This weeks reading was "Transnationalizing Viet Nam: Community, Culture, and Politics in the Diaspora" by Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde. In the portion of the readings we did for this week, the two primary narratives and stories that Professor Valverde followed was that of Vice Mayor Madison Nguyen and artist Chau Huynh. In the respective chapters that correlate to each of these stories, Professor Valverde closely follows the experiences of these two individuals, and as I read, I quickly understood why our theme for this week was "Diasporic Experiences and Transnational Processes". Through each of these stories we saw first hand examples of experiences folx from within our community faced. Though their experiences were difference, the message is clear.
To this day, there are many stereotypes revolving around the Asian-American community, and even more so around the Southeast Asian American Community. Professor Valverde's work underscores the importance of transationalization and the importance of globalization because it not only allows for people's movements to be spread internationally, but it allows for the "re-narration" and redefining of perspective. It allows for folx to change the tone and reestablish the narratives surrounding these communities and the people whom are apart of it. From reading these stories and understanding the theme from this week and applying it to my own life, I realize that I grew up without seeing representation in the spaces I found myself in. I didn't see representation within social media, in my educators, in my work and academic spaces, etc. This brings me to mention how today, there are many Asian-American folx within industries who are striving to create representation so that the perspective of Asian-Americans can be redefined. This fight also extends so that Asian-American perspectives can also be understood. I feel that this is especially relevant in our current time.
My photo for this week is a picture from the Oscars, in which the cast of Parasite won in their nominated category [Fun fact: they also practically dominated the Oscars as a whole (: ]. It was genuinely such a win on behalf of the Asian-American community. Unfortunately, with this win came a lot of backlash and hatred from various people. It just goes to show how these issues are still deeply rooted within society, and how the fight for change must not stop.
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