Category: Discussion Board 1

I learn that she had a hard time looking for research on her grandmother and other Indians as well.  Bahadur’s process into learning her about was hard because a lot of her stories about her grandmother stories were word of mouth or old ship manifest. The limits were lots of the archives were gone,  looking at old images, going to Indian offices into London and hearing at oral tradition from other sources. She address these limits by saying that many of the women voice’s were silent either by sexual abuse or by the white man keeping Indians quiet, to have their power over them. The data I might research is history on my family now in America and then their travel from where ever they are from. Next, I would try and find any type of embassy that is related to my family history and ask to look in their archives to see any ship manifest.

The person that was interviewed was from the Viet stories and her name is Amy Huyen Le. Amy is a struggling artist who is Vietnamese – American. Her mother is a single mom and she has not interact with her dad ever since she was one. She does not know much about her mother’s immigration because her mother does not like to talk about her past of coming to America. The oral history confirms my ideas about many Asian Americans either knows a lot, know some or know none about their parents migration to America. I want to know more about if Asian immigrants  regret coming to America or do they love being here.

1.) During my reading of Gaiutra Bahadur, I learned her research process which was very difficult to the history records she found to be so one-sided. As a result of these limitations, she had to become creative in the way she’d find her sources/information which led to her going to her great-grandmother’s village among other ways. By going out of her way to find more information regarding her great-grandmother, Bahadur opened herself up to more ideas of what possibly led her great-grandmother’s journey from Calcutta to British Guyana. Now if I were to construct an archive for my own family history, I’d go to sources such as historical archives in Spain and the US since the Philippines was under the control of both countries for a long period of time.

2.) The person I watched be interviewed was Wilson Chow. He was originally from Hong Kong but he immigrated with his family in 1990 to the US. Prior to coming to the US, he was a dental assistant for quite some time. As for his oral history, I already knew that most immigrants, especially of Asian descent are always hardworking and to see it be a constant trait made me proud to be one. However, he confirmed an idea I’ve had ever since my freshman year here at BMCC and that is how immigrants really sacrifice so much in order to live a better life in a new country and yet still persist in the face of adversity. In conclusion, not much surprises me since I’ve read extensively prior to this class the conditions that Chinese railroad workers faced such as discrimination and the Chinese Exclusion Act which was brought up in the video.

During Bahadur researches her great-grandmother’s history, I was surprised that many Asian women had been exploited for a longtime age. What I learned about Bahadur’s research is there was no record that explain what women think and express what they express their emotion at that time. The limits of the archive are she can only know what the happening is going at that moment through the record in office; records are silent. In order to treat these limits, she had no choice but to rely on her own journey. If I were to construct an archive of my family history, I would ask my parents first because I think it is a right way to know about my ancestors. And then I would meet my relatives to interview what they say about them.

The person who I watched was Connie Young Yu who is a Chinese American. She was born in Los Angeles, California. Her father was in Overseas for World War II in China, he was a liaison officer. In 1974, her father moved her and her sister to San Francisco and he came back from the War. She went to public school in San Francisco and graduated at Mills College in Oakland major in English. And then she got married with Dr. Hu Ping and they have three children. She always knows about the railroad because her parents are very active about the Chinese Historical Society. Her father told her that his childhood and old railroad workers. Her father said there were many Chinese who were killed on the railroad. He said that the Chinese suffered really sad and terrible. She wanted to be a writer, a novelist-fiction, Chinese-America. In order to research about the history of Chinese, she went to Stanford graduate library and she saw the quote “I’d like to make a toast to the forgotten and neglected contingent of builders of the railroad the Chinese.” This quote made her life to write nonfiction. And then she stared to write the story of the Chinese-America. I wondered if I could say that the pain, or discrimination, suffered by the Chinese in the days of her father, great-grandfather, had been completely eliminated today.

First of all, I’d like to say that I think this was an excellent article by Bahadur. She points out a major flaw in our records of history – that usually only those who are in power or are wealthy are capable of creating written records of their experiences. Not surprisingly, groups of people who are subjected to unfair and agonizing lives, such as these women from South Asia, lacked the necessary tools to record their experiences. It seems like a common theme throughout history that those who are oppressed were incapable of expressing themselves, unable to make themselves heard. Bahadur suggests an interesting solution. She suggests that through speculating answers to many questions regarding self identity of ourselves and of our ancestors, we can attempt to form an image of the experiences that they have gone through. If I were to construct an archive of your own family history, the first place I would go to is my parents. An oral record can form a chain of information and experiences going through the generations. I can ask my parents about their parents, who may have known about their parents, so on and so forth. While a written record of history may not exist, there may be a hidden oral one preserved through the generations.

I watched the interview of Grant Din. He tells the story of his great-great-grandfather, Gong Gim Hik, who worked on the railroad. Despite all of Grants efforts, he has been unable to find any sort of written record of his great great grandfathers immigration and work. This is something that is very similar to the dilemna Bahadur discussed in her article. The only information he was able to obtain was from oral records. He talks about how Gong Gim Hik opened a local laundry business to make money and build a new life here in the United States. The whole recounting is really cool, and it definitely confirms what I had previously thought, that many people immigrated to the United States in search of a better life. What I would like to know is what kind of hardships these people faced on a day-to-day basis. I can imagine it is fairly difficult moving to a country where people speak a different language and have a much different culture.

After reading Gaiutra Bahadur’s piece on her search for her great grandmother’s history, it was evident that learning about these roots would  be an obstacle riddled mission. Upon the analyzation of Bahadur’s process of retracing these steps, I gained an understanding of just how difficult it is to find these answers without information. Much of these historical recordings are biased and written by white, racist, sexist men who control these women. At this point, it has become undoubtedly clear that not even official records can be 100% trusted by POC. Official historic archives are limited. Majority of these delicate sheets of memory are lost through time. Bahadur’s process has yet again found itself in a new predicament yet she triumphs over this issue with determination and some might even say, creativity. She addresses this problem by looking towards unofficial records like photographs, folk songs, oral histories and colonial era postcards to piece together the puzzle that is her family’s history. A construction of my family’s historic archive would include birth certificates, passports, doctor’s appointment, high school and college diplomas, photos, and a lot of oral history from a primary source. In my personal opinion, it is crucial to understand a person in order to understand their choices. Primary sources are important because they have come in contact with that specific person and can arguably convey that person’s journey better than any biased piece of paper. I would also look into Spain and Japan’s archives because I know my family had strong roots from both when the Philippines were under their jurisdiction.

Connie Young Yu is born in Los Angeles California to parents, John and Mary Young. Her great grandfather, Lee Wong Sang was a foreman for the central pacific railroad. Yu attended Mills College in pursuit of being a friction novelist when she decided to volunteer and contribute a piece to the Chinese Historical Society. She wrote about the Chinese pioneers of the great Chinese railroad and found her passion for non-friction writing. In her research through historic archives from Stanford, she discovered many useful quotes and recordings about the mistreatment towards the Chinese and the success of the railroads as a result of Chinese labor. She then goes in detail about her great grandfather’s journey as a Chinese laborer. She talked about his hardships as an immigrant Chinese laborer working on a dollar a day salary while supporting an entire family in China. Lee Wong Sang fortunately has a graceful ending. Yu’s great grandfather flew back and forth to China and America, after he sent his children to America, he finally settled down and built a house in China where he died of old age with his wife and childhood sweetheart. This interview confirmed the ideas I’ve had about Chinese railroad laborers. They were hardworking people willing to look past the discrimination and mistreatments for family and legacy. There wasn’t much missing from this interview. In my opinion Connie Young Yu did an amazing job with extensive research about her family’s history with the Chinese railroad. It was amazing to see how far they’ve come in terms of academic achievements and success.

 

1. To start off, Bahadur wanted to research about the history of her great grandmother & why she decided to go aboard a ship while she was 4 months pregnant all alone, especially because she did not leave any “letters or diaries describing the circumstances that led her to climb aboard a ship” as stated by Bahadur herself. During her journey she found written documents that were left there by planters, captains, immigration agents, all which stated how they all slept with these Indian women, which was an issue for Bahadur because not only did it limit her on constructing the information she needed, but this also left out information from the women’s point of view such as how they felt on a day by day basis, or what their everyday thoughts, were. This made Bahadur much more curious, especially since women at the time were “illiterate” which is why there is not a single existing narrative from a woman at that time. This lead to Bahadur expanding her ways of finding information about these women, such as going back to the village where her grandmother is from and studying unofficial sources such as the songs that was listened to at the time, the photographs that were taken, the tattoos people used to have or even postcards that were found. She even went as far as studying about her own journey in India and her current profession so she can acquire as much knowledge as possible. Honestly this helped me realize how much women were restricted back then and the amount of information we do not have because of the fact that they were not educated enough to leave documents from their point of view. On top of that, it made me want to go out and even learn about my own history with my family and just my country in general. If I was to construct an archive about my own family I would start off by researching how the country (Dominican Republic) was doing around those times economically & even politically. On top of that I would fly out to Dominican Republic and ask my grandma, uncles, and neighbors about how life was for them back in the day & even how hard it was for their family as well.

The person I watched was Grant Din, who lives in Oakland and is the great great grandson of Gong Him Hik, and helped his family complete the journey of migrating to the United States. Gong Gim Hik, the great great grandfather, was someone who worked on the railroad in the United States which motivated him to bring his whole family back. Grant Believes his great great grandfather was an adventurous person specifically because he decided to travel all the way from a small village called “Lok Cheung” Village to Nevada so he could work on the railroad, then go back to get his wife and family to travel right back to the states. Grant din struggled on finding written down information about his great great grandfather migrating to the United States, however there was an author who wrote a book which was based on how Chinese people migrated to the United States, which mentioned the small village his great great grandfather lived in and how people from the village worked on the railroad back in the United States. In addition, Grant had family members such as uncles, aunts & even his grandfather which confirmed the story. In addition Grant got most of his information confirmed by a website called ancestry.com which helped him understand more. When his great great grandfather migrated to the United States, they ended up opening a local laundry business to try and make money to bring in the rest of the family from china to the United States. What surprises me the most is the fact that his great great grandfather was basically fascinated by the life in the United States and worked so hard to bring his whole family back and start a new life here. This oral history confirms for me that asian Americans came to the United States the same reason many other races migrated as well which was for a better & new life. I would like to know about the day to day lifestyle & process it took to migrate to the United States.

During Bahadur’s research on the history of his great-grandmother, I learned that Asian women had a very difficult time during that period, and they were forced to sign indentured labourer or coolies. I learned that they are very strong and brave. In Bahadur’s research, she was subject to many restrictions, because her great-grandmother and others were illiterate and could not write down the situation at the time, which led to the need to obtain records from the doctors and magistrates on board at the time. To find information. In order to fill the gap, she will return to her grandmother’s village to find some unofficial information. If we want to build our own family history archives, we need to record the situation at that time in several different ways. The first way is to write all the events and characters that happened at that time in a book. The second way is to narrate, telling one’s family history from generation to generation. This ensures that as long as we look up the family history, there will be no gaps. Of course, if I want to know the family history, I will go back and ask my grandmother and grandfather.

Hazel C. Hong is a Chinese who has lived in San Francisco for more than 65 years. She spoke Chinese when she was at home with her children, and her husband, Harry Hong, served as a translator for American immigrants. Hazel remembers celebrating the Lunar New Year and other holidays with his family. In this interview, I learned that they had no racial discrimination and no place to work, but Hazel’s job was to find out the problematic bullets (during the war) everyone had to find 25,000 bullets manually. In my impression, that period (Chinese workers came to America to build railways) was a very serious matter of discrimination, but Hazel said that there was no discrimination where she lived and worked. What even surprised me was that Hazel’s children never returned to China. I feel that history is missing a lot of the true ideas of people who lived during that period.

Bahadur begins her story with the lack of narrative of her great-grandmother Sujaria’s life from immigrating to British Guiana, from Calcutta. While searching through archives of her life prior to immigrating and post immigration, Bahadur discovered written documents from both captains and surgeons aboard. Although written documents existed, she found them to have biases in them. She found information ranging from uprisings, to those who slept with the indentured women. These perspectives are from the eyes of those who aided in the transportation, slept with the women. She notes it lacked expressing their feelings and everyday thoughts. She goes on to express her frustration with her grandmothers story (and many other indentured women who traveled through the passage) and finds missing gaps in her journey specifically from her perspective. Instead, these perspectives are held by ships surgeons, captains, planters, overseers, immigration agents, and
magistrates. All white men in power whose perspectives were through the misogynist, racist, people such as the plantation and government officials.  If any narrative was depicted, it was through a bigoted bias gaze. Since she was unable to fill in those gaps, Bahadur has to seek out unofficial resources by traveling back to the village her grandma was from. She sought out folk songs, photo cards from that era, and even turned to herself and her own experiences as an immigrant. as well as her professional life. Through her quest to learn more I was able to learn about the Indo-Caribbean community and its origins, as well as the amount of discrimination and trauma, and forced unpaid labor many Indian women suffered during their journey and subsequent arrival. If I were to construct my own family archive I would turn to official records, jewelry, school records, as well as existing extended family whose life experiences overlapped with one another. Oral interviews of existing family friends would also help in the archive. For more solid resources, I would even travel to their countries of origin to find extended family to interview as well.

The person I watched was Vicki Tong Young who is a former teacher from Lake Forest,CA. She goes on to express her admiration and love for a family heirloom that has been in her family for over 140 years. That heirloom was gifted to her great-grandfather by a railroad official (his name is inscribed on the gold watch). This introduces a family legacy (I use legacy to describe heritage here) in reference to her great-grandfather Mok Chuck who, at 17, left his hometown of Yin Ping to North America. Mok Chuck was one of the earliest railroad pioneers. Listening to this interview made me sad for a variety of reasons. I was already aware of the common narrative that Asian-American families recounted the sacrifices their grandparents or great-grandparents made when immigrating to the western sphere of North America as well as the unspeakable discrimination. What I was not aware of and this surprised me, was the violence and extent of the sacrifices they made. In particular, when Young started to describe the exclusion laws and how many of the wives were not allowed come over. In particular, how Chuck didn’t see his wife for 15 years and not even being there for the birth of his son. The sacrifices the wives made, especially his wife who lost her first born son and was unable to see her husband for a few years and then to only spend a few years with him until his death in his 50s. I wouldn’t say this is missing, but I would have wanted more elaboration on the experiences of the wives in depth. Although the audience was made aware she was without her husband for so long, I wonder what kind of emotional and psychological toll that also took on the wives. Especially those whose husbands were unable to return due to the exclusion acts/ if they weren’t merchants. Being taught the plight of other peoples immigration from their own countries but excluding others such as those from Asia, seeking a better life really bothered me in school. I would like to know more about the wives and the daughters to understand their experience as well pre the exclusion act and how that affected the disproportionate ratio of men (who traveled to North America) and women (who stayed in their village) during their separation.

 

Bahadur’s purpose in researching her great grandmother was because she wanted answers to her questions. She was wondering as to why a pregnant women would get on a ship and go all the way across the world with know one besides her.Women were going through hard times in Asia as well. In the historical record it stated that Sujaria was a 27 year old coolie departing from Calcutta and her testimony was missing. One limit was when Bahadur found the diaries on that ship. Bahadur also followed up with more history evidence by using other data from existing archives, transcripts, etc.If I were to construct an archive of my own family history, I would use family records and biographies written by other people.I would love to learn about where my family grew up, there names and if there was anything hidden or kept a secret that they always wanted to pass on to there family tree.

The oral history that I studied was the life and experiences of Seattle’s Chinese immigrant community from Taiwan, Hong Kong. Some of the interviews I heard were confirming that fact that they came to the U.S for better lives and to work hard.Their decisions to come to the U.S. and their American experiences were significantly shaped by the political, economic, and social developments of their times. Something that surprises me is that the countries that are less developed and are in debt tend to have more people go aboard and do better with there lives.I want to know why and how can we make these countries better so that people won’t have to leave there countries by force.Lastly, people won’t have to sacrifice anything to make there lives better.

 

Bahadur: ‘How could I write about women whose existence is barely acknowledged?’

 

1. What history is Bahadur writing about? 

• She has written history about the women in India who were not treated fairly and their existence was not acknowledged.
• More than that she wrote about her great-grandmother

1. What is in the official historical record? Whose perspective is it from?

• The official historical record is nothing true about the women who have been depicted by the white people “They are only described by others, by the various white men who held power over them; the ships’ surgeons and captains, planters and overseers, immigration agents and magistrates.”

1. What information is missing?

• When talking about missing information, I think it is missing a lot of information in there. For example, she mentioned that she had to work hard to find the important information needed but she couldn’t do it either. Because of the information she has, it’s not official.

1. What other types of “data” does Bahadur use to understand history?

• She searched from various sources like “ I looked for clues in visual traces and the oral tradition: folk songs, oral histories, photographs and colonial-era postcards, even a traditional tattoo on the forearms of elderly Indo-Caribbean women. Perhaps most daringly, I turned to the self and wrote about my own journeys: to India,…”

1. If you were to construct an archive of your own family history, what types of data might you review or search for?

• I think I’ll ask my family first and I’ll find out about places where I was a child with my family.

 

How the story of Kamala Harris upends the Asian American ‘model minority’ stereotype

1. What does the author mean by “model minority” and “anti-model minority?” 

• We can say “model minority” is the difference between Asian Americans and people of color, they have different views based on prejudices and patterns in the past.
• “anti-model minority” is Asian Americans who have more opportunities to develop and prove themselves. 

1. What evidence does he give us to make his argument?

“the “model minority” stereotype by wearing a “Math” lapel pin, and making joking comments like, “I am Asian, so I know a lot of doctors.” His platform was also based on the belief that individuals can overcome challenging circumstances less through solidarity with other groups and more from personal decision making along with at least some government support.”