What should it (Cultural Studies) be designed to do? My unshaking answer is tell better stories. Cultural Studies seeks to understand, uncover, and uplift the voices of people that are purposely forgotten and ignored. Cultural Studies research should create a point where people know they can share what they have to say and that it will have an impact. It should be something we care about. It should be something we have a deep unequivocal connection and love for. Dr. Susan Harewood and Dr. Ron Krabill talked about this in one of the very first papers they had us read, they didn’t want us to have “drive-by” projects that we do just to graduate, where we extract what we need from the communities we are working with, never to be heard from again. (Harewood & Krabill 2017, pg. 13) I think it has to be intimate in a way where we can’t resist coming back to it because we want to see where it will go next. Cultural Studies should be designed to continue to make us, the people we care about, and the communities involved better and filled with the love and passion we put into the work we did.

There are a few artifacts that I have in my portfolio that I think are particularly important.

An artifact I want to draw attention to first is my Partner Collaboration where I had an interview with my classmate Courtney, about what we care about and what we planned to do for our projects. Its funny to think that both of our projects shifted to be something different while still staying in the same realm of what we originally wanted to do. We did a sort of analysis of stories that have already been told and who told them, with the answer unsurprisingly being those in positions of power in America aka white, Anglo-Saxon, males who are probably associated with Christianity. The reason we brought this up was because we wanted to talk about who told stories about who and how many people didn’t have the power to tell the stories about themselves because they were deemed unimportant. They are misrepresented and then that misrepresentation is taken and used as a reason for colonization and domination. However, Courtney and I knew that the untold stories had meaning and we wanted to be able to bring them to light. The stories could be about people we don’t know or the communities we have a connection to or even ourselves. For my project in particular I said “I think my main focus is that the experiences of a biracial Black (or Asian, or Latinx or etc) individual is not the same experience as a person who is considered fully Black (having 2 parents of the same race and ethnic background). Being constantly misidentified or having what you perceive as your identity stripped from you arbitrarily is incredibly stressful based on my own experiences (and others that I have listened to). So I want to make the voice louder and noticed to help other people have the ability to be more comfortable in how they identify.” (Clementson & Jones, 2020) This is strongly connected another artifact that I want to talk about which is the Comments on Being Mixed. These comments all came from a Facebook group that I am a part of where thousands of multiracial people have gathered to share parts of their stories. They are all snippets of conversations I have collected from people throughout the last two years that really give the sentiment that I feel hard-pressed to change. I have said it in my MACs bio and all my applications for Graduate school. I want people to feel comfortable with their identities. I intertwine this with my other passion, food. This was something I was always coming back to no matter where I was in my life. I wanted to share it with my friends, I wanted to make it, and most importantly I wanted to eat it. I do truly believe that food holds so much significance to identity, which is why I centered my Capstone project around it. Food tells stories too. In my opinion it probably has some of the best stories to tell. Down to the smallest ingredient, there is history.

There is one artifact that really solidified what I wanted to do with my project and it was the discussion with Robert Farid Karimi. We took the time to read a lot of his work and he said the phrase “I crave the heat of Color” (Shin & Karimi, 2016 pg. 175-176)  and it just blew my mind. It described how I felt growing up so well. One of his later projects actually involves food, where he calls himself the People’s Cook where he brings awareness to health problems (diabetes for this particular project) that People of Color face. (Karimi, 2009) When I learned that I KNEW that I could do a project around food too. I always had a sort of inkling of how I thought knowledge should be shared and the reading The Representation of the Intellectual by E. Said, really drove it home. He says, “There is a danger that the figure or image of the intellectual …might become only another professional or figure in a social trend. …but I also want to insist that the intellectual is an individual with a specific public role in society that cannot be simply reduced to being a faceless professional…” (Said 2012, pg. 11) I also did not want to be that person. I want to better my community, not (act like) be better. I do think knowledge should be shared but only in a way that perpetuates community betterment rather than in the colonizing sort of way that gets added to Academia and then appropriated because it somehow becomes trendy. I wrote about this in (To Be or Not to Be) which was a paper on what I understood an “Intellectual” to be. The knowledge that I gained in the MACs program wasn’t just scholarly references and theories but also the understanding of how we can present and share the work through embodied practices. I love the idea of being able to share an experience with the people that are listening to the story I am trying to tell and uplift. Through our senses we can learn so much. Not only the smell and taste but also the time and effort it takes to make the food. Lila Sharif also speaks of this in her work. I said it in my capstone before but in connection to storytelling and food making becoming an embodied practice, I think it is important to say it again. She says, “The site of the kitchen cannot be suspended to a space―beyond all the discourses, positions, and the polemics, particularly within the context of settler colonialism.” (Sharif pg. 218) Sharif is bringing to light the injustice and hypocrisy that we see in the world (in particular, Palestine) of food making (and consuming). Food in all of its stages, from ingredients to the process of making it, to the finished dish, has something to say.

Some of the most important skills I learned during my time in the program would be the uses of videographic essays to tell stories as well as in a cheesy sort of way, the confidence to tell stories that I initially thought people might not care about. THOSE are the better stories and those stories are the ones that I want to tell. I already had some initial skills like cooking because of my previous work experience and initial interest but ones that I think I still need to develop would definitely be my writing skills to ensure that I am doing the stories I am telling the justice that they deserve. I am eternally appreciative to my Advisors (Naomi and Susan) for their feedback and patience for my VERY BAD writing.

Overall, telling the stories that food has to offer (in relation to or not to identity) is definitely something I will continue to pursue further in my career and I am very grateful for the time I spent in the program. Thank you for telling me that what I care about matters.

Works Cited

Clementson, C., & Jones, K. (2020, May 15). Partner Collaboration: Telling Better Stories. personal.

Harewood, S., & Krabill, R. (2017). Taking Praxis Seriously: Testing the Limits of Praxis and the University. The International Cultural Studies and Education Conference.

Karimi, R. F. The People’s Cook Project. Creative Capital. https://creative-capital.org/projects/the-peoples-cook-project-28-days-of-good-energia/.

Said, E. (2012). Representations of the intellectual. London: Vintage.

Sharif, L. (2014). Savory Politics: Land, Memory, and the Ecological Occupation of Palestine. UC San Diego. ProQuest 

Shin, S. Y., & Karimi, R. F. (2016). Songlines for Future Culturewalkers: (Betty) White (Crocker) Bank Take Little (House on the Prairie) Bank. In A good time for the truth: race in Minnesota (pp. 171–186). essay, Minnesota Historical Society Press.

Under the Supervision of Dr.Naomi Macalalad Bragin

6/2/21

Abstract

Food allows connection to and remaking of memory. From the smell to the taste or even the process of making it, food tells stories. This research presentation studies the ways food preparation impacts identity formation processes for multiracial Korean Americans. I develop a creative ethnographic method which combines personal interviews with the embodied creative process of cooking with my sister. Together we make Kimchi using “traditional” and “nontraditional” methods that parallel points of connection and difference in our lived experiences, becoming a representation of our own and shared identities. I will present excerpts of our interview and process for preparing kimchi. Through embodied evidence, I reflect on the connection between making food together and lived experiences of multiracial Korean American identity.

When I walk into almost any Korean restaurant, I feel spiciness in the air. Its tingle enters my nose, intermingled with the various stews and meat the restaurant is offering. I smell the pungent, sour and salty wafting of 김치 (kimchi). I smell the subtle fishiness of anchovy and kombu broth, found in many staple Korean soups like 순두부 찌개 (soondubu jjigae – soft tofu stew) or 칼국수 (kalguksu – knife-cut noodle soup). Some places might have grills ready for their customers who come to enjoy the sizzle of Korea’s signature tabletop BBQ, along with the toasty nuttiness of sesame oil found in small 반잔 (banchan – side dishes), ready for dipping.

Food often acts as a first introduction to unfamiliar cultures, experienced through our senses. At the same time, food is one of the most intimate ways we connect to family–to our familiars–and the ways we remake memories of home. In Fleshing the Spirit: Spirituality and Activism in Chicana, Latina, and Indigenous Women’s Lives, Facio writes, “Home is not found in one location but can be found in many places and spaces.” (60) Home is not always or only the place where you grew up but also the place that you felt most comfortable–a place that you were able to rest, grow and heal. Food can help us recall aspects of home like the scent of rain on the eve of an oncoming storm, or the aroma of perfume your mother wore, that you smelled as you received her hug and kiss. I assert that food and home are linked in the ways people work to create spaces of healing and kinship connection. Food helps us make home in and across multiple locations.

Senses activate memory. I am interested in the ways learning about food and food preparation from family recipes shapes memory and identity for multiracial Korean Americans. Food itself becomes a sensorial and embodied process of study, embedding identity in stories of recipes passed between friends and family. People bond and shape connections over meals, sustain and shift kin relations, perpetuate and challenge cultural norms. Memories are not simply preserved but more so created in the process of tasting, learning and revising family recipes for cultural foods.

My exploratory research study of kimchi preparation stands at the intersections of ethnography, critical ethnic studies and food studies. I ask: How does food shape identity formation processes for multiracial Korean Americans? How is cultural memory accessed, created, learned and revised, in the process of making key family recipes? How do multiracial Korean Americans use recipes to form/reform/transform a shifting and unstable sense of racial and ethnic identity?  What stories are embedded in family recipes and what overt and hidden meanings do we store and reactivate in the act of making these recipes?

For this auto-ethnographic research project, my sister and I remembered our childhood experiences as we cooked food together, reflecting on personal and shared meanings embedded in food preparation and consumption which have shaped our different relationships to Korean American identity. In this paper, I consider ways we have created and revised a sense of connection to Korean cultural identity, by making contact with food and experimenting with family recipes. 

In the late fall or early winter of each year, Korean families and friends gather to participate in 김장 (kimjang), the laborious process of making large quantities of kimchi to last through the winter until summer time. Many Korean families have their own kimchi recipes. My sister and I have never experienced kimjangs in this way but have still created a sense of family ritual through the crafting of our own kimchi recipes and in a way had our own 김장.

During the in-person interview/cooking session I conducted with my sister (see Methodology section below), she talked about how small and seemingly insignificant things created large impacts in the ways she connected to Korean identity. She specifically mentioned our father’s transmission and translation of Korean food culture, from his time serving in the US military in Korea. When he was there, his landlady taught him to add eggs to Instant Ramen, which he in turn passed on to my sister and me. My sister said, “It [the egg in the ramen] was always something I was reaching for to connect”. Something as simple as adding eggs to instant noodles became a way for my sister to recognize herself as Korean American. 

We talked about many other connections to food in our interview. We talked about our father’s version of 불고기 (bulgogi – stir fried beef), which is one of the most popular and iconic dishes in Korea. This meat dish is usually made of thinly cut beef and marinated in a sweet but savory sauce with strong accents of ginger, garlic, and onion. My father would use meat cut into thick strips and doused with a jarred sauce. I remember the flavor being so salty that it would hide anything else that could be associated with bulgogi (which I learned as my exposure to the nuances of Korean tastes began to grow). The jarred sauce was my dad’s way of trying to make a “palatable” connection for us to Korea, yet the saltiness was hiding other(ed) tastes. I would hide in a closet at home, trying to recover a connection to my mother that was lost–a connection that the saltiness of that jarred sauce kept hidden. 

 In doing this work, I am interested in the ways food and recipes have been used to resist or unsettle enforced processes of forgetting under cultural hegemony. Finding ways to make these processes visible is especially important in a US American context of cultural assimilation that devalues non-Western cultures and where remembering often carries generational trauma for immigrants and children of immigrants. In processes of eating and preparing food, hidden tastes (and hidden knowledges) can be revealed as forms of memory-shaping and identity formation.

* * *

My sister and I grew up in Bertrand, Missouri, located next to the muddy Mississippi River. Bertrand had no more than 800 residents. There were no paved roads–only dusty orange dirt that kicked up as you drove by. For the first few years of my life, we lived with our white American father, who grew up in Bertrand, and mother, a first generation immigrant from Wonju, South Korea. Besides our mother, my sister and I were the only Asian people living there. Our classmates were either white or African American; no one looked like me except for my sister and to a lesser degree, our mother. I was relentlessly picked on by other kids because of my different, racially “mixed” appearance. We also lived in a few other states as my father searched for work. Colorado was the last place we all lived together, before my parents divorced and my father took me and my sister back to Bertrand. 

As a child, I struggled to identify with either of my parents. My mother would send us care packages, put together from her trips back and forth between Korea and Colorado. At one point, the packages stopped coming. My sister and I thought she didn’t care about us anymore. She would call and ask my grandmother (my father’s mother, whom we were living with at the time) where my sister and I were. I remember one particular time when my grandmother told my mother over the phone, “I don’t know where they are.”  We were standing there in the same room. 

For twelve years my family kept me and my sister hidden from my mother. We were lost children. I felt embarrassed when people would ask me why I didn’t speak Korean or know anything about Korean culture. Despite this distance and sense of loss in geographic location and spoken language, I nonetheless found ways to experience an intimate, and complicated, connection to my mother and Koreanness through my senses–a blending of smells, tastes, textures, colors. Food was my point of access and I clung to it.

My father did try to keep us somewhat connected to Korea through the food he cooked, yet we experienced disconnection–not only physical but also cultural. Remembering back, these foods familiar to my childhood were not even what I now consider “good” Korean food! My father would find food that had some semblance to the food he had eaten when he was in Korea, while serving in the US military. He cooked with an overly salty jarred sauce that lacked subtle and distinct flavors. In that jar I remember the obligatory taste of soy sauce, blended with a vague ginger taste. I remember the mealy texture of instant rice that we boiled in the bag. 

The form of Korean food my father made for us represented something that was two-fold within my life. The jarred sauce created a discourse of Korea that was suitable for my family’s tastes, while continuing to hide significant flavors (and significant parts of my identity). (Hall, pg. 261) This form of (mis)representation is a way in which “power produces a new discourse, new kind of knowledge, and it shapes new practices” of colonization and hegemony. (Hall, ibid)

My mother’s care packages from Korea would be filled with whole dried squid and seaweed that my grandmother called “black paper”. I make whiteness visible here to reveal how my grandmother’s struggle with her whiteness allowed her to estrange me from my Korean identity, figuratively “blackening” (my mother’s) seaweed through her choice of words. Stuart Hall argues the construction of “otherness” is made possible through exclusion, solidified in the creation of stereotypes and perpetuation of power imbalances. Hall goes on to say, “the establishment of normalcy through stereotypes is one aspect of the ruling group’s […] attempt to fashion the whole of society according to their own world views, value systems, sensibilities, and ideologies.” (259) In other words, it was not my grandmother’s love for me as family/kin but rather her fear of otherness and the (white) act of protecting me from otherness that allowed her to perform and maintain a violent form of separation from my birth mother and from my Koreanness. 

I would, nonetheless, hide with the 김 (gim – seaweed) and 오징어 (ohjingoh – squid) inside a little closet behind my grandmother’s couch or outside among the flowers in her garden, tasting and eating in secret while I imagined running away to live with my mother and my family in Korea. I would cry in my grandma’s flowers, eating and wondering about the deep sense of loneliness I felt. Even while my family in the US hid me from my mother, I learned to hide myself from them. In this process of hiding, I uncovered other(ed) dimensions of my multiracial identity. 

The darkness of my grandma’s closet invited a different kind of hiddenness and intimacy, through which I was able to access different knowledges often overlooked in plain sight. My visual sense was lowered as my other(ed) senses deepened: the smell, touch, taste of the “black paper”. I felt the oiliness from the 김 (gim – seaweed) between my fingers and the subtle scent of the ocean filled the space of the small closet. There was a slight crinkle with every bite I took as I would quietly try to grab another piece from the package without being heard. I would savor every piece of fruit-flavored jelly candy and small little pieces of squid that my mother sent. It was in my grandmother’s closet where I nurtured an intimate connection to my birth mother–where the darkness of the closet could feel like the warm, nurturing space of my mother’s womb, and where I received the nutrients of the seaweed in some way acting like an umbilical cord connection to Koreanness. 

Senses are intimate. Senses activate memory and connection. The activation of my senses of smell, touch, sound and taste, through childhood memory and food preparation, have allowed me to create an intimate connection to my mother, despite her physical absence. 

My sister makes kimchi her way to create connections with her friends and because she wants to share her Korean food with them. Many of her friends have a variety of dietary restrictions that prevent them from being able to try many Korean foods, so my sister painstakingly, with many trial and errors, came up with a recipe for vegan kimchi that she could share. In my sister’s recipe she excludes some of the more common additions to accommodate the vegan alternatives. She didn’t use 새우젓 (sae-eujeot – fermented shrimp) or 액젓 (aekjeot – fish sauce) and instead supplemented with different fruits like apple with the skin on to preserve the nutrients. All of her ingredients can be found in any white American grocery store which further adds to the convenience of her recipe for those who are not close to or have access to grocery stores that specialize in Asian ingredients.  

My sister’s process is much faster than my own–only taking a couple of hours while my preparation takes closer to four hours. I have to wash and salt every single cabbage leaf. I make sure each piece is covered with the spicy paste that gives kimchi its unique taste. Making kimchi is a laborious process. I have chosen to learn a more traditional technique for preparing kimchi, in order to find a connection to Koreanness I felt I had lost for a really long time. 

A key reason food has such a powerful impact on identity formation is that it is an active, embodied process. We use our hands and sense of smell, touch, taste, sight, to continue the traditions passed to us through our families. In the process we are also remaking traditions, especially crucial in circumstances of loss and cultural erasure. Food is an active way we continue fellowship, uncovering aspects of our identities that are hidden and may yet to be discovered. 

Theoretical Framework

B.C. Standen does a lot of the work I was initially interested in, in his study on multiracial Korean Americans. One of his findings in his various interviews with other multiracial Korean Americans was this idea of rejection coming from the Korean community due to the lack of Korean language fluency. (Standen, pg. 257) Standen’s study focuses on identity on macro and quantitative levels, asking questions about phenotypes and how the participants in his research identify in general rather than a closer study of specific aspects of Korean/Korean American culture. 

Studies like Standen’s have focused on psychological facets of multiracial identity. Much research has also used a deficit model, which emphasizes damage yet doesn’t give close attention to interpersonal experience–how multiracial identity shapes and is shaped by ways of relating or what personal stories might reveal about trauma. (Root. M, Brunsma, D. L., & Delgado, D. J. Williams-León, T., Nakashima, C. L., & Omi, M.) In order to help fill these gaps, I focus attention on embodiment and the senses to describe the felt multiracial experiences that have shaped me and my familial relations. I show that the process of identity formation is not abstract, straightforward or static, but  active, fluid and constantly shifting. 

I also draw from critical race theory (CRT) as a theoretical framework, in order to examine how racialization is bound to the making of identity and relations of power. (Richard Delgado, Jean Stefancic, Angela Harris) CRT states that race is socially constructed, as is identity. Critical ethnic studies scholar Lila Sharif focuses on the production and consumption of the Palestinian olive as a site of Palestinian erasure and survival. Sharif states, “The site of the kitchen cannot be suspended to a space―beyond all the discourses, positions, and the polemics, particularly within the context of settler colonialism.” (Sharif pg. 218) Sharif directly contradicts the United States’ picturesque portrayal of the kitchen as a space where problems disappear. In fact, the kitchen is a site and stage of cultural struggles and identity formation.

Food cultures morph into new cultural hybrids, as the gourmet food world often (re)presents ethnic foods to make them appear, smell and taste palatable to mainstream audiences in ways that reinscribe Western Eurocentric cultural dominance. We see this cultural hegemony in the food stories of immigrants and children of immigrants, whose food is described as being smelly, inedible and savage. 

In their separate works, centered on histories of Mexicans and Tejanos in the United States, Jeffrey Pilcher and Gustavo Arellano describe the discursive operations by which ethnic foods are taken and reimagined in ways that degrade and misrepresent their origins. White food industry establishments, in regions throughout the Southwestern U.S. and Mexico, have continually staked claims to profit while attempting to erase the labor of Indigenous and Mexican people and food cultures who continue to produce, create and innovate these foods.

In his book Planet Taco, Jeffrey Pilcher explains how this operation of cultural exclusion becomes specifically intertwined with Indigenous erasure in the context of a  culinary industry which profits off of (and at the same time devalues) non-European cuisine. For example, Pilcher describes how, “the Mexican government assembled ‘a brigade of six Mexican chefs,’ listed by name on the presidential website, ‘and five indigenous cooks,’ listed by region. Once again, the elite perpetuated a distinction between the artistry of classically trained chefs and the ethnography of village cooks.” (229) Indigenous people are separated and positioned as “cooks”–culturally below “classically” (read European) trained “chefs.” Indigenous people and cultures are (re)represented as novelty rather than artist-creators.

Fast food imitators like Taco Bell continue to dominate representation of what is seen as Mexican food on a global level. White Minnesotan founder Glen Bell states, “I didn’t invent the taco, but I believe I improved it.” (Arellano, pg. 59). Pilcher adds, “Mexico petitioned the United Nations cultural authority for the first time in 2005, arguing that the country’s unique culinary artistry needed protection both from fast-food imitators and from genetically modified invaders.” (228) 

The New York City restaurant known as Lucky Lee’s similarly transformed Chinese American food. The owner and her husband, neither of whom have Chinese or other Asian ancestry, promoted their version of Chinese food premised on their language of making dishes “clean and health-ifying.” (Otterman 2019) It is often not until whiteness as the operating power structure in the United States takes and turns non-Western food cultures into tastes that can be consumed for profit that they are deemed acceptable to dominant America.

Methodology

1. Research Participants

Research participants for this exploratory study will be myself and my sister. I chose to focus on our familial relationship because although we grew up together our processes of identity formation are vastly different.  Our task is to share our recipes for kimchi, as we discuss differences in preparation, purpose and memories we associate with the cooking process and our memories of the food. 

2. Interview Questions

How do you identify racially? Where are you from/your family from? What cultures do you identify with?

 What foods did you eat as a child? What is your strongest childhood memory of food? 

What kind of foods are typical at your family table? Can you describe a food or recipe that you have a strong memory of?

Where is the food from? 

Who showed you/taught you how to make it? 

How have your family food recipes influenced shifts in your choices around racial and ethnic identity? 

3. Methods: (Auto) Ethnography 

I will arrange an in-person cooking session with the research participant (my sister). We will begin by preparing our different recipe of kimchi, while discussing the recipe’s meanings, both outward and hidden, including details of historical and social context and any stories she remembers about the original creator of the recipe. 

This method will serve as a comparative study of our lived experiences of multiracial Korean identity as it connects to memory formation. I will document the cooking session, using a combination of audio and video recording, and handwritten or typed field notes which I will take during and immediately after the session. I will then edit excerpts of the recordings, producing a nontraditional cooking video which includes audio from the interview overlayed and woven through the visual recordings.

After cooking together, we will eat the food and continue the interview. I will ask follow up questions. What recipe(s) are we making today? Why did you choose to share this recipe with me? What is the history behind this recipe? What is the most prominent memory you associate with this food? Does cooking this particular recipe help you feel connected to Korean culture? Why or why not? Who did you learn this recipe from? Is it written down? Did you memorize it by heart? Where do you keep/store this recipe? What does this recipe mean to you and/or your family?

I will record audio with Audacity. I will take handwritten notes during the recording as well. I will review and code the interviews, taking extensive notes. If time permits, I will view the cooking session I edited with the interviewee. I will also share the edited video with the participant as a gift of acknowledgement for participating in the research study.

Works Cited

Arellano, G. (2013). Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. Scribner.

Delgado, R., Stefancic, J., & Harris, A. P. (2017). Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York University Press.

Facio, E., & Lara, I. (2014). Fleshing the Spirit: Spirituality and Activism in Chicana, Latina, and Indigenous Women’s Lives. The University of Arizona Press. 

Hall, S. (2013). “The Spectacle of the ‘Other’.” In Representation: Culture Representation and Signifying Practice. Essay, Open University. 

Otterman, S. (2019, April 12). “A White Restaurateur Advertised ‘Clean’ Chinese Food. Chinese-Americans Had Something to Say About It.” The New York Times. 

Pilcher, J. M. (2017). Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican food. Oxford University Press. 

Root, M. (1998). “Experiences and Processes Affecting Racial Identity Development: Preliminary Results From the Biracial Sibling Project.” Cultural Diversity and Mental Health, 4(3), 237-247. 

Sharif, L. (2014). Savory Politics: Land, Memory, and the Ecological Occupation of Palestine. UC San Diego. ProQuest 

Standen, B. C. “Without a Template: The Biracial Korean/White Experience. The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier,” 245-260. 

Williams-León, T., Nakashima, C. L., & Omi, M. (2010). The sum of our parts: mixed-heritage Asian Americans. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

The authors argue that the concepts of colonialism is not something that was only seen in the past. It can still be seen today in many places, most prominently in Africa. The invasion of countries under the guise of help enforces western thought and rule using the label of democracy. Many countries are being strong-armed into different ways of life because of the resources that their country holds. The “help” is actually exploitation to gain access to trade and the capital that the exploited country has. This is tied into various theories that claim that the wealth of countries is tied to the poverty in others. (Shohat & Stam 2014, pg. 17) The argument by those countries a part of the first world say the poverty of the “other” is due to their cultural practices rather than the exploitation the was done during the colonial process.

They continue by talking about racism and its ties to other systems implemented into society by the way of “isms” like classism and sexism. The power exerted over these countries and groups of people intermingle within their own systems as those who are chosen by the colonizers perpetuate the inequitable practices brought on by the same people exploiting them in the first place.

While all of this is going on, media in its various forms continue to spread western idealism in its own societies. Those responsible for the massacre of whole tribes of indigenous groups, like Columbus, are taught as simple explorers and war that killed millions of people becomes justified and relabeled at exploration of the “new world”. This is seen in movies and tv shows as well as general education. Colonialism becomes helping rather than destroying and exploitation becomes discovery. However, many groups are in the process of decolonizing by the ways of “indigenous media” or works created by others that identify with the colonized groups. This can be seen in African/-American communities, in South America in places like Brazil, Australia and in Native American nations in the United States. They are arguing against the idea of being post-colonial by documenting themselves and preserving old traditions. Decolonizing has its own backlash though especially in places like America.

 Those trying to reestablish themselves are sometimes seen as “reverse racists” when they try to bring up the community or as people trying to divide Americas diversity. “Multiculturalism” and “People of Color” become a token. People are used to maintain power under the false pretenses of creating equitable societies. Shahot and Stam say those inequities further create the violence because people will fight each other for the power that those in dominant society have and that true multicultrialism is about the communities themselves rather than the representation because it becomes about the relations to power rather than the individual or power itself. (Shahot & Stam 2014, pg.47) Violence is ever present. Change can become violent and the solutions to the problems never seem to have a clear answer. What can be done?

Works Cited

Shohat, E., & Stam, Robert. (2014). Unthinking Eurocentrism : Multiculturalism and the media (Second ed., Sightlines (London, England)). Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge.

Abstract: Michel Foucault, the author of A History of Sexuality analyzes the context that created part of what we think of today as sex and sexuality. While not the sole contributor to this topic, he laid out many questions for us today that we are still pondering. His work continues to be contentious for some while being the cornerstone and groundwork for others in their work and study of sex and sexuality. This written piece examines Foucault’s contributions and analyze some of the post prominent critiques in order to further understand the field of sexuality studies.  

Introduction

The modern-day study of sex and sexuality has come very far from where it originally began. Some people used to think that sperm was actually tiny fully-grown babies that was just waiting to be incubated in a womb. Most people don’t think that anymore but just the idea really goes to show how the process of how sex and sexuality used to be thought about. Michel Foucault was also a thinker (actually a philosopher) on the topic. While he didn’t focus necessarily on gender in his work like many modern-day scholars in sexuality studies, he did want to talk a lot about sex (and sexuality) and its use in society.

 He wrote and thought about many other systems that we see still in the “western” world. They include famous titles like Discipline and Punish, The Archeology of Knowledge, and Madness and Civilization. His books touch on politics, medicine, the state (bourgeois), justice, as well as the one being focused on now, sexuality. Foucault was a philosopher by training but his work has been used by many other disciplines including sociology, anthropology, and other various forms of cultural studies.

 In order to understand his work further, knowing that he contributed more to academia than just his work A History of Sexuality is important. Some people don’t consider him an expert in this realm of study but his work continues to be useful for many scholars. Like many other academics, Foucault had his admirers as well as those that heavily disagreed with what he proposed in his writing. This paper takes an in depth look at his work in hopes to find the main points of his contributions as well as briefly analyze the critiques. Even though some disagree with his points of view, this work continues to be important because his books (not just The History of Sexuality) are still being used today in various fields to create frameworks of understanding in both academia and activist work.  

The Repressive Hypothesis

Regardless of whether Michel Foucault agreed with the Repressive Hypothesis or not, he wanted to talk about it in his work in order to help the readers understand the reasoning for such an abrupt change in how sex and sexuality was discussed by the general public. Foucault had three main questions that he defined as doubts: Was the 17^th century truly the beginning of this sexual repression? Is it an “established fact”?  Are prohibition/denial/censorships forms of power that are used in all societies and are all forms of power a category of repression? And his third he asks, “was there a historical rupture between the age of repression and the critical analysis of repression with his main question centering around repression being a road block or not when it comes to what the intended function of repression itself”? (Foucault pg. 10). To summarize the Repressive Hypothesis, Foucault uses many examples. It was a(n) (successful) attempt to silence talk centered around sex. Before the 17^th century it was talked about freely and openly but afterwards it was silenced became a controlled discourse, mostly coming from the Church at first. He said “At the beginning, frankness was still common…” until “…it moved into the home. The conjugal family took custody of it and absorbed it into the serious function of reproduction” (Foucault pg.3) Sex (and speaking of it) became something that was only done and talked about by the ‘other” Victorians (i.e. “the prostitute, the pimp, and/or the client. (Foucault pg.4)

According to the hypothesis, the censorship became a form of power. This silence was created a new way of speaking about sex and sexuality. Power is used to repress and the repression is used to control the populations of people that used sex before for more than just act outside of marriage and procreation. It was no longer about pleasure and pursuing a part of life that was natural but to a new discourse created stewards of proper sex and sexuality guarded by matrimony and heteronormative expectations. The institution also became a group that pushed forward this discourse. While repression forbid speaking about sex in the way that was before it did speak about it (a LOT) by pushing its own agenda. Foucault said, “Far from silence, we witness “an institutional incitement to speak about [sex], and to do so more and more; a determination on the part of the agencies of power to hear it spoken about, and to cause it to speak through explicit articulation and endlessly accumulated detail” (Foucault pg.18) This was also one of Foucault’s larger questions and critiques of the hypothesis. He asked, “Are prohibition, censorship, and denial truly the forms through which power is exercised in a general way, if not in every society, most certainly in our own?” (Foucault pg.3)

This hypothesis created stipulations on who, when, and how people could talk about sex and sexuality. Foucault didn’t necessarily agree with this idea that sex was not talked about because it was in fact talked about a lot even though this hypothesis talked about repression and silence. He contributes a lot of the reasoning for control due to class issues of struggle and the rise of upper classes like the bourgeois. He uses the government as an example and how sex was used as a way to control the general population as well as the image of the country itself. Bodies were needed for labor and for the continual expansion of many European countries. Robust populations, high marriage rates, and good overall health showed that the country was doing well. He also used the repression implemented by the Catholic church as an example of how sex and sexuality was never really silenced but instead reframed and brought forward as a moral issue by focusing on the “family”, marriage, and sin. Categories were created at this point as well that condemned sex and sexuality.

Overall Foucault was not really onboard with this idea as a whole. Some aspects he agreed with but with much of it he did not. He doesn’t deny though that sex in Western society continues to be a subject that is not talked about freely however he did argue that this form of “repression” did not actually stop the talk of sex and sexuality. It in fact did the opposite to where it was talked about more but in a different fashion than it was before. Foucault referred to this as the discourse of sex and sexuality changing rather than silenced.

He further support his thoughts, he also explains the “denaturalization” of sex by breaking it into categories that he claims were created through this social construction of normal and abnormal sexuality. These involved roles of the woman, sexuality in children, psychology, and the use of sex in marriage in relation to the population (or biopower). (Taylor pg.86) All of the categories mentioned gave examples on how sex(uality) was used (and is still used today) to control the various groups of people by labeling what is abnormal and what is not.

Scientia Sexualis vs Ars Erotica

            Foucault goes into how science decided to study sex and sexuality. Biology and psychology took a particular interest. At the time there wasn’t a lot of study on sexuality and how it pertains to humans even though there was a lot of work related to plants and animals. In science though, sex and sexuality were not about morality like it was within religions. It was trying to find the “facts” about sex and sexuality in comparison to what was socially seen as correct. Sex is the biological drive to procreate rather than the personal pleasure of the act.

Foucault divides this topic into two parts: ars erotica as seen in China, India, Japan, Rome and Arabo-Moslem he says, in the erotic arts, truth is drawn from pleasure itself, understood as a practice and accumulated as experience” (pg. 57) while scientia sexulis focused on sex being used as a form of reproduction and continuing the human species like the way animals use/perform sex. He articulated this difference to not only how various places in the world once thought of sex but also to prove his point on how the production of knowledge is a form of power and how knowledge is used to assert power over individuals.

Within his book, Foucault speaks a lot on the use of confession and how its normalization within religion and society helped perpetuate the method used when gathering knowledge. He says, “Since the Middle Ages, at least, Western Societies have established the confession as one of the main rituals we rely on for the production of truth.” (Foucault pg.58) Throughout the text, he brought it all together by claiming that the use of confession has been an integral part of our society to really how ingrained it is. Not only are confession used in religion (which is what many people associate it with) but also in policing (interrogations), and gathering information like interviewing in various fields like the social sciences or the medical field. Finding the “truth” became a drive in Western society. The truth became the all-encompassing knowledge that brings everything back to Foucault’s discourse on power.

Critiques

Some of the main critiques of Foucault come from the idea of how he breaks down power and how it is transferred to one person to another and/or how it is used on people. Mark Philip critiques Foucault a lot and does an analysis on him on his use of power in his array of work. He says, “…Foucault uses a relational conception of power… He rejects the former (Luke’s radical conflict model and Poulantzas’s structural conflict model) on the grounds that it retains an individualist account of agency, and the latter on the grounds of its assumption of a general and organized domination” (Philp pg. 32) Many authors also critiqued Foucault on similar aspects that involved agency within the individual.

This was actually a huge critique from both Feminist and Marxist scholars. Sex was never in relation to what women wanted or the woman’s point of view. Edith Kurzwell brought a few critiques to the table. In her article on Foucault’s work she speaks a lot about his profound lack of action even though he made so many claims in relation to sex and sexuality and its impacts. She mentions that he doesn’t talk about the patriarchy or the societal evolution from feudalism to late capitalism. (Kurzwell pg. 662)

Other critiques that are quite common involve Foucault’s lack of analysis of gender and how that comes into play when sex and sexuality is involved. Michael Wilson brings this up especially in association to modern studies of sexuality and gender. He points out that people still think that biological sex and gender are one of the same just like how they think that sex and sexuality are along the same lines. He also states that the “sex/gender distinction has been increasingly eroded.” (Wilson pg.195) And he says this as a critique towards Foucault’s lack of distinction and address towards gender and how it isn’t just a binary system.

Anne Grow looks at his work and while acknowledging his arguments on its use of power, she does mention that he ignores the crucial aspects of sex that involve “ethical or moral meaning” and agency by saying, “He thereby devalues it to as common a human function as eating or sleeping… Therefore, Foucault’s theory perpetuates an oppressive view of sexuality that favors the male sexual experience and elevates the freedom to express physical sexual desires as the ultimate dictator of sexual activities.” (Grow pg. 2) because he also ignores desires for love because of his hyper focus on power and how it is used and perpetuated rather than sex and sexuality and how it is experienced in a person’s everyday life.

Conclusion

Foucault thought that power was more connected to the knowledge we created rather than specifically being used as a way to oppress or repress societies as a whole (even though knowledge can be used to do this exact act). Sexuality and sex were what society, starting in the 17^th century, decided to use as a way to control the population. Looking past the critiques made by those that disagreed with Foucault, his use of a new discourse and reasoning as to why sex and sexuality became the forefront of Western societies mind is understandable. It is by all means his own thoughts and subject to analysis like any other person’s work. His ultimate goal seemed to be finding the root of Western societies power within this specific time frame and through his analysis, the control over sex and sexuality discourse seemed to be one of the main examples of the use of power. 

Works cited

Foucault, M. (1990). The History of Sexuality (Vol. 1). New York: Random House.

Grow, A. E. (2018). The meaning of sexuality: A critique of Foucault’s history of sexuality volume Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.

Philp, M. (1983). Foucault on Power: A Problem in Radical Translation? Political Theory, 11(1), 29-52.

KURZWEIL, E. (1986). Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality as Interpreted by Feminists and Marxists. Social Research, 53(4), 647-663.

Taylor, C. (2017). The Routledge guidebook to Foucault’s The History of Sexuality. London: Routledge.

Wilson, M. (2003). Thoughts on the History of Sexuality. The William and Mary Quarterly, 60(1), 193-196. doi:10.2307/3491503

            I find this question itself to be very interesting. Interpreting it a couple of ways the thought is: Are you either an intellectual or not one and then can you turn this “intellect” off and on as you deem fit? Also, what is even the purpose of having intellect or intellectuals and why is it coveted? Who determines this? I think these questions are especially important to ask when you are a part of an institution who’s supposed goal is to educate you about social inequalities and injustices and how those in the past used their own intellect to further the cause of equity particularly in the United States.

            In Dr.Tressie McMillan Cottom’s piece, Thick, she writes about her struggles as an intellectual trying to express herself and her way of sharing her knowledge with others. I think this piece is important to consider because it talks about timing and presentation of knowledge as well as self-perception and the perception of others. People like to say that words don’t really matter when they come from someone else but that seems to come from a place of privilege where you don’t have to worry if that someone else can do something that can affect your future. Cottom wrote, “… but this conference stands out for the moment when a senior academic, a black woman, marched over to me and said without preamble, ‘You need to stop writing so much. They’re just using you.’” (Cottom 2019, pg. 8) It took a long time to realize that to some people graduate students are intellectuals not in the sense of being individuals but rather as assistants used as a means to an end. To do the things you don’t have time to do yourself like little worker bees moving along for the Queen and the Hive, with the Queen and Hive being the University. Maybe in Ethnic studies or Cultural studies it’s a little bit different but for other fields that students are flooding into at this moment, that’s the way it seems to be. Using her own physical ailments, Cottom also explains her life in academia and how she always has to “Fix her feet”. She said, “Fixing my feet is so deeply ingrained in my psyche that to dislodge it I would have to fundamentally change who I am and how I interact with the world. Fixing my feet is about accepting the complex reality of black life in the twenty first century.” (Cottom 2019, pg. 24) Like she said in this way, people in the “other” group have to work twice as hard and then some in order to recognized. It seems like they are already deemed not an intellectual so they must prove to others that they are. This idea of validation was also mentioned in the class discussion. It is very interesting to see how different areas of peoples lives automatically label them as intellectuals or not and then how people have to fight to turn that switch on and seen as an intellectual themselves.

            This leads onto Dr. Linda Smiths book, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. In her book, Smith challenges the ideas of where knowledge can come from. Most academic knowledge seen in places like Higher Education come from colonized viewpoints. Those that do not are controversial or unaccredited. Dr. Cottom also brings this up a bit when talking about people in minoritized groups speaking about their personal experience who then become representatives for those groups as a whole even if their experiences are not the same. She says, “We were writing personal essays because as far as authoritative voices go, the self was the only subject men and white people would cede to us. (Cottom 2019, pg. 23) There is hardly any place for those voices in Academia. Knowledge and intellect have always been a way to control people. Knowledge is power in all sorts of ways. In Smiths book she says, “Colonial education was also used as a mechanism for creating new indigenous elites. …talented students were then sent off for more advanced education.” (Smith 2012, pg. 127) The original indigenous languages and cultures were then destroyed in order to force them to assimilate with colonized society. Their knowledge was not considered valid in the eyes of dominate society and thus that voice was taken away from them. There is a come back though. There are small surges of people fighting to get what was taken away and those that learned are teaching others to become the intellectuals of their own society with their own knowledge rather than a colonized one. In Fanons third phase of the reclamation of intellect he says, “…the intellectuals seek to awaken the people, to realign themselves with the people and to produce a revolutionary and national literature.” (Smith 2012, pg.137) Acknowledging that being an intellectual can really be anyone is important. There is a sense that they are these haughty groups of people that are above society and their superior knowledge with no time to associate themselves with common society. Out of this blooms those like Fanon mentioned. This is where (in my mind at least) like Chicana Feminist theory or Critical Race theory comes from. Deviation from the norm should not be punished like it was before even though it still is today. In the book Black Heretics Black Prophets, by Anthony Bogues, he looks at this through a different lens than what dominant society is used to.

Western society is not used to being challenged but what these individuals do is not only produce knowledge but challenge what has already been said. Challenging the norm is essential in Black Radical intellectual tradition. (Bogues 2003, pg.13) The covert (sometimes) pattern of colonialism seems to be that there is knowledge (a western point of view) and then the “other”. This goes along with the saying about history being written from the side of the “winner”. Edward Said, like in Smiths piece, addresses not only what an intellectual is but also what they can do. Said goes deeper with the challenging question of who? Being an intellectual seems to be a way of othering yourself too. He says, “There is a danger that the figure or image of the intellectual …might become only another professional or figure in a social trend. …but I also want to insist that the intellectual is an individual with a specific public role  in society that cannot be simply reduced  to being a faceless professional…” (Said 2012, pg. 11) As an intellectual a job must be performed to pass on information. In this day, more and more of the “others” are teaching those in minoritized groups (and dominant ones for that matter) that there is more to history than just the colonizers. That Black Radical Truth, that way of awaking the people is starting.

            I don’t know if I would consider myself an intellectual because I feel like I just don’t know enough. I don’t even know if I have a “people” to awaken. But I will do my best to disrupt the dominant narrative. Said was right to say that so many stories are forgotten. They should be brought back to light. He said, “all human beings are entitled to expect decent standards of behavior concerning freedom and justice from worldly powers or nations, and that deliberate or inadvertent violations of these standards need to be testified and fought against courageously.” (Said 2012, pg. 11-12) and those are words I can get behind.

Works Cited

Bogues, A., (2003). Opening chant The full has never been told: Heresy, prophecy, praxis, and the Black radical political intellectual

Cottom, T. (2019).  Thick.  In T. Cottom, Thick : And other essays. New York: The New Press.

Said, E. (2012). Representations of the intellectual. London: Vintage. 

Smith, L. (2012). Colonizing knowledges. In L. Smith, Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples (2nd ed.). London: Zed Books.

In my map, I started off wanting to show the gathering places of Korean immigrants and Korean Americans and then put that in correlation to the BEST (according to a website) Korean restaurants in the United States. I wanted to put this in relation to the contribution of immigrants in the United States to help address the pervasive myths on how immigrants are “drains” to the system. Nationalism and white supremacy have been a problem in the U.S. since its conception, but it seems to have gotten even worse in the recent years.

A lot of people don’t understand and refuse to understand how the immigration process works and while they would do almost ANYTHING to make their lives better for themselves or their children, they don’t care that others would do the same. I think what this map shows at this point is the impact of what communities would lose if there were no Korean immigrants or Korean Americans. Los Angeles would lose a whole section of their city without them. America would lose a part of its history. I do not know how people can go about their lives without acknowledging the contributions immigrants have made to America.

What I wanted to do with my map doesn’t necessarily have to do with my project now but what I would like to add to it is immigrant stories around these various restaurants listed and also add restaurants that aren’t listed. I know that the list I pulled from probably had some arbitrary reason to make the restaurants on the map the “best” so I would like to do more in that realm. I want to ask the questions on why those particular restaurants are the best and also, I would want to know who made that list and why are they the authority on one restaurant is better than the other. Are they authentic Korean restaurants? What does authenticity mean and why does that make it better?

So, in reality I think my map is the first step of a very vast project that I would like to do that plays off of what I will be doing with my capstone. I want to tell these stories so people can see what people have to do to “make it” here. What were the sacrifices? What did you lose? What did you gain? I honestly wasn’t sure if this map could help my project at all but I really think it did help inform how I would like my capstone to be perceived and what it can contribute to back to other communities.

I had a friend tell me a few years ago that “food is fellowship” and those words really stuck with me. I saw it to other people to and I hope that they feel as strongly about them as I do. It brings people together and its cross generational. I mention this in my capstone proposal when I talk about connections and how food is one of the first connections we make with people. It could be something like a coffee date, going out to dinner, holidays, anything! Food makes events better too! Who wants to go to a wedding if there isn’t food after?!

In Korean how we say “how are you?” to people we know is,  “밥 먹었어?” (bahp mokeoso) which translates to “Have you eaten yet?” and I really think that it is a beautiful question to ask. Its how people show love and that they want to spend time with you. That’s why I think the stories around food are so important.

I am not sure that my map shows that without context so I hope that is ok. I think this project in general showed how versatile mapping can be as well creating the visual impact needed for people to understand what change can do. Its like when you say Covid has a 99% survival rate so its no big deal but then when you look at the actual number and apply it to a city you will see that a whole city gets wiped or half or more of a population in a state. Maps are a good way to share statistical data but they are also good at telling stories. I didn’t really think it had that ability until I started hearing other people’s projects and trying to make something myself. It’s a really cool way to do qualitative and quantitative work on one platform and in one project.

It can be a timeline and a way to share stories, which is what I plan on doing. My project changed a lot (like it’s pretty much completely differed) too between when we started the map project to now. I do feel a little constrained by what specifically can be added to the map as well as not having the ability to give the map “movement”. It makes it up to the reader to explore a lot unless there is something I am missing about MyMaps and what it is capable of doing. It is very sleek though and I was a little begrudging when we initially had to do the project but I think the points that I started to add is what drove my map to become what it became rather than me having a complete vision and making the map do what I wanted. I let the map tell its own story and tell me where it wanted to go since I didn’t know where I wanted to go in the first place but I am glad that it took me to such an important place. The stories mean a lot to me and I know that they mean a lot to other people too. 

            With a lot of obvious overlap between definitions, it was very interesting to read the development of Cultural Studies between the time, place, and people who studied culture. I love the acknowledgement in both pieces when they talk about how its hard to even describe what Cultural Studies is because there is always the idea of what it can and has the potential to be. “Culture” has a history in what it refers to. In Culture Studies: An Introduction, the authors talk about the evolution of the definition of culture itself. Some thought it was something only those in upper class society could “participate” in or that it can really only be experienced through what is tangible to the senses but it continued to grow and expand to where it is today, encompassing “the actual, grounded terrain, practices, representations, languages, and customs of any historical society…” (Grossberg, L., Nelson, C., & Treichler, P.A. (1992),  pg. 5)

            Diving into the differences Cultural Studies and Internationalizing Cultural Studies, a major distinction between the two (as seen in Internationalizing Cultural Studies) is the recognition of colonial thought and having to decolonize the way Cultural Studies is approached when it comes to studying other cultures in general. A lot of the work that is interpreted and written comes from a more western idea of what is considered culture and how it is considered culture. It also mentions that there needs to be an acknowledgement that if you are looking at another culture (country) that you know that its seen in a “critical internationalist framework”  and used in a way that it is another perspective rather than a solution to a problem. (Abbas, A. et al. (2005), pg. 2) Scholars in Cultural Studies want to expand the meaning of the study and use it as a way to critically look and analyze various aspects of different groups. The general introduction of Internationalizing Cultural Studies spoke of the benefits of going back and reevaluating various societies using this new international lens to see what was missed before because of the change of what was thought to be culture as well as reframe the interpretations of culture already documented. (Abbas, A. et al. (2005), pg. 5) 

            It goes on to talk about the benefits of these alternative reference points, giving a list that ranges from critiquing western hegemony and its version of modernity to alternative voices that could be heard that were possibly once ignored. It recognizes the power dynamics of being the one who is studying verses the one who is studied. Rather than the dynamic being there and being normalized it becomes two people talking to each other.

            In Cultural Studies: An Introduction, there is a lot on how interwoven politics and Cultural Studies really is. It admittedly said that one can not really define Cultural Studies because it does not have the history or schools of thought like other areas of academics. It takes from all things. Its forever changing and reevaluating itself in order to continue to make the impacts it deems necessary. “Cultural Studies thus believes that its practice does matter, that its own intellectual work is supposed to-can-make a difference.” (Grossberg, L., Nelson, C., & Treichler, P.A. (1992), pg.6) Its not research just to learn but work that is supposed to make a change. Its betterment of society and not just one’s field of study. Events are always changing how people see the world and its those events that change culture. Different methodologies are used as the research sees fit.

            In the introduction chapter, common misconceptions are mentioned. An example of this is that many people think that Cultural Studies only researches Popular Culture when in fact Cultural Studies also looks at all aspects of what is deemed culture. The chapter mentions “culture” simultaneously invokes symbolic and material domains and that it is not privileging one domain over the other but interrogating the relations of the two.” (Grossberg, L., Nelson, C., & Treichler, P.A. (1992), pg. 4)

            Its just as hard to define Cultural Studies as it is to define Culture. To different disciplines, they mean different things and with that we go down various rabbit holes based on who is doing the studying, who is being studied and where its happening. Based on the readings, the framework and lens you are using to conduct your study really matter and you have to be self aware and reflective of your own thoughts and why you are even thinking the way you do. Sometimes the questions asked don’t event have clear answers but instead leads you to another questions you didn’t even know how to ask.

            Its hard to even say what Cultural Studies should do. Expand knowledge of different people, places, and/or things? Solve societal issues plaguing minoritized groups? I guess there isn’t really a wrong answer because you can do all of them. Like mentioned before, Cultural Studies is flexible and interdisciplinary, just like the methodologies and theories used to understand certain events that took place at certain times. The goal could be just to learn without disrupting the narrative that was created but I do think there is more to it than just that.

Works Cited

Abbas, A. et al. (2005). Preface: How to use this book AND  General Introduction. In A. Abbas et al. Internationalizing cultural studies: an anthology. Blackwell Publishing. MA, Ox, Victoria. xxv-xxvii &1-12

Grossberg, L., Nelson, C., & Treichler, P.A. (1992). Cultural studies: an Introduction. In L. Grossberg, C. Nelson, & P.A. Treichler, Cultural studies. NY: Routledge.

What does “telling better stories” mean for you? What does “better” mean to you?

Kim: To me I think telling it means telling the stories of people that are traditionally forgotten or ignored. Better means more authentic (not that other stories aren’t)? Not filtered? People choose stories that are more palpable and then those stories become the representations of a collective experience. It reminds me of the success stories of POC being used as a way to say that institutional oppression doesn’t exist. Or the idea of people having to submit stories about “struggles” they experienced when applying for scholarships. If it’s too traumatic it’s like YIKES too much but if it isn’t traumatic enough, you aren’t worthy of getting that scholarship.

Courtney: I think you highlight an important point when you bring up this tension that exists in popular and mainstream culture, this balance that is expected between sharing struggles and hardships as a way to “prove” oppression but not so much that it is off putting and unpalatable to the broader audience–as though such stories are even meant for their consumption or comfort. Do you imagine your research and the practice of telling better stories as a method or platform to interrogate this expectation or the fragility of comfort? 

Kim: Yes! I was recently on a scholarship committee and just thought it was so weird that the question was being asked. Some of the stories were so sad and I can’t imagine the trauma that people had to relive when writing their essays. 

I am not sure what my expectations are for my research to be honest. Maybe not directly focused on interrogating that expectation but I am sure that it will come up. For anyone that wants to do the work of better storytelling, it definitely seems to be a common thread. I feel so conflicted with sharing the stories because while I want people to know so they can actually LEARN it definitely gives off the “scholarship committee” vibe to me. 

Courtney: Perhaps, to build off a point you make later on in this conversation, you can remedy this by sharing more stories that both share the struggles and joys and being biracial or multiracial? To paint an image that it isn’t all bad and there are a whole lot of good things to focus on as well? 

Kim: Yes! This is definitely something I try to keep in mind. A lot of work done is always so negative so I also want to show the beauty too. 

Courtney: I think the idea that there are better stories to tell inherently implies that are incomplete or somewhat inaccurate stories that exist. And this isn’t to say that those stories were developed with sinister intentions or that those who perpetuate such stories do so maliciously. But I do think the practice challenges generalization and summarization which often distorts, misappropriates, or otherwise alters the original intention of the oftentimes complex stories that are being told. So, for me, “better” means more genuine and authentic through complexity. Very rarely are some of the stories that we hold simple or clean or clear; more often they are contextualized by numerous different factors that influence the situation, factors which are more true to the realities and complications of life. 

Kim: I do think a lot of stories are created with somewhat malicious intentions depending on the goal of the story. Like they sent anthropologists to “observe” Mexican people before the Mexican American War and through those ethnographies, the justification for the American colonization (in comparison to the Spanish colonization) was made.

The complexity part is intriguing. Can you expand on that?

Courtney: No I absolutely agree, Kimmy, that there are definitely some narratives that do hold those intentions and people who do circulate them with maliciousness. Perhaps it’s my own whiteness that leaves me naively optimistic and hopes that this isn’t always the case but in reference to your question of complexity, I’m thinking back to Professor Harewood and the assignment that has spurred this conversation. I’m thinking about how many factors contextualize our stories and alter their impacts, factors which are heavily connected with multiple different systems and oppressions, and the ways that these make our stories complex. For instance, I know your research is focusing on the stories of folx who hold multiple racial identities and it’s not as simple as either experiencing oppression or not. As you and our peers have discussed, oftentimes holding such identities can mean experiencing racism, as well as prejudice from the communities of color they are a part of. This, to me, is a more complex and genuine story than the traditional narrative than multracial folx only experiencing racism or not. Does that make sense or answer your question? I’m not meaning complex as in difficult or hard or complicated but more so as a way to illustrate how interconnected different systems can be. 

Kim: I don’t think it’s naive at all to be optimistic! We only know what we know because of what was taught to us as young people. Back in Tennessee they talk about Davy Crockett being a hero and an absolutely dashing figure to admire. It wasn’t until college that I learned another perspective. It’s something that is continually passed down but eventually something breaks up that cycle so we can learn even more.  And your comment definitely makes sense! Everyone just wants to box things up but honestly most of the time that doesn’t work! That’s probably one of the most important aspects I have learned.

What is the traditional story you believe is being told? How do you imagine your research telling a better story?

Kim: As in a stereotypical story? I think maybe success stories like President Obama or Opera are the stories that get told over and over. Its the testament of the American Dream and that the United States is so great. I think telling the stories of the majority group which is the stories of those in marginalized groups. Like the poor and working class are a majority but rather than telling those stories we talk about how Opera did it so anyone can. 

Kim: As for my own research, I think the experiences of biracial/multiracial people are super unique and also the population is small but it is growing. And their unique experiences are just as valid. 

Courtney: I’m not sure the specific nuances of your research, but I’d be interested in hearing more about how you imagine your research to share those unique experiences! Because different communities of color experience racism and prejudice in different way, right? So is your research trying to more generally advocate for multiracial and biracial folx’s stories to be heard or are you focusing in your scope a little more to share some of the ways in which certain identities experience their lives? 

Kim: Absolutely! This has been a struggle in the multiracial community in general. Any research done seems to get slapped on applied to any and all multiracial people. There seems to be a semi decent amount (still small) research done on multiracial Black/White individuals but you and I (and many others of course) know that the experiences of someone who is Asian vs Black vs White are VASTLY different. The antiblackness that a Black/white person would experience is not the same experience as someone who is Asian/white. It is definitely frustrating to read/see. I will say though that more recent research is starting to address that their work done is not a representation of the community as a whole so that is some progress right?

I think my main focus is that the experiences of a biracial Black (or Asian, or Latinx or etc) individual is not the same experience as a person who is considered fully Black (having 2 parents of the same race and ethnic background). Being constantly misidentified or having what you perceive as your identity stripped from you arbitrarily is incredibly stressful based on my own experiences (and others that I have listened to). So I want to make the voice louder and noticed to help other people have the ability to be more comfortable in how they identify.

Courtney: For me and my research, I’m interrogating the practice of grounding. A somewhat recent phenomenon, grounding has been praised in social justice activism spaces as a way for practitioners to plant ourselves firmly in our sense of self and re-align who we are and who we want to be, presumably as a way for activists to understand their histories and be more capable in trajecting their futures. However, the practice has been relatively uninterrogated thus far and has points of tension which require a more honest critique of the impact of the practice. Especially when grounding is incorporated into social justice spaces with participants who majorly reside within traditionally and historically marginalized spaces, there is often trauma that can make it difficult or, at times, even impossible for practitioners to engage with their pasts and leave little ability to ground in the present. This, then, raises the question of how vital the practice of grounding is for social justice activism. If it truly is critical to the growth and development of activists, what does it mean for those who may not be able to engage in the practice? Do they still have a role in such spaces and, if so, how are these positions altered by one’s ability to become grounded? How might we make the practice more accessible to people? How might we imagine inventing or creating a ground where they may be none? These are just some of the questions my research is looking into and I hope it simply begins a conversation which refuses to uncritically adopt a practice which may ostracize or marginalize certain folx–to remind practitioners that rarely are our pasts easily or readily available to connect with and learn from. 

Kim: I’m thinking about what you said and what I tell people when these sort of questions come up is that you should do what you can. I always feel sad when the sentiment of not enough pervades the SJM. This makes me think about how while some people have the right goal in mind, the road to get there is brutal and unforgiving to not only themselves but also the people around them. 

Courtney: I share your sentiment, Kimmy. I think, especially when we’re talking about traditionally marginalized communities and folx who have already been beaten down by dominant societal norms, it’s really sad and disheartening to see them perpetuate it and sad to see folx who already don’t feel good enough be shamed even more. And sometimes I think this is more prominent or intentional than others. There are definitely toxic activists (at what point does one stop being considered an activist if they are being harmful towards others?) who actively berate folx but then I think there are less intentional ways of doing this as well, such as the practice of grounding. I don’t think it was developed to intentionally exclude anyone but without a conversation about how to create or invent a ground to be grounded in, I think it can definitely discourage folx from feeling as though they have a place. 

Kim: Ugh! That is such a good question! Who determines that toxicity? Depending on how a person can identify (for example: white) are they actually experiencing fragility? Or where is the line between white saviorism and being an ally? This definitely confuses me sometimes to be honest. Can you give an example of how you think grounding would be helpful? 

Courtney: I think grounding can be helpful at a certain point in folx’s journeys but I think, if pushed on them too soon, it can be a bit intimidating and this, of course, I believe is kind of determinate on how complicated one’s relationship is with their past and community and kinships. For me, I don’t necessarily always feel comfortable or safe to be myself with my family and a lot of my queer friends have ostracized me due to biphobic/panphobic stigmas so I don’t really have family or community to feel comfortable to show up and be my full self in. Where and who do I go to to seek guidance and council, to re-align who I am and who I want to be? Who do I seek out when I need help being held accountable? I think, if you do have a sense of community or kinship, grounding can be extremely useful. I think it gives you a place to plant roots, to gain nourishment from and grow from and stand tall during weathering storms. But I think it can sometimes make those who don’t know where to ground themselves feel behind in their development at times. 

Kim: Your story blows my mind but at the same time I am not surprised. I wonder if these are perpetuated feelings of also being ostracized being passed down to you because your peers were also ostracized or if something else is at play here? It’s such a difficult journey to be on. Who can help us?

What do you hope your “better story” inspires? What do you hope your research will accomplish? What impact do you hope it will have?

Kim: I hope that they inspire people to remember others than those that just identify like them. I want to be able to tell not only better stories but also MORE stories. I want people to realize that many stories that are being told now are the easiest stories to digest.

Courtney: Easiest to digest and, I would add, easiest to perpetuate or generate the ideal image for certain agendas and hegemonic powers. I just recently saw an article that was asking what the yellow tint was dominating the world of cinema and illuminating how using yellow tint over non-western countries is a way to perpetuate a racist imagining of such areas and communities. Sometimes I feel as though the narratives that get the most traction are the ones that are either creating an excuse or “out” for dominant powers (such as your example of idolizing Opra or Obama as a way of denying racism) or narratives which already perpetuate pre-existing discourses. 

Kim: Oh my gosh yes! And wow I didn’t know that about film. Colors setting the mood is definitely throughout the media. It really shows the power of the media like when they used to put flashes of candy bars into movies to make people crave the food so they would buy it. You used to see this a lot in children’s shows too I think. They “other” characters by making them the bad guys like the Native American characters in those old cartoons.

Courtney: I can’t find the original article I read but this one does a pretty good job of explaining it too! (Sherman, 2020)

Kim: This is great! Thank You!

Courtney: I may have already kind of answered this question in my previous response but I just hope my research and the complex stories I share in it reminds folx that we’re not all at a point in our personal journey or recovery to connect with or learn from our pasts, especially when they might be traumatic or harmful to us. I think grounding is a really great practice for folx who have reached such a point that they can use it as a way to better understand who they are and who they want to be but it can be a bit ostracizing to others who may not be able to participate in the practice. For me, when I first learned about grounding, I really questioned whether or not social justice was something I could participate in or engage with. I thought I wasn’t healthy enough, wasn’t far enough along in my personal journey of recovery, to be in such spaces which was a pretty major blow to my already frail self-esteem and it didn’t help that the practice was preached to me by my mentors. And I don’t want the discourse to discourage others or make them feel as though social justice spaces don’t have a place for them so I guess I’m just trying to let others know that we can re-imagine the practice to work with our needs and to create new ground together.  

Kim: Grounding seems to be a beautiful place to start. If you’re doing more harm to others (not in a white fragility sort of way) in the name of SJM are you really doing anything at all? Everyone thinks they should be the next MLKjr but being the support and working behind the scenes is just as important. 

Courtney: When you mention working behind the scenes, are you referring to the internal unpacking and re-learning that we all have to do to combat our internalized beliefs and understandings? 

Kim: I was thinking more along the lines of the unseen labor like organizing, making the flyers, talking to people in passing. But I also think on an individual level everyone should always continually be learning and combatting our own internalized oppressions and expressions.

What kind of stories do you want to tell? 

Kim: I want to tell the stories centered around identity and how the agency around identity creation is taken away from many multiracial people. I want to also talk about experiences because of the current climate that we are living in. 

Courtney: Are you hoping to focus on specific stories or create a more general dialogue around the need for more stories from biracial and multiracial people? Can you speak a little bit more about what about the current climate we’re in and why it’s so important for the stories of biracial and multiracial folx to be told now? 

Kim: For times sake I think I will focus on my own story. I mean compared to people doing graduate work on the Phd level, they have more time (hopefully) and resources (also hopefully). We just have our 1 year to get things done. Actually less than a year haha. What I am thinking is that I will interview my sister and then myself just to showcase how even people growing up in the same household can have different identities. 

I think it’s important because for one it’s a growing population! As for the second reason, we still live in a heightened state of people being very anti POC in general. This can have a major impact on how and why people identify the way that they do or maybe that they feel like they need to hide a part of themselves in order to be protected from mental harm and/or physical harm. 

I had a friend who is half taiwanese someone thought he was Mexican and his response was “I am actually Asian” in a certain way and he told me after a LOT of reflection on why he said it like that he was horrified at himself that he was saying it to defend himself. The person that thought he was Mexican told him to go back to Mexico because he was speaking Spanish. The whole situation is f*cked up and complicated for a myriad of reasons but I also think this is a great example on how people use identity to protect themselves. 

Courtney: I want to tell the complex stories! The research I’m trying to do right now, it can make me feel pretty vulnerable at times because of the way in which I personally arrived at those questions but I’m just trying to figure out who I am and who I want to be and, hopefully, starting a dialogue for others to figure out how to do the same. For me, I’m trying to figure out what it means to be white with Indigenous and European ancestry because I don’t really feel as though I belong to either which begs the question, ‘who am I?’ I’ve always deeply appreciated the little Salish practices I know about but have basically no connection to the local Indigenous communities because my grandparents have either passed or are too traumatized to really speak about it. And my European ancestry is too mixed and convoluted to really make me feel a part of any one culture so I’m left with very little idea of where my family or myself came from. And perhaps I don’t need to connect with my heritage to be grounded but what should I be grounded in then? Who am I and, if I don’t know, how do I find myself? How does one become grounded when the traditional forms of grounding aren’t accessible? And this personal reflection isn’t my way of trying to justify or excuse the practice of white folx appropriating indigeneity by becoming more aware of their native ancestry but is merely how I arrived at the question and I hope my research can speak beyond this specific arrival and include the various paths that may lead others to similar questions such as myself. 

Kim: What have you found out based on the research you want to do if you don’t mind me asking. I kind of wonder about them myself in relation to my daughter who is very white looking. What will “culture” look like to her? Is there any entitlement to culture? To be honest, the more I participate in the MACS program the more I also doubt myself.

Courtney: I have an intuition that the answer lies somewhere in creating a sense of community but I need to do a little more research and want to learn about the different possibilities that may exist beyond my personal assumptions. And I think this is easier for some people than others. For a while I thought my community, the place where I thought I was going to be able to find or create that ground, was in the queer community but I was met with a lot of biphobia and panphobia and was kind of ostracized from them so I’m left trying to find another community which is difficult when working and attending graduate school. I think not having anywhere to ground oneself can be a very lonely experience but I want to figure out why it seems to be so important and how we can invent it. 

As to your personal experiences, I’m interested in this idea of entitlement to culture. Can you speak to this a little more?  

Kim: Awww, Courtney! Nothing is worse than feeling like you knew where you would find community and finding out its not what you thought it was going to be. I know that feeling seriously! I’m sorry that happened. That makes me so sad. Gatekeeping is so f*cked up and it’s everywhere and over the dumbest stuff.

Also WOW! The more I learn about grounding the more it seems that I need to look into it! Our work actually seems to be very similar. 

As for entitlement to culture it’s mostly just like the ideas around who gets access and to why they do? Like for example, people known as Koreaboos (usually nonasian) (people obsessed with Kpop and Korean celebrities) are ostracized but when Asian non Koreans are into Kpop or Korean celebrities it is accepted. I’m not advocating for either, just using it as an example. So to tie that to my children, I have my daughter who is very white looking and my son who is more asian looking and I know but also wonder even though they are the same mixed wise why will one be more accepted vs the other? Is it really just blood? Or knowing the culture? How you look? 

Community can definitely be difficult and it isn’t all butterflies and rainbows which is why I really appreciate some of the conversations we’ve been having with our peers this quarter and some of the authors we’ve been introduced to, such as Joseph and Against the Romance of Community. And yes to everything you’re talking about in reference to entitlement to culture! I’ve seen Indigenous folx who look like me but were raised in the culture and talk about their struggles of not being seen or heard or understood as Indigenous by non-indigenous folx and I’m not equating myself to them or saying I in any way understand their struggles, but I think it illustrates the complexity of community. Who is in and who is out? Who gets to decide this? What are the determinants? I think about how, at one point in time, Indigenous folx hated the one drop rule and blood quantums but now actively regulate who receives assistance from the tribes based on those same stipulations. And this isn’t to say that all Indigenous folx believe this to be right or justified but I think it highlights the ways in which dominant culture expectations and white supremacist standards become hegemonic, even in cultures who may not idenitfy as white.  

Kim: Oooh yes I agree. Against the Romance of Community created an amazing discussion. I remember taking classes for my Native American studies minor and this was a hot topic that was going around. There were many people that thought if you didn’t actively participate in restoring the community, you shouldn’t get money from the community. Or if you had a partner who was not a part of the tribe they couldn’t participate in events that involved the tribe even though they are a part of your family. That caused a lot of fights. 

Whose story do you want to tell? Who is your audience? Why that audience and why that story?

Kim: I think my audience is other multiracial/biracial people and the parents of multiracial/biracial kids. Validation and confirmation that people care is so important and also knowing that others understand your experience is what I want people to really get out of it. 

Courtney: Do you know what form your research is going to take on yet?? I could just imagine a series of like children’s books that express the roses and thorns of being biracial or multiracial and helping them understand and make sense of their experiences but I’d be interested in knowing how you imagine sharing your research!  

Kim: Oh my gosh! That actually sounds so amazing! I never really thought about how it can be addressed on a non adult level in that way. I think when I have more time I would like to interview children and parents together to see what’s going on in their brains. That would be amazing. 

Courtney: Whose story do I want to tell? Well, namely, mine I suppose but I really hope to broaden and generalize my journey so as to be relevant for others as well. And I suppose this generalization may seem contradictory to what I said earlier about how generalization and summarization often omit or distort the complexity of our stories, but I’m hoping to highlight the complexity of the traditional practice of grounding through my story while providing a general path or journey for others to follow in their pursuit of imaging how they might invent ground where there hasn’t been much before. I’m not wanting anyone or expecting anyone to resonate with my journey because I think it’s a relatively niche population, but I do hope to chronicle the arrival at the question of who I am, my introduction to grounding and my experience with it, and how I might re-imagine the practice to suite my specific needs. Through this, I hope to create, in some ways, an example of a how-to re-imagining of grounding. I just want to make this path a little easier for others who may share a similar experience or similar discomfort with the practice, and hope to start paving the way to a more complex understanding and operationalization of grounding. 

Kim: Yeah I think I also contradicted myself by saying the majority which is the minority and then multiracial people are not the majority haha. 

I really want to learn more about grounding. Do you have any recommendations on what you found helpful?

Courtney: I will share any good resources if I find them! One thing I’m kind of struggling with in my research is there are multiple definitions of “grounding” for different research fields. Like the term is used for physics to mean the neutralizing an object’s electric charge or it’s used in environmental work to be the practice of reconnecting with the Earth so it can be tricky to find but I’m happy to share as I find articles that speak to the practice I’m talking about! 

My mentor used this activity below to help people get a sense of what meant a lot to them or who they understood to be important to them growing up. It can actually bring up a lot of feelings and, I think especially for those of us a little farther along in our personal journeys of unpacking, can really highlight some points of tension in our lives. For example, my family was really toxic and harmful growing up but they always tried to make holidays a happy time for my brother and I so I have a deep appreciation for commercial holidays but the social justice activist in me doesn’t really know the morality of whether or not I should enjoy them as much as I do. 

Kim: I bet reaching out the librarian that specializes in MACs resources would be a good person to assist you in being able to find the proper “grounding” definitions. As for the ideas centered around commercialism, I also wonder about that. There are some things that I just really enjoy so how can I enjoy them without others thinking I’m giving into the “capitalist way”?. I love the worksheet too. I think this template would be something wonderful to share.

There are stories shared and I reflect on them….a LOT.

“I’m white, Hawaiian, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Native American. My middle school was predominately Hawaiian and Asian. I always got teased for “acting white” or “sounding white”” 

“I used to feel like that all the time and have to constantly explain certain things like how do I know to speak Spanish, etc.”

“I do feel a little more accepted by the small Hispanic community here because they see how I “act Hispanic” and see the cultural ties.”

“I lack deep knowledge of both cultures which makes me feel like I can’t participate in them with others.”

“I was bounced from community to community and it caused me a lot of pain and honestly I’m still a little messed up socially because of it.”

“Got into fights because I didn’t look Mexican. For a hot couple of years as a teenager, I despised Mexicans and I hated myself.”

“I’m too white to be Korean and too Korean to be white.”

In all of Robert Farid Karimi’s work, you can see the importance of getting the audience to become more comfortable by creating a sort of gradual change between watching and participating. It gets to the heart of the message centered around identity. In Muñoz’s work they talk about how identity comes weighed down with certain expectations, regardless of a person agreeing or not with them. In order to be a part of that they may have to unwillingly participate in aspects that clash with who they view themselves as. Karimi’s work talks about this in many different ways including being Guatemalan and Iranian as well as participating in Muslim and Catholic traditions. In the event on Wednesday Karimi also talks about play and its importance and in tandem with the Boyd text I think its an interesting comparison. It sets us up to understand rules of the society we live in but it also sets up a lot of toxicity and roles that we also may not want to conform with. Muñoz gave an example of how in certain communities certain roles are heavily gendered and with that in mind I see how play can support those roles in communities.

Back to Karimi, especially in the Farid Mercury/written piece around the same subject, I could feel that internal panic, what the fuck, angry moment. The associations that people burden others with based on what they perceive their identity to be is honestly astounding. I also strongly identified with Karimi’s narrative of someone thinking he was white. His writing is beautiful, poetic, lyrical, funny. I love it.

“In the discussion of race in the country, I am passed up.

Still stuck in black and white paradigm

That sees race as a tug of war of two extremes,

Where other cultures are not allowed to play

And mixed race isn’t even invited to the part.”

I crave the heat of color too.