Monoculture Culture
In her essay “Points of Pressure,” Caroline Bergvall writes:
For many bicultural artists and writers, the processes of identity and of writing acquisition go hand in hand with aspects of cultural belonging and the way this articulates their lived body and speaking voice. When the writer’s cultural and social body accommodates two or three languages and/or cultures, their inscriptive narratives and poetics are necessarily at a break from a monolingual textual body-type and a nationally defined writing culture. It is often accompanied by a propensity towards open-forms and mixed genres, remains dubious and questioning of defining terms, can be resistant of exile or immigrant narratives and their inward longing for a traditionalist past where identities are firmly locked in place, rather than in play.
I was recently on a panel about the “unnameability” of “innovative,” “avant-garde,” “conceptual,” or “experimental” writing with Shelley Jackson, Vanessa Place, Teresa Carmody, and Gretchen Henderson. Towards the end of the panel, someone asked if any of us write in languages other than English. At the time, this question struck me as strange, not strange as in odd but strange as in jarring. For the bulk of the panel, we got questions we expected, questions about the politics of conceptual writing, process, community, even the “feminism” of it, but then there, at the end, a question about language & a language not English. (For the record, we all had to admit we write only in English, despite our knowledge of other languages. Gretchen, however, did say she once wrote a poem–a very short poem–in Spanish.)
Despite growing up bilingual, I live in a monolingual culture. I’ve been told my writing has an “Oriental flavor.” I live in a monoculture culture. If I could count the number of times “Asian American writer” has preceded my name in a review or an article, as if my name didn’t call enough attention to itself… I live in a monoculture culture that claims to be “multi” in mumbles and whispers. Let’s not forget, we have a black president now! To be any louder would be begging to be called out. Bullshit on all that, I say. Bullshit! And yet, here we all here. Despite our mixed forms, our mixed genres, how much of our writing is nationally defined? And more importantly, how much is lost by not confronting and confusing our multilingual, multicultural cultures?
There’s so much more to Bergvall’s two sentences that I haven’t even touched. Feel free, feel free.
Lily,
I don’t understand why you object to “Asian American writer.” That seems to run counter to “monoculture.” I used to be annoyed when people would suggest my poetry seemed foreign or “not poetry” but translation etc, but I’ve long since decided to take that as a compliment.
Johannes
Lily,
I don’t understand why you object to “Asian American writer.” That seems to run counter to “monoculture.” I used to be annoyed when people would suggest my poetry seemed foreign or “not poetry” but translation etc, but I’ve long since decided to take that as a compliment.
Johannes
Lily,
I don’t understand why you object to “Asian American writer.” That seems to run counter to “monoculture.” I used to be annoyed when people would suggest my poetry seemed foreign or “not poetry” but translation etc, but I’ve long since decided to take that as a compliment.
Johannes
Johannes- I don’t actually object to it, I just don’t want to be categorized solely as such. What I meant was that the necessity to differentiate me with such a tag is exactly that: a need to differentiate. There’s a difference between someone saying your poetry is foreign v. someone saying YOU are a foreigner. One may be a compliment. The other is stating the obvious.
Furthermore, there is a precedence for Asian American writing that I’m trying work against, although this may be all the more reason for me to embrace (rather than critique) the term.
How’s South Bend, by the way? I miss it in the strangest ways.
Johannes- I don’t actually object to it, I just don’t want to be categorized solely as such. What I meant was that the necessity to differentiate me with such a tag is exactly that: a need to differentiate. There’s a difference between someone saying your poetry is foreign v. someone saying YOU are a foreigner. One may be a compliment. The other is stating the obvious.
Furthermore, there is a precedence for Asian American writing that I’m trying work against, although this may be all the more reason for me to embrace (rather than critique) the term.
How’s South Bend, by the way? I miss it in the strangest ways.
Johannes- I don’t actually object to it, I just don’t want to be categorized solely as such. What I meant was that the necessity to differentiate me with such a tag is exactly that: a need to differentiate. There’s a difference between someone saying your poetry is foreign v. someone saying YOU are a foreigner. One may be a compliment. The other is stating the obvious.
Furthermore, there is a precedence for Asian American writing that I’m trying work against, although this may be all the more reason for me to embrace (rather than critique) the term.
How’s South Bend, by the way? I miss it in the strangest ways.
There’s a lot to talk about when discussing multicultural writers and the forms their writing take as well as how they (we?) identify as writers. I have gone through so many phases as a writer–rebelling against being labeled a woman writer, Haitian writer, black writer; performing those identities in an exaggerated manner (I was 19, couldn’t be avoided); and now, finally, settling into a happier place between those two extremes.
A great deal is lost when we don’t confront, confuse, complicate our multiculturality. A lot of interesting things can happen and I do think that the multicultural approach does make it possible to do new things with writing and genre. Lately I’ve been doing some writing in both english and spanish as well as english/french/creole. It has been really interesting because part of me thinks, is this useful if no one can read it unless they’re like me, from an island where all four of these languages are used regularly?
African writers have been having a debate for years about the languages they write in, and how those languages complement or contradict their cultural identities etc. In his speech, The African Writer and the English Language, Chinua Achebe said, “Is it right that a man should abandon his mother tongue for someone else’s? It looks like a dreadful betrayal and produces a guilty feeling. But for me there is no other choice. I have been given the language and I intend to use it.” (And this reminds me of Audre Lourde on the master’s tools dismantling the master’s house, another perspective.) He also said, “I feel that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit new African surroundings.” Finally, ever the pragmatist, he rationalizes, “And there are scores of languages I would want to learn if it were possible. Where am I to find the time to learn the half dozen or so Nigerian languages, each of which can sustain a literature? I am afraid it cannot be done. These languages will just have to develop as tributaries to feed the one central language enjoying nationwide currency. Today, for good or ill, that language is English. Tomorrow it may be something else, although I very much doubt it. ”
That was 35 years ago but even today, scholars like Suresh Canagarajah are talking about World Englishes and broadening our understanding of what English is and can be as well as what it means to write in English as a postcolonial subject as well as what it means to write in other languages.
Ngugu Wa Thiong’o on the other hand was pretty militant about not writing in English and believed that writing in English erased cultural memory, that anything written in the colonizer’s language could not be considered African literature. His book Decolonising the Mind is well worth the read.
Anyway. I find it really interesting, what it means to use language, any language, to write and thinking about African literature has always been an interesting thing for me to address the idea of monoculture.
This is sort of off topic, but it isn’t. Thanks for a really interesting post.
There’s a lot to talk about when discussing multicultural writers and the forms their writing take as well as how they (we?) identify as writers. I have gone through so many phases as a writer–rebelling against being labeled a woman writer, Haitian writer, black writer; performing those identities in an exaggerated manner (I was 19, couldn’t be avoided); and now, finally, settling into a happier place between those two extremes.
A great deal is lost when we don’t confront, confuse, complicate our multiculturality. A lot of interesting things can happen and I do think that the multicultural approach does make it possible to do new things with writing and genre. Lately I’ve been doing some writing in both english and spanish as well as english/french/creole. It has been really interesting because part of me thinks, is this useful if no one can read it unless they’re like me, from an island where all four of these languages are used regularly?
African writers have been having a debate for years about the languages they write in, and how those languages complement or contradict their cultural identities etc. In his speech, The African Writer and the English Language, Chinua Achebe said, “Is it right that a man should abandon his mother tongue for someone else’s? It looks like a dreadful betrayal and produces a guilty feeling. But for me there is no other choice. I have been given the language and I intend to use it.” (And this reminds me of Audre Lourde on the master’s tools dismantling the master’s house, another perspective.) He also said, “I feel that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit new African surroundings.” Finally, ever the pragmatist, he rationalizes, “And there are scores of languages I would want to learn if it were possible. Where am I to find the time to learn the half dozen or so Nigerian languages, each of which can sustain a literature? I am afraid it cannot be done. These languages will just have to develop as tributaries to feed the one central language enjoying nationwide currency. Today, for good or ill, that language is English. Tomorrow it may be something else, although I very much doubt it. ”
That was 35 years ago but even today, scholars like Suresh Canagarajah are talking about World Englishes and broadening our understanding of what English is and can be as well as what it means to write in English as a postcolonial subject as well as what it means to write in other languages.
Ngugu Wa Thiong’o on the other hand was pretty militant about not writing in English and believed that writing in English erased cultural memory, that anything written in the colonizer’s language could not be considered African literature. His book Decolonising the Mind is well worth the read.
Anyway. I find it really interesting, what it means to use language, any language, to write and thinking about African literature has always been an interesting thing for me to address the idea of monoculture.
This is sort of off topic, but it isn’t. Thanks for a really interesting post.
There’s a lot to talk about when discussing multicultural writers and the forms their writing take as well as how they (we?) identify as writers. I have gone through so many phases as a writer–rebelling against being labeled a woman writer, Haitian writer, black writer; performing those identities in an exaggerated manner (I was 19, couldn’t be avoided); and now, finally, settling into a happier place between those two extremes.
A great deal is lost when we don’t confront, confuse, complicate our multiculturality. A lot of interesting things can happen and I do think that the multicultural approach does make it possible to do new things with writing and genre. Lately I’ve been doing some writing in both english and spanish as well as english/french/creole. It has been really interesting because part of me thinks, is this useful if no one can read it unless they’re like me, from an island where all four of these languages are used regularly?
African writers have been having a debate for years about the languages they write in, and how those languages complement or contradict their cultural identities etc. In his speech, The African Writer and the English Language, Chinua Achebe said, “Is it right that a man should abandon his mother tongue for someone else’s? It looks like a dreadful betrayal and produces a guilty feeling. But for me there is no other choice. I have been given the language and I intend to use it.” (And this reminds me of Audre Lourde on the master’s tools dismantling the master’s house, another perspective.) He also said, “I feel that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit new African surroundings.” Finally, ever the pragmatist, he rationalizes, “And there are scores of languages I would want to learn if it were possible. Where am I to find the time to learn the half dozen or so Nigerian languages, each of which can sustain a literature? I am afraid it cannot be done. These languages will just have to develop as tributaries to feed the one central language enjoying nationwide currency. Today, for good or ill, that language is English. Tomorrow it may be something else, although I very much doubt it. ”
That was 35 years ago but even today, scholars like Suresh Canagarajah are talking about World Englishes and broadening our understanding of what English is and can be as well as what it means to write in English as a postcolonial subject as well as what it means to write in other languages.
Ngugu Wa Thiong’o on the other hand was pretty militant about not writing in English and believed that writing in English erased cultural memory, that anything written in the colonizer’s language could not be considered African literature. His book Decolonising the Mind is well worth the read.
Anyway. I find it really interesting, what it means to use language, any language, to write and thinking about African literature has always been an interesting thing for me to address the idea of monoculture.
This is sort of off topic, but it isn’t. Thanks for a really interesting post.
I’ll write more about this on my blog this afternoon maybe.
But in short I think the dismissal (I’ve argued on my blog and elsewhere that the foreigner is seen as kitsch) hides/protects against the argument Bergvall makes. The way of dealing with being made into the foreigner I think is not to hide from it (I’m just really an american writer), but to exploit the anxieties projected on that subject position (the Asian-American, the Foreigner etc). Well, that’s not the only thing to do, but it’s one thing one can do.
Johannes
I’ll write more about this on my blog this afternoon maybe.
But in short I think the dismissal (I’ve argued on my blog and elsewhere that the foreigner is seen as kitsch) hides/protects against the argument Bergvall makes. The way of dealing with being made into the foreigner I think is not to hide from it (I’m just really an american writer), but to exploit the anxieties projected on that subject position (the Asian-American, the Foreigner etc). Well, that’s not the only thing to do, but it’s one thing one can do.
Johannes
I’ll write more about this on my blog this afternoon maybe.
But in short I think the dismissal (I’ve argued on my blog and elsewhere that the foreigner is seen as kitsch) hides/protects against the argument Bergvall makes. The way of dealing with being made into the foreigner I think is not to hide from it (I’m just really an american writer), but to exploit the anxieties projected on that subject position (the Asian-American, the Foreigner etc). Well, that’s not the only thing to do, but it’s one thing one can do.
Johannes
J: I’m certainly not hiding from my positionality, nor would I ever want to consider myself solely an “american writer.” I haven’t changed my name (though I could have when I got married?). Nor do I dismiss the term “Asian American.” Both my books use that tag to describe me, and I approved it! I accepted the PEN award, which was explicitly for “minority” writers.
But I agree with you completely: the foreigner is seen as kitsch, and to dismiss foreign-ness does hide/protect against Bergvall’s argument. And I’d argue that I do attempt to exploit, or at the very least call attention to, the anxieties projected on my positionality, as woman, as other, etc. Or I try to.
In short, Johannes, I think we’re in agreement, mostly. I think maybe my argument got a little muddled, as it often does. I look forward to yr blog whenever it goes up.
J: I’m certainly not hiding from my positionality, nor would I ever want to consider myself solely an “american writer.” I haven’t changed my name (though I could have when I got married?). Nor do I dismiss the term “Asian American.” Both my books use that tag to describe me, and I approved it! I accepted the PEN award, which was explicitly for “minority” writers.
But I agree with you completely: the foreigner is seen as kitsch, and to dismiss foreign-ness does hide/protect against Bergvall’s argument. And I’d argue that I do attempt to exploit, or at the very least call attention to, the anxieties projected on my positionality, as woman, as other, etc. Or I try to.
In short, Johannes, I think we’re in agreement, mostly. I think maybe my argument got a little muddled, as it often does. I look forward to yr blog whenever it goes up.
Thank you, Roxane. Thank you.
Thank you, Roxane. Thank you.
J: I’m certainly not hiding from my positionality, nor would I ever want to consider myself solely an “american writer.” I haven’t changed my name (though I could have when I got married?). Nor do I dismiss the term “Asian American.” Both my books use that tag to describe me, and I approved it! I accepted the PEN award, which was explicitly for “minority” writers.
But I agree with you completely: the foreigner is seen as kitsch, and to dismiss foreign-ness does hide/protect against Bergvall’s argument. And I’d argue that I do attempt to exploit, or at the very least call attention to, the anxieties projected on my positionality, as woman, as other, etc. Or I try to.
In short, Johannes, I think we’re in agreement, mostly. I think maybe my argument got a little muddled, as it often does. I look forward to yr blog whenever it goes up.
Thank you, Roxane. Thank you.
I also wanted to say that both Roxanne’s and Lily’s posts pick up on an important features of Bergvall’s argument through a very wide idea of translation and/or writing in various languages. I think that’s important.
I also wanted to say that both Roxanne’s and Lily’s posts pick up on an important features of Bergvall’s argument through a very wide idea of translation and/or writing in various languages. I think that’s important.
I also wanted to say that both Roxanne’s and Lily’s posts pick up on an important features of Bergvall’s argument through a very wide idea of translation and/or writing in various languages. I think that’s important.
I say I am an American poet from Croatia, and still don’t quite know what that means. Obvs. “American poet” doesn’t mean only one thing (white guy sitting in a cabin watching foxes make out with berries on his breath, to quote Jim Behrle); there is no one pure English (my English has a lot of Other in it, but so does everyone else’s), but purely practically, my body is on American soil most of the year. So I write within the body of America. I can’t even say I was born in Croatia, my official nationality, because back then it wasn’t Croatia — it was Yugoslavia — but I did travel here “from” there. Culturally, I do feel “of” Croatia too — an anachronistic Croatia perhaps — and in reviews there they call me “theirs.” I suspect it’s the Other they hear in my English that to them signals Our. So whose am I? Can I be everyone’s, or more importantly, my own? Nostalgia and erasure (“fitting in”) are really such bodily problems and that might be a part of why they’re so difficult to discuss and imagine one’s way out of. The body means you have to have documents.
In my first decade of writing in English I definitely was “…resistant of exile or immigrant narratives” — a protective strategy, as I’m allergic to “pimping my immigrant narrative” in a marketplace-typified & -demanded way. When they tell me I sound sexy, I shut up. I don’t want to be the magic Eastern European. Yet this unwillingness to touch that narrative (whose big secret is that it really isn’t a linear narrative at all, but a crater) in poems was ultimately crippling. The war will out. And wider, the fact that this giant Other that is America was telling me that it was me who was Other (to be fetishized, or infantilized, or marketed) is not limited to being an immigrant — as a woman and as a queer person I’m hearing the same tune. So I relaxed. I work in the metaphorical field and sing along. It’s called poetry.
I love WCW’s “It’s a strange courage you give me ancient star: Shine alone in the sunrise toward which you lend no part!” — when paralyzed, I used this as a mantra of permission to the immigrant me to shine against the sun-body of the English/American literary canon, which may never validate my contribution.
I say I am an American poet from Croatia, and still don’t quite know what that means. Obvs. “American poet” doesn’t mean only one thing (white guy sitting in a cabin watching foxes make out with berries on his breath, to quote Jim Behrle); there is no one pure English (my English has a lot of Other in it, but so does everyone else’s), but purely practically, my body is on American soil most of the year. So I write within the body of America. I can’t even say I was born in Croatia, my official nationality, because back then it wasn’t Croatia — it was Yugoslavia — but I did travel here “from” there. Culturally, I do feel “of” Croatia too — an anachronistic Croatia perhaps — and in reviews there they call me “theirs.” I suspect it’s the Other they hear in my English that to them signals Our. So whose am I? Can I be everyone’s, or more importantly, my own? Nostalgia and erasure (“fitting in”) are really such bodily problems and that might be a part of why they’re so difficult to discuss and imagine one’s way out of. The body means you have to have documents.
In my first decade of writing in English I definitely was “…resistant of exile or immigrant narratives” — a protective strategy, as I’m allergic to “pimping my immigrant narrative” in a marketplace-typified & -demanded way. When they tell me I sound sexy, I shut up. I don’t want to be the magic Eastern European. Yet this unwillingness to touch that narrative (whose big secret is that it really isn’t a linear narrative at all, but a crater) in poems was ultimately crippling. The war will out. And wider, the fact that this giant Other that is America was telling me that it was me who was Other (to be fetishized, or infantilized, or marketed) is not limited to being an immigrant — as a woman and as a queer person I’m hearing the same tune. So I relaxed. I work in the metaphorical field and sing along. It’s called poetry.
I love WCW’s “It’s a strange courage you give me ancient star: Shine alone in the sunrise toward which you lend no part!” — when paralyzed, I used this as a mantra of permission to the immigrant me to shine against the sun-body of the English/American literary canon, which may never validate my contribution.
I say I am an American poet from Croatia, and still don’t quite know what that means. Obvs. “American poet” doesn’t mean only one thing (white guy sitting in a cabin watching foxes make out with berries on his breath, to quote Jim Behrle); there is no one pure English (my English has a lot of Other in it, but so does everyone else’s), but purely practically, my body is on American soil most of the year. So I write within the body of America. I can’t even say I was born in Croatia, my official nationality, because back then it wasn’t Croatia — it was Yugoslavia — but I did travel here “from” there. Culturally, I do feel “of” Croatia too — an anachronistic Croatia perhaps — and in reviews there they call me “theirs.” I suspect it’s the Other they hear in my English that to them signals Our. So whose am I? Can I be everyone’s, or more importantly, my own? Nostalgia and erasure (“fitting in”) are really such bodily problems and that might be a part of why they’re so difficult to discuss and imagine one’s way out of. The body means you have to have documents.
In my first decade of writing in English I definitely was “…resistant of exile or immigrant narratives” — a protective strategy, as I’m allergic to “pimping my immigrant narrative” in a marketplace-typified & -demanded way. When they tell me I sound sexy, I shut up. I don’t want to be the magic Eastern European. Yet this unwillingness to touch that narrative (whose big secret is that it really isn’t a linear narrative at all, but a crater) in poems was ultimately crippling. The war will out. And wider, the fact that this giant Other that is America was telling me that it was me who was Other (to be fetishized, or infantilized, or marketed) is not limited to being an immigrant — as a woman and as a queer person I’m hearing the same tune. So I relaxed. I work in the metaphorical field and sing along. It’s called poetry.
I love WCW’s “It’s a strange courage you give me ancient star: Shine alone in the sunrise toward which you lend no part!” — when paralyzed, I used this as a mantra of permission to the immigrant me to shine against the sun-body of the English/American literary canon, which may never validate my contribution.
Jumping into this fantastic conversation, it’s important to remember that kitsch exists against a backdrop assumed to be “not kitsch,” i.e., assumed to be “normal.” So while Lily is foregrounded with “Asian-American,” I have never been introduced as a “Caucasian-American” writer. I have been called a “woman writer,” though have never heard a man introduced as a “male writer.” (I am rarely called a “queer writer,” despite my proud lesbianism, but I think this is because my fictional characters have not been obviously queer.) In other words, we are all imbued with subject positions that are raced, gendered, classed and more. I like what you have to say, Johannes, about “exploiting the anxieties projected on that subject position,” and I also think it’s important for critical/creative discourse to grapple with/acknowledge the subject position (or “object status” as Vanessa Place has called it) of the privileged. So a certain kind of coming of age story is, for example, working in a male, heterosexual tradition. Or a certain kind of lyric might be called “masculinist.” If I’m understanding correctly, it seems like the monolingual/monocultural element Lily is objecting to is the one that assumes a big-backdrop of normal (i.e., not “Asian-American”).
Jumping into this fantastic conversation, it’s important to remember that kitsch exists against a backdrop assumed to be “not kitsch,” i.e., assumed to be “normal.” So while Lily is foregrounded with “Asian-American,” I have never been introduced as a “Caucasian-American” writer. I have been called a “woman writer,” though have never heard a man introduced as a “male writer.” (I am rarely called a “queer writer,” despite my proud lesbianism, but I think this is because my fictional characters have not been obviously queer.) In other words, we are all imbued with subject positions that are raced, gendered, classed and more. I like what you have to say, Johannes, about “exploiting the anxieties projected on that subject position,” and I also think it’s important for critical/creative discourse to grapple with/acknowledge the subject position (or “object status” as Vanessa Place has called it) of the privileged. So a certain kind of coming of age story is, for example, working in a male, heterosexual tradition. Or a certain kind of lyric might be called “masculinist.” If I’m understanding correctly, it seems like the monolingual/monocultural element Lily is objecting to is the one that assumes a big-backdrop of normal (i.e., not “Asian-American”).
Jumping into this fantastic conversation, it’s important to remember that kitsch exists against a backdrop assumed to be “not kitsch,” i.e., assumed to be “normal.” So while Lily is foregrounded with “Asian-American,” I have never been introduced as a “Caucasian-American” writer. I have been called a “woman writer,” though have never heard a man introduced as a “male writer.” (I am rarely called a “queer writer,” despite my proud lesbianism, but I think this is because my fictional characters have not been obviously queer.) In other words, we are all imbued with subject positions that are raced, gendered, classed and more. I like what you have to say, Johannes, about “exploiting the anxieties projected on that subject position,” and I also think it’s important for critical/creative discourse to grapple with/acknowledge the subject position (or “object status” as Vanessa Place has called it) of the privileged. So a certain kind of coming of age story is, for example, working in a male, heterosexual tradition. Or a certain kind of lyric might be called “masculinist.” If I’m understanding correctly, it seems like the monolingual/monocultural element Lily is objecting to is the one that assumes a big-backdrop of normal (i.e., not “Asian-American”).
On another note and if we extend a notion of “normal” to poetic or narrative traditions, it seems like part of what Bergvall is saying is that a bicultural/multi-lingual lived experience is oftentimes disjunctive with normative literary traditions, including the traditional immigrant narrative, complete with its longing for assimilation, as manifest in its traditional, literary form. Bergvall seems to be saying there is another option: to open up the textual body, to mix genres and forms, to remain skeptical and dubiously outside.
On another note and if we extend a notion of “normal” to poetic or narrative traditions, it seems like part of what Bergvall is saying is that a bicultural/multi-lingual lived experience is oftentimes disjunctive with normative literary traditions, including the traditional immigrant narrative, complete with its longing for assimilation, as manifest in its traditional, literary form. Bergvall seems to be saying there is another option: to open up the textual body, to mix genres and forms, to remain skeptical and dubiously outside.
On another note and if we extend a notion of “normal” to poetic or narrative traditions, it seems like part of what Bergvall is saying is that a bicultural/multi-lingual lived experience is oftentimes disjunctive with normative literary traditions, including the traditional immigrant narrative, complete with its longing for assimilation, as manifest in its traditional, literary form. Bergvall seems to be saying there is another option: to open up the textual body, to mix genres and forms, to remain skeptical and dubiously outside.
yes, yes yes, to ana, johannes, roxane, & teresa!
yes, yes yes, to ana, johannes, roxane, & teresa!
yes, yes yes, to ana, johannes, roxane, & teresa!
Teresa, I agree — the aspirational immigrant narrative is allowed into the restrictive canon as a spinoff of the great American white male coming of age story. Because of their limited knowledge of English immigrant narrators are infantilized back to permadolescence where they dream of the lost childhood paradise (nostalgia for the ‘old country’) and strive towards the — and this is crucial — *real* adult world of their new promised land. The “old” is idealized/the stuff of fairytales, the “new” real, therefore normative. The American dream is really the American real. The immigrant’s old signifiers are useless in the new real, therefore they will be permitted only as colorful souvenirs on the skin of the new real. Of course all this has been said before. But never enough.
Teresa, I agree — the aspirational immigrant narrative is allowed into the restrictive canon as a spinoff of the great American white male coming of age story. Because of their limited knowledge of English immigrant narrators are infantilized back to permadolescence where they dream of the lost childhood paradise (nostalgia for the ‘old country’) and strive towards the — and this is crucial — *real* adult world of their new promised land. The “old” is idealized/the stuff of fairytales, the “new” real, therefore normative. The American dream is really the American real. The immigrant’s old signifiers are useless in the new real, therefore they will be permitted only as colorful souvenirs on the skin of the new real. Of course all this has been said before. But never enough.
Teresa, I agree — the aspirational immigrant narrative is allowed into the restrictive canon as a spinoff of the great American white male coming of age story. Because of their limited knowledge of English immigrant narrators are infantilized back to permadolescence where they dream of the lost childhood paradise (nostalgia for the ‘old country’) and strive towards the — and this is crucial — *real* adult world of their new promised land. The “old” is idealized/the stuff of fairytales, the “new” real, therefore normative. The American dream is really the American real. The immigrant’s old signifiers are useless in the new real, therefore they will be permitted only as colorful souvenirs on the skin of the new real. Of course all this has been said before. But never enough.
Thanks for these thoughtful threads! Rather than echo excellent points already made, I’m curious about the use of “normative” as applied to language. What’s normative about language, always deforming? Why else is there need for new editions of dictionaries, multiple dated entries in the OED, all that jazz? I’m tempted to turn to disability studies to take apart “normalcy” and positionings of observer/observed…(or speaker/spoken to&about)…and heteroglossia as a catch-all term to characterize many-voicedness…but there’s a cognitive aspect to all these lingual embodiments, which helps us identify raced, classed, and gendered markers within the words we speak, so we can critique our own written and aural gestures. In turn, new cognitions can be created (which is why I worry about school systems that don’t teach multiple languages…and cutbacks in Comp Lit programs…simultaneously dreaming of courses that encourage translation…). What cannot be learned by seeing/hearing/participating in turning our native language (whatever that might be) on its head: as subject/verb orders change, as words are read right to left and upside-down, as masculine and feminine endings transpose? Like Roxane mentioned, echoing Audre Lourde using the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house and perspective? It’s the “world order” reduced to morphemes and phonemes, made malleable. Pidgin and creole patterns emerge in sign language acquisition, too, mirroring patterns in spoken language (or the other way around). On the panel with Lily and Teresa, my point about writing bilingually derived from that exercise’s ability to illuminate our own bias. (The example that I used from Spanish was the question, ¿Cómo amaneciste?, essentially: “How did you wake?” as opposed to our English query, “How did you sleep?” The emphasis changes profoundly–) But to return to Lily’s post about hyphenated Americanisms: political positionings wield a two-edged sword: helping to wedge an established space for voicing, while butting up against commodity culture. I’m wary of forgetting history, fraught with (and still foiled by) many discriminations. At the same time, I love what Richard Rodriguez said about the “organization” of his ideal bookstore: “Chaotically. What I love most are secondhand bookstores that are completely disorganized. I get published because there’s a Hispanic shelf–I know that–but that means I’ll always be shelved next to a sociological study of Mexican-Americans in Texas in the 1940s. I’ll never be shelved next to books that created me.” When asked “What books created you?,” Rodriguez replied: “The works of James Baldwin and D.H. Lawrence. When I was a teenager, my brownness gave me the freedom to identify with anyone I wanted…I hate borders. I don’t think a gay Filipino should insist that only another gay Filipino can write about him. I want to feel free to write about Thackeray. That would be the great brown breakthrough. People should be allowed to become illegal immigrants in each other’s lives.” But even in this blog post, I see all my own biases shining through, so feel free to deconstruct this, like Stein encouraged, “I like the feeling the everlasting feeling of sentences as they diagram themselves.” (For the record, the bilingual “very short poem” that I wrote was an eight-page story published in The Iowa Review.) Forgive me for any bumpiness–this is my first blog response ever–
Thanks for these thoughtful threads! Rather than echo excellent points already made, I’m curious about the use of “normative” as applied to language. What’s normative about language, always deforming? Why else is there need for new editions of dictionaries, multiple dated entries in the OED, all that jazz? I’m tempted to turn to disability studies to take apart “normalcy” and positionings of observer/observed…(or speaker/spoken to&about)…and heteroglossia as a catch-all term to characterize many-voicedness…but there’s a cognitive aspect to all these lingual embodiments, which helps us identify raced, classed, and gendered markers within the words we speak, so we can critique our own written and aural gestures. In turn, new cognitions can be created (which is why I worry about school systems that don’t teach multiple languages…and cutbacks in Comp Lit programs…simultaneously dreaming of courses that encourage translation…). What cannot be learned by seeing/hearing/participating in turning our native language (whatever that might be) on its head: as subject/verb orders change, as words are read right to left and upside-down, as masculine and feminine endings transpose? Like Roxane mentioned, echoing Audre Lourde using the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house and perspective? It’s the “world order” reduced to morphemes and phonemes, made malleable. Pidgin and creole patterns emerge in sign language acquisition, too, mirroring patterns in spoken language (or the other way around). On the panel with Lily and Teresa, my point about writing bilingually derived from that exercise’s ability to illuminate our own bias. (The example that I used from Spanish was the question, ¿Cómo amaneciste?, essentially: “How did you wake?” as opposed to our English query, “How did you sleep?” The emphasis changes profoundly–) But to return to Lily’s post about hyphenated Americanisms: political positionings wield a two-edged sword: helping to wedge an established space for voicing, while butting up against commodity culture. I’m wary of forgetting history, fraught with (and still foiled by) many discriminations. At the same time, I love what Richard Rodriguez said about the “organization” of his ideal bookstore: “Chaotically. What I love most are secondhand bookstores that are completely disorganized. I get published because there’s a Hispanic shelf–I know that–but that means I’ll always be shelved next to a sociological study of Mexican-Americans in Texas in the 1940s. I’ll never be shelved next to books that created me.” When asked “What books created you?,” Rodriguez replied: “The works of James Baldwin and D.H. Lawrence. When I was a teenager, my brownness gave me the freedom to identify with anyone I wanted…I hate borders. I don’t think a gay Filipino should insist that only another gay Filipino can write about him. I want to feel free to write about Thackeray. That would be the great brown breakthrough. People should be allowed to become illegal immigrants in each other’s lives.” But even in this blog post, I see all my own biases shining through, so feel free to deconstruct this, like Stein encouraged, “I like the feeling the everlasting feeling of sentences as they diagram themselves.” (For the record, the bilingual “very short poem” that I wrote was an eight-page story published in The Iowa Review.) Forgive me for any bumpiness–this is my first blog response ever–
Thanks for these thoughtful threads! Rather than echo excellent points already made, I’m curious about the use of “normative” as applied to language. What’s normative about language, always deforming? Why else is there need for new editions of dictionaries, multiple dated entries in the OED, all that jazz? I’m tempted to turn to disability studies to take apart “normalcy” and positionings of observer/observed…(or speaker/spoken to&about)…and heteroglossia as a catch-all term to characterize many-voicedness…but there’s a cognitive aspect to all these lingual embodiments, which helps us identify raced, classed, and gendered markers within the words we speak, so we can critique our own written and aural gestures. In turn, new cognitions can be created (which is why I worry about school systems that don’t teach multiple languages…and cutbacks in Comp Lit programs…simultaneously dreaming of courses that encourage translation…). What cannot be learned by seeing/hearing/participating in turning our native language (whatever that might be) on its head: as subject/verb orders change, as words are read right to left and upside-down, as masculine and feminine endings transpose? Like Roxane mentioned, echoing Audre Lourde using the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house and perspective? It’s the “world order” reduced to morphemes and phonemes, made malleable. Pidgin and creole patterns emerge in sign language acquisition, too, mirroring patterns in spoken language (or the other way around). On the panel with Lily and Teresa, my point about writing bilingually derived from that exercise’s ability to illuminate our own bias. (The example that I used from Spanish was the question, ¿Cómo amaneciste?, essentially: “How did you wake?” as opposed to our English query, “How did you sleep?” The emphasis changes profoundly–) But to return to Lily’s post about hyphenated Americanisms: political positionings wield a two-edged sword: helping to wedge an established space for voicing, while butting up against commodity culture. I’m wary of forgetting history, fraught with (and still foiled by) many discriminations. At the same time, I love what Richard Rodriguez said about the “organization” of his ideal bookstore: “Chaotically. What I love most are secondhand bookstores that are completely disorganized. I get published because there’s a Hispanic shelf–I know that–but that means I’ll always be shelved next to a sociological study of Mexican-Americans in Texas in the 1940s. I’ll never be shelved next to books that created me.” When asked “What books created you?,” Rodriguez replied: “The works of James Baldwin and D.H. Lawrence. When I was a teenager, my brownness gave me the freedom to identify with anyone I wanted…I hate borders. I don’t think a gay Filipino should insist that only another gay Filipino can write about him. I want to feel free to write about Thackeray. That would be the great brown breakthrough. People should be allowed to become illegal immigrants in each other’s lives.” But even in this blog post, I see all my own biases shining through, so feel free to deconstruct this, like Stein encouraged, “I like the feeling the everlasting feeling of sentences as they diagram themselves.” (For the record, the bilingual “very short poem” that I wrote was an eight-page story published in The Iowa Review.) Forgive me for any bumpiness–this is my first blog response ever–
The comments on this thread are just so excellent.
The comments on this thread are just so excellent.
The comments on this thread are just so excellent.
Yeah, Gretchen, that was a great comment.
Yeah, Gretchen, that was a great comment.
Yeah, Gretchen, that was a great comment.
i’ll agree: excellent comment, gretchen, and apologies! i thought you said it was a short poem. i have a slippery memory though. i should have double checked that with you before i wrote it.
moreover: excellent comments all around. thank you, all!
i’ll agree: excellent comment, gretchen, and apologies! i thought you said it was a short poem. i have a slippery memory though. i should have double checked that with you before i wrote it.
moreover: excellent comments all around. thank you, all!
i’ll agree: excellent comment, gretchen, and apologies! i thought you said it was a short poem. i have a slippery memory though. i should have double checked that with you before i wrote it.
moreover: excellent comments all around. thank you, all!
Wow, that was an incredible comment (de Gretchen). Just a quick word on what “normative” means to me: it means very practical things, like forced spellchecks in Word. Editorial suggestions that would rather I say “you, America” and not “u, Amerika.” Having to pull poems from journals because of those strictures. Having to speak “proper” English at your INS interview because your legal status hangs in the balance. And having to edit urban- and text- speak out of students’ essays and correct their ESL syntax when those “deformations”/ripples are often what’s most luminous about their Englishes, the rich weave between the lines and stories’ stepping stones.
Wow, that was an incredible comment (de Gretchen). Just a quick word on what “normative” means to me: it means very practical things, like forced spellchecks in Word. Editorial suggestions that would rather I say “you, America” and not “u, Amerika.” Having to pull poems from journals because of those strictures. Having to speak “proper” English at your INS interview because your legal status hangs in the balance. And having to edit urban- and text- speak out of students’ essays and correct their ESL syntax when those “deformations”/ripples are often what’s most luminous about their Englishes, the rich weave between the lines and stories’ stepping stones.
Wow, that was an incredible comment (de Gretchen). Just a quick word on what “normative” means to me: it means very practical things, like forced spellchecks in Word. Editorial suggestions that would rather I say “you, America” and not “u, Amerika.” Having to pull poems from journals because of those strictures. Having to speak “proper” English at your INS interview because your legal status hangs in the balance. And having to edit urban- and text- speak out of students’ essays and correct their ESL syntax when those “deformations”/ripples are often what’s most luminous about their Englishes, the rich weave between the lines and stories’ stepping stones.
Feeding off Gretchen and the notion of the normative, I often wonder, Why would anyone ever want to assimilate?? It’s so goddam drab and restrictive! Even if one could pass flawlessly, and many white male heterosexuals try (and often fail), to do so is itself limiting, a position based on exclusion – and yes, power. Practically speaking (as Ana points out), passing (via birth or assimilation) bestows many gifts of privilege – no need to ‘naturalize’, no need to worry when competing with another American hetero-white male for a job, a pass into something, getting pulled over, etc.
Switching gears, this may be utterly too obvious, but if we’re talking writing, I’d assume one is writing for purer purpose than acceptance and position in the hierarchy that is (we’re creating and transmitting values after all) — and that ‘coming of age’ story (or whatever trite content passes for mainstream thrill) is just so goddam limited and boring in the end. Those who perpetuate that norm know it too and, once arrived via best sellers or celebrated author positions etc, have to keep providing that same content for the machinery that brought him to that point to begin with. To do otherwise: write the queer or the kitsch or anything that doesn’t celebrate and sustain those values and that focus on ‘acceptable’ content/subject matter and it’ll all end in bad reviews, neglect, no more play on the reading routes, etc, practically speaking, again.
I mean, once Huck finds a way to ‘accept’ Jim as a fellow human, what happens to Huck? Where’s that story? How can he sustain as a hetero-white male who walks around in the south with this black guy for his best friend? I mean, he represents that position in the hierarchy and is supposed to defend it… That’s where the story could have really heated up and become interesting. Huck, in some way to develop their friendship, would have had to learn to speak with Jim in Jim’s English and had some measure of seeing through Jim’s lens (thus requiring empathy, new forms of communication, negotiations on how to ‘be’ together, etc) — not to even get started on how Huck would fare attempting to navigate in his ‘superior’ role that requires exclusionary behavior and representation of those beliefs while hypocritically attempting to behave otherwise. He would have had to become evermore dynamic, more than his privileged white man position would permit.
Point is, even the ‘norm’ role, the power position that lays claim to the master’s English is itself dull and limited and many inhabiting it would likely like to kick at those limitations or give up his or her power (I think that’s why so many white men are angry bc they get the bigger trucks and pools but we clearly get to have more fun). Or just dully continue to perpetuate it and fight against those who do buck up against it or sneak into it and fuck it over (Lorde’s tools) and live this utterly mind-numbing writerly existence. I mean, I read the stories written by those “stars” of American literature and often wonder, wtf? I’m supposed to teach and be thrilled by ‘Hills Like White Elephants’? What am I selling here? I’d rather hand them (and do) Miranda July’s “Man on the Stairs”, among many other ‘lesser’ items, and dig our heels into that study of white male existence, if we have to talk about coming of age stories and the like.
Feeding off Gretchen and the notion of the normative, I often wonder, Why would anyone ever want to assimilate?? It’s so goddam drab and restrictive! Even if one could pass flawlessly, and many white male heterosexuals try (and often fail), to do so is itself limiting, a position based on exclusion – and yes, power. Practically speaking (as Ana points out), passing (via birth or assimilation) bestows many gifts of privilege – no need to ‘naturalize’, no need to worry when competing with another American hetero-white male for a job, a pass into something, getting pulled over, etc.
Switching gears, this may be utterly too obvious, but if we’re talking writing, I’d assume one is writing for purer purpose than acceptance and position in the hierarchy that is (we’re creating and transmitting values after all) — and that ‘coming of age’ story (or whatever trite content passes for mainstream thrill) is just so goddam limited and boring in the end. Those who perpetuate that norm know it too and, once arrived via best sellers or celebrated author positions etc, have to keep providing that same content for the machinery that brought him to that point to begin with. To do otherwise: write the queer or the kitsch or anything that doesn’t celebrate and sustain those values and that focus on ‘acceptable’ content/subject matter and it’ll all end in bad reviews, neglect, no more play on the reading routes, etc, practically speaking, again.
I mean, once Huck finds a way to ‘accept’ Jim as a fellow human, what happens to Huck? Where’s that story? How can he sustain as a hetero-white male who walks around in the south with this black guy for his best friend? I mean, he represents that position in the hierarchy and is supposed to defend it… That’s where the story could have really heated up and become interesting. Huck, in some way to develop their friendship, would have had to learn to speak with Jim in Jim’s English and had some measure of seeing through Jim’s lens (thus requiring empathy, new forms of communication, negotiations on how to ‘be’ together, etc) — not to even get started on how Huck would fare attempting to navigate in his ‘superior’ role that requires exclusionary behavior and representation of those beliefs while hypocritically attempting to behave otherwise. He would have had to become evermore dynamic, more than his privileged white man position would permit.
Point is, even the ‘norm’ role, the power position that lays claim to the master’s English is itself dull and limited and many inhabiting it would likely like to kick at those limitations or give up his or her power (I think that’s why so many white men are angry bc they get the bigger trucks and pools but we clearly get to have more fun). Or just dully continue to perpetuate it and fight against those who do buck up against it or sneak into it and fuck it over (Lorde’s tools) and live this utterly mind-numbing writerly existence. I mean, I read the stories written by those “stars” of American literature and often wonder, wtf? I’m supposed to teach and be thrilled by ‘Hills Like White Elephants’? What am I selling here? I’d rather hand them (and do) Miranda July’s “Man on the Stairs”, among many other ‘lesser’ items, and dig our heels into that study of white male existence, if we have to talk about coming of age stories and the like.
Feeding off Gretchen and the notion of the normative, I often wonder, Why would anyone ever want to assimilate?? It’s so goddam drab and restrictive! Even if one could pass flawlessly, and many white male heterosexuals try (and often fail), to do so is itself limiting, a position based on exclusion – and yes, power. Practically speaking (as Ana points out), passing (via birth or assimilation) bestows many gifts of privilege – no need to ‘naturalize’, no need to worry when competing with another American hetero-white male for a job, a pass into something, getting pulled over, etc.
Switching gears, this may be utterly too obvious, but if we’re talking writing, I’d assume one is writing for purer purpose than acceptance and position in the hierarchy that is (we’re creating and transmitting values after all) — and that ‘coming of age’ story (or whatever trite content passes for mainstream thrill) is just so goddam limited and boring in the end. Those who perpetuate that norm know it too and, once arrived via best sellers or celebrated author positions etc, have to keep providing that same content for the machinery that brought him to that point to begin with. To do otherwise: write the queer or the kitsch or anything that doesn’t celebrate and sustain those values and that focus on ‘acceptable’ content/subject matter and it’ll all end in bad reviews, neglect, no more play on the reading routes, etc, practically speaking, again.
I mean, once Huck finds a way to ‘accept’ Jim as a fellow human, what happens to Huck? Where’s that story? How can he sustain as a hetero-white male who walks around in the south with this black guy for his best friend? I mean, he represents that position in the hierarchy and is supposed to defend it… That’s where the story could have really heated up and become interesting. Huck, in some way to develop their friendship, would have had to learn to speak with Jim in Jim’s English and had some measure of seeing through Jim’s lens (thus requiring empathy, new forms of communication, negotiations on how to ‘be’ together, etc) — not to even get started on how Huck would fare attempting to navigate in his ‘superior’ role that requires exclusionary behavior and representation of those beliefs while hypocritically attempting to behave otherwise. He would have had to become evermore dynamic, more than his privileged white man position would permit.
Point is, even the ‘norm’ role, the power position that lays claim to the master’s English is itself dull and limited and many inhabiting it would likely like to kick at those limitations or give up his or her power (I think that’s why so many white men are angry bc they get the bigger trucks and pools but we clearly get to have more fun). Or just dully continue to perpetuate it and fight against those who do buck up against it or sneak into it and fuck it over (Lorde’s tools) and live this utterly mind-numbing writerly existence. I mean, I read the stories written by those “stars” of American literature and often wonder, wtf? I’m supposed to teach and be thrilled by ‘Hills Like White Elephants’? What am I selling here? I’d rather hand them (and do) Miranda July’s “Man on the Stairs”, among many other ‘lesser’ items, and dig our heels into that study of white male existence, if we have to talk about coming of age stories and the like.
Hi, super interesting post and discussion here. Love all the expansive commentary & ideas. Esp. Ana’s comment about Amerika being the giant Other, which I think is becoming ever more true in the literal sense. Amerika the kitsch Other of Kafka, of Nabokov who shewed us that English ’tis a great drag language to work with. A million other examples today, growing and multiplying daily.
Backing up to Lily’s ambivalence about the term Asian American, which I can def. relate to in so many ways, I feel like noting that that term, perhaps moreso than any other similarly hyphenated term in the US, is synthetic by definition. Invented as an umbrella term to amplify political voice, to make a coalition from a diverse group of ethnicities that would have never by themselves, numerically speaking, been able to achieve the necessary critical mass. So Asian American as the rallying cry of 1970s radicalism, turned multicultural-identity mainstreaming, turned new target demographic for consumer ads, all in a few short decades, following the dictates of the market. What this has to do with literature and how one likes to see books shelved, I don’t know, will never fully know. But I like to think that the synthetic nature of the term holds the door of possibility wide open for art, its threshold a birthing ground for all kinds of postcolonial cyborgs & postcapitalist monsters who may, at any time whenever they wish, kick the term into outer space.
Hi, super interesting post and discussion here. Love all the expansive commentary & ideas. Esp. Ana’s comment about Amerika being the giant Other, which I think is becoming ever more true in the literal sense. Amerika the kitsch Other of Kafka, of Nabokov who shewed us that English ’tis a great drag language to work with. A million other examples today, growing and multiplying daily.
Backing up to Lily’s ambivalence about the term Asian American, which I can def. relate to in so many ways, I feel like noting that that term, perhaps moreso than any other similarly hyphenated term in the US, is synthetic by definition. Invented as an umbrella term to amplify political voice, to make a coalition from a diverse group of ethnicities that would have never by themselves, numerically speaking, been able to achieve the necessary critical mass. So Asian American as the rallying cry of 1970s radicalism, turned multicultural-identity mainstreaming, turned new target demographic for consumer ads, all in a few short decades, following the dictates of the market. What this has to do with literature and how one likes to see books shelved, I don’t know, will never fully know. But I like to think that the synthetic nature of the term holds the door of possibility wide open for art, its threshold a birthing ground for all kinds of postcolonial cyborgs & postcapitalist monsters who may, at any time whenever they wish, kick the term into outer space.
Hi, super interesting post and discussion here. Love all the expansive commentary & ideas. Esp. Ana’s comment about Amerika being the giant Other, which I think is becoming ever more true in the literal sense. Amerika the kitsch Other of Kafka, of Nabokov who shewed us that English ’tis a great drag language to work with. A million other examples today, growing and multiplying daily.
Backing up to Lily’s ambivalence about the term Asian American, which I can def. relate to in so many ways, I feel like noting that that term, perhaps moreso than any other similarly hyphenated term in the US, is synthetic by definition. Invented as an umbrella term to amplify political voice, to make a coalition from a diverse group of ethnicities that would have never by themselves, numerically speaking, been able to achieve the necessary critical mass. So Asian American as the rallying cry of 1970s radicalism, turned multicultural-identity mainstreaming, turned new target demographic for consumer ads, all in a few short decades, following the dictates of the market. What this has to do with literature and how one likes to see books shelved, I don’t know, will never fully know. But I like to think that the synthetic nature of the term holds the door of possibility wide open for art, its threshold a birthing ground for all kinds of postcolonial cyborgs & postcapitalist monsters who may, at any time whenever they wish, kick the term into outer space.
this conversation intrigues/excites me! i know the post/thread is ancient history, but maybe some of you are still checking back? if so, i am curious to know what works/authors you are thinking of when you mention “exile or immigrant narratives”?
this conversation intrigues/excites me! i know the post/thread is ancient history, but maybe some of you are still checking back? if so, i am curious to know what works/authors you are thinking of when you mention “exile or immigrant narratives”?
this conversation intrigues/excites me! i know the post/thread is ancient history, but maybe some of you are still checking back? if so, i am curious to know what works/authors you are thinking of when you mention “exile or immigrant narratives”?