(no subject)

[zen_monk]

 Talkin about "The Joy Luck Club" recently reminded me of when I first watched/read the book and movie. I remembered feeling lke this was both relatble and also really not. 

And the abject fear that sympathizing and relating to these 30-something year old Chinese-American ladies mean that they are somehow who I will grow up to be, 

But I also understand it to be a generational thing, these authors and their works, where it would appeal to some generation of people and alienate the next one, particularly when the next one is another wave of immigration from people who lived through different lives and come here for different goals, and bringing with them new problems that seem familiar but has new contexts. 

Still, it's hard to see that there's some kind of established standard for when authors who do diaspora literature, talking about things like trying to overcome self-loathing for their parents' culture and for their own othered status among their peers and so forth, and still see it repeat itself again and again as though that's what solely defines their literature.

A whole bunch of coded language and self-abasement.  

Comments

[sarasa_cat]

You know, I haven't read JLC or watched the movie. Whenever something from diaspora literature receives mainstream praise and spends decades featured in prominent locations in bookstores, I often tend to tune out.

The less than generous side of me secretly thinks that when diaspora lit or "back in the home country" lit is lauded by American and British reviewers, it is because the novel (or movie) tells those reviewers the kind of story they automatically believe to be authentic, with no regard to whether the story is "accurately" representational or not.

tl;dr: I am cynical. ._.

...different goals, and bringing with them new problems that seem familiar but has new contexts...

When subtle differences suddenly become HUGE UNCROSSABLE CHASMS.

I will stand behind anyone, past or present, who writes fictional stories that attempt documents real experiences contextualized in a period in time. Sure, those stories will be products of their time for better and for worse, but all of it can be argued to have cultural, sociological, and historical value. To me, that is good.

But when specific experiences are elevated within the industry (authors, publishers, reviewers) as the *expected* story that births the *expected* set of tropes … well, I tend to have a very difficult relationship with *all* tropes (going well beyond the bounds of this topic).

Related: I tend to stay out of conversations about the calls for adding more cultural and ethinc diversity to fiction and video games. Yes, diversity is certainly needed but who is doing the writing and which tropes are they unconsciously regurgitating?

[ex_pendency799]

"still see it repeat itself again and again as though that's what solely defines their literature." and "mean that they are somehow who I will grow up to be"

Oh yeah, both of these, and the fear. :|

[zen_monk]

It's also that when people "expect" things from diaspora literature, but ignoring the difference between umbrella labels like, e.g. "Asian American" lit, and then mapping out each segment of that umbrella to be "here's ABC lit, here's Japanese American, here's Vietnamese, here's Filipino/a, and so on," and they all have different relationships to the US where there's overlapping but is still like... still need all that historical context.

I mean, the first three are involved a world war, US war aggression, and red scare, and new wave immigration/rise of Japanese economic bubble. That's four things!

And it's kinda tough when some permutation of those four things (*mumble* and 150 years of chinese americans/immigrants* mumble*) make up the foundation at times because those are the events that are still fresh for the writers that established that literature once diversity in lit became a thing.

So it's kinda like, some authors are able to write while being mindful of the changing trends and the new audiences, so there are some comic artists like Gene Yang who I think is on point when reaching out to readers whose parents and themselves are the newer generation to come over, or when people actually bother to expand their intersectionality so they're mindful of gender and sexualities and all these other things that shape the community.

But I think some authors are still stuck in talking about it like they're holding seminars in the 90s talking about their life from the 60s to 70s. I'm too young of an audience! Your mom-daughter angst tension isn't gonna be the same as my own mom-daughter angst tension (which isn't much actually, but at least I got it in my head that it isn't the fault of old culture).

So yay *applause applause* You're a trailblazer that enables kids like me to grow up knowing we got history...but you're not the only shooting stars across the night sky, you bunch of old timers*...

*not the old timers in here, tho. If there are. Some day, I too shall be a senex in about a decade maybe.

[zen_monk]

Like... can't fictional character who represents the "me-in-the-future" be someone who makes effort for kinship or takes value in it no matter how distant the connection via various barriers, and without having that "ha ha, hello existential crisis and self-doubt and constant excuse-making."

But I do think the trend is to break outward and punch out, rather than realizing how many metaphysical punches inflicted upon oneself.