Individual Medium Post #2
What each of the groups of people that we have discussed thus far share, is their treatment as suspect, due to their societal treatment as somehow not fully belonging (here, I am talking about the Chinese in Honolulu, Koreans in Befu, and Okinawans on the battlefront). We have also seen how they fought back at times, and at others, simply tried to carve out other socialities to survive and to live their own ideas of abundance. We have not yet discussed place-making in terms of the creation of art, of music, of literature, etc. What place do you think that these things, which we might put together as “cultural productions,” has in analyses of political struggle? Your observations do not have to be based on research, per se. Think about how your own engagement with these kinds of materials have shifted your own understanding of belonging, of community, of a world you want to bring into being.
First of all, from what we observed in regions such as Honolulu, Befu, and the battlefront, we can observe the inequalities the minorities faced and also the xenophobic nature inherent to humans. By looking more closely into the Chinese immigration to Hawaii, one can see that as the main focus of the immigration is for work, most of the immigrants were male. This resulted in the inability for the Chinese to create their own “China“ within Honolulu, rather, they needed to marry the local women to pass on the heritage. This eventually caused the mixing of the Chinese and Hawaiian culture. As arts, music, and literature are all essentially different manifestation of culture, with the mixing of different cultures comes forth a balance between two distinct heritages. By relating the logic to a more political aspect, one could perceive this as finding the balance within two countries.
By extending the thought further, music, rather then simply being notes, is an ancient way for civilizations to pass down folktales, legends, and also knowledge. As simple stories may be harder to remember, many civilizations store knowledges inside folk songs which were catchier and easier to pass down. Thus, music is also a way for a civilization to pass down its “current state.” One example includes the Blues, which is said to represent depression. Combined with how the Blues was created as a “non-verbal language” for the African Americans to voice their pain and distress and signifies their resistance to the oppressions of the Western culture. In short, I believe that music is the frottage of a culture at a certain point in time and its importance as described in Goffe’s idea of a soundscape.
