandmother’s stories taught me the uselessness of crying about anything.” – Langston Hughes

What does the river symbolize in this poem? Is it a way of alluding to the millions of tears without naming them as such?  Think about the use of the word “I” in this poem and what it does to your overall reading? How would the poem sound of “they” or “we” was used in its place?

Hughes creates a geographical landscape through his mention of the Euphrates (Southwest Asia), Congo and Nile (Africa) and Mississippi (America), as if he is attempting to connect the hemispheres and thus recreate the journey of African American (which is exactly what the poem strives to do in some ways). The poem, like a river, is fluid, in constant motion. We must keep in mind that Hughes wrote this poem on a train while crossing the Mississippi, and the theme of motion is an important one. How does blood connect to the overall imagery of the river in this poem?  In choosing ‘rivers’ as his main symbolic theme, what is the poet able to accomplish?

Think about the title of the poem- “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”- Why “The Negro,” what does this formulation help emphasize a general connectivity between African Americans?

‘The Weary Blues”

One word- jazz. This is not just a poem that has a beat, this is a poem that is SO influenced by jazz that it has literally become jazz. This poem is a sound-scape, you cannot read it silently, it demands to be read out loud. Blues and Jazz often acted as a form of criticism during the Harlem Renaissance, a way in which musicians could disguise their the complaints and protests through sound. This ‘disguised criticism’ or ‘disguised communication’ reminds us of the early slave songs which were created so that the slaves could manage to communicate to one another without the knowledge of their masters.

This poem contains both standard English and the vernacular (as mentioned in lecture) and it may be interesting to see what happens to the poem when you take the vernacular out. Read the poem without the jazz song… how does the poem change? What is lost? Now read JUST the singer’s verses… what happens?

Look at the last line of the singer’s verse (“And I wish that I had died”)and the last line of the poem(“he slept like a rock or a man that’s dead”) what do you notice? How does this poem function as an act of criticism or protest? Is it?

“The Same”

This poem is about exploitation, of both nature and Human nature. This was written during Hughes’s socialist phase and we can clearly read the socialist element into it. This is a political protest poem and it speaks of a general (un-racialized) exploitation of the working class. How did you all read this poem? How do the lists (“dollars..” etc) function in the poem?

“Negro”

Think about this poem in relation to “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.”  What are some similarities/differences?  Think a little about the following: every line in this poem is in the past tense EXCEPT: “I am and Negro” and “They still lynch me in Mississippi.” What do you think Hughes is trying to accomplish in using those two lines? How does the poem subtly protest against the then present discriminatory violence enacted upon African Americans?

“I, Too”

Think about how “I, too” relates to segregation… look closely at the comma dividing the “I” from the too, a simple mark of punctuation which becomes a line of division, one that Hughes tries to focus on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CUKyVrhPgM

Think a little about empowerment and protest and how poetry can function as a means of revolt against the oppressive norm. How did you read this poem? What stood out and why?

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Welcome!

We begin English 50, Introduction to Minority Literature, this quarter! I am very excited about the literature and am looking forward to our upcoming discussions. We will travel through cultures, languages, ethnicities, and struggles this quarter. We will step instead the Harlem Renaissance, and walk onto Angel Island. We have to learn how to read, not literally, but metaphorically, paying close attention to each text, each word even. The literature we are reading is both heavy and light-hearted, both a struggle and a revolution; we will have to struggle with our writers and we must give them the necessary time to express themselves. That said, make sure to read each poem three or four times, only then will you really enter inside its boundaries. Just when you think you’ve “got it,” read it again! Take your time with the novels and short stories, engage in close readings and allow the author to take you on the journey he or she envisions for you. Be patient and accepting, do not rush through these works and do not get discouraged–a reader is an artist, a creator of the work alongside the author, keep that in mind. If YOU do not read the novel, the short story, or the poem, IT no longer lives—- YOU make it come to life, YOU define its contours.

Please remember to laugh when things are funny, or cry, or scream. Read outside, read with jazz in the background, enjoy yourselves!

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Thank you

A huge thank you to all my students in 104A. You guys are incredible. Thanks for taking the time to reflect, to internalize, and to respond to the literature we have read this past quarter.

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