CULTURAL POLITICS AND EN-GENDERING IDENTITIES Making Home.

CULTURAL POLITICS AND EN-GENDERING IDENTITIES

Making Home

American Son

What does it mean in the novel to be an “American Son”? Paradox benevolent assimilation

versus domestic processes of racialization

Symbolism of absentee father “We are here because you were

there”Intersectionality of

racialization National belonging racialization gendering sexualization

US whiteness properly heteronormative & masculine

Philippine browness savage, primitive, emasculated

EN-GENDERING IDENTITIES

American Son - Performance of “Chicano hypermasculinity” as survival strategy Not dismantling racist/patriarchal

system but attempting to beat itIn the ao dai beauty

pageants, how is Vietnamese femininity performed? And for what purpose?

Woman & Nation

Woman’s body as synecdoche of national body Synecdoche – when a part comes to symbolize

a wholePossession of woman’s body &

possession of land Examples: Miss Lien & Ika Interlocking systems of colonial/militarized

domination and patriarchal dominationWoman as bearer of national culture &

reproducer of nation Protection of women parallels protection of

land – anticolonial yet patriarchal nationalisms

Burden of women as symbol of national & cultural purity

Cultural Politics & Imaging National Identities

What is “cultural politics”? culture (n) – the set of shared attitudes, values, goals,

and practices that characterize an institution, organization or group

How are those shared attitudes, values, goals and practices created? How do people come to identify as belonging to a common culture? Primarily through symbolism, narrative,

ritual and creative productions you come to imagine yourself in community with others that all share the same culture

ao dai pageants & politics

ao dai as counter-symbol of Communist uniform and symbol of alternate Vietnamese nationalism

ao dai pageant: as celebration of Vietnamese

feminine beauty in opposition to white beauty standard

as tool for shaping 2nd generation ethnic identity

Ao dai pageant contradictions “hybridized beauty”?

Fil Am Cultural Politics & Palengke Pageants

What is “palengke-style politics”?

How do beauty pageants in the Filipino American community compare/contrast with the ao dai pageants?

What type of Filipino American identity is created through “palengke” politics and its beauty pageants?