(Go to the main Student Symposium page)
Saturday, April 12, 2003
106 Seelye Hall, Smith College
The Five College Center, Crossroads in the Study of the Americas,
invites students, faculty and the general public to attend its sixth annual
student symposium. Undergraduates from the five colleges will present
work from a number of disciplines, focusing on issues of identity, power,
resistance, and cultural exchange in the Americas.
9:00 Welcome
Carol Tecla Christ, President, Smith College
9:15-10:45: Histories and Resistance
-
Alan Vazquez (Amherst College)
- My thesis analyzes the different causes that lead to crises for democracy.
I compare and contrast crises in Argentina (2001), Ecuador (2000), and
Venezuela (2002) to critique overly general theories that fail to adequately
explain these crises, which must be understood as multi-causal.
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- Sara Rzeszutek, (Mount Holyoke College), "Confronting Democracy's
Promise: The Southern Negro Youth Congress and the Domestic Battle between
Fascism and Democracy, 1946-1948"
- This paper examines how the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC) shaped
the terms of the struggle for democracy in the American South after
the Second World War by building on the rhetoric of the war years, which
had imagined a struggle between American democracy and international
fascism. The events at the Congress's 1948 conference, which dramatically
demonstrated the actual tensions between democratic rhetoric and the
realities of domestic fascism, also showed how the SNYC understood the
relocation of the battle between democracy and fascism from international
spheres to domestic spheres, and the way the SNYC utilized this discourse
to present its campaigns.
-
- Tom Fritzsche (Amherst College), "The Changing Roles of Latin
Americans, Indigenous Americans and Canadians, and White Americans in
the Blueberry Harvest of Washington County, Maine, 1950-2002"
- This study attempts to answer two intertwined questions by analyzing
the history of the wild blueberry harvest in Washington County, Maine
over the last 50 years: What caused the changes in the blueberry harvest
labor force, as increasing numbers of Mexicans and other Latinos entered
the harvest labor pool beginning in the late 1980s? And why has the
pay rate remained stagnant for much of the last 50 years? Between 1950
and 2002, almost every aspect of the blueberry harvest underwent major
changes, except for the box rate paid to hand rakers. Among the explanations
I consider is the denigration or ethnicization of blueberry labor in
the minds of local whites. Understanding the pay rate stagnation is
important because it tells us who has benefited the most from the dramatic
changes in the harvest. I argue that the two largest growers in the
harvest have expanded their power over smaller growers as well as over
hired rakers, and that the transitions in the harvest during the second
half of the twentieth century are driven by a technological modernization
of the harvest. I discuss examples of resistance by members of all three
ethnic groups involved in the blueberry harvest.
-
- Daurie Mangan-Dimuzio (Smith College), Maya Ramos (Smith College),
Betina Steiger ' (UMASS, Amherst) & Sunyoung Yang (Smith College),
"'Selling Nature Won't Save It": Campesino Communities Meet
Destructive Development: A Brief Discussion of the Ley Forestal y de
Fauna Silvestre, Numero 27308, Peru"
- In San Martín, Peru, the region of conflict, two worldviews
collide. The cosmovision of the Andean campesino communities embodies
a holistic reciprocal relationship between the human and more-than-human
worlds, which contrasts sharply with the economic model of development
imposed by the national government. This paper discusses the impact
of the proposed implementation of the Ley Forestal y de Fauna y Silvestre
27308, Peru, which proposes development at the expense of campesino
lifeways. We feel it is our responsibility, as people who have participated
(however briefly) in the lifeways of the Quechua-Lamistas, to raise
awareness of the issues at hand. Just as we have benefited from our
interactions with the communities in Lamas, Peru, it is now our turn
to reciprocate by spreading the seeds of campesino regenerative wisdom.
10:45-12:15: Visions
- Lindsay Smith (Smith College), "Linking Race and Class: Negative
Representations of Colonial Mexican Castas in las Pinturas de Castas"
- The castas paintings of Colonial Mexico have been analyzed, studied,
and interpreted numerous ways, the consensus being that they played
multiple roles in history. It is clear that they paint an idealized
vision of racial order and control while emphasizing the social place
of people of various ethnicities, but there are many underlying messages
as well. What we do know comes from fifty-nine sets of paintings that
have been discovered. Fifty of these came from central Mexico and were
painted in the late colonial period between 1750 and 1800. The majority
of the paintings were exported to Spain and the rest of Europe as tourist
items, although some remained in New Spain. Famous artists painted some,
while others were crude, anonymous reproductions. Today the castas paintings
are interpreted as representing everything from kitschy tourist relics
to serious warnings about interracial mixing. In this paper, I would
like to focus on one role the castas paintings played, which was to
maintain the status quo for Spanish/Creole settlers asserting their
superiority over indigenous, African, and racially mixed Mexicans, who
were increasing in number. In my paper, I discuss the way castas paintings
were used to show the superiority of upper class Peninsular and Creole
Spaniards.
-
- Emily Andersson (Mount Holyoke College), "Confronting Charlie
Chan: Postmodern Representation in Chan is Missing"
- According to Timothy Woods, postmodernism can be defined by three
major characteristics: subverting the rational, demonstrating a break
with the past, and challenging traditional meta-narratives. Through
his film Chan is Missing (1981), filmmaker Wayne Wang fulfills these
qualities by creating a postmodern work which enables him to (re)represent
Chinese American identity by (re)examining the Charlie Chan films of
the 1930s. Wang challenges those films' representation of Asian Americans
as well as the fixed narrative of the traditional detective narrative
they utilized. In this way, Wang breaks with the past both by overturning
the tradition of a classic genre like film noir detective stories and
by challenging conventional stereotypes of Asian Americans, specifically
Chinese Americans. Wang does this through both the story he tells in
the film his filming techniques.
-
- Masami Kawai (Hampshire College), "My Mother's Work: Imagination
and Resistance"
- PALM TREES, PEARLS, A SUPERHERO AND A SLANT EYED GIRL WITH A CAMERA.
In this piece the videomaker returns to Los Angeles from her New England
College to tell the stories of the low-wage workers she read about in
her classes. However in the telling she finds that the real story is
about the distance between her immigrant mother and the videomaker's
Americanized self. Through the process of making the video about her
mother, who works in the kitchen of an all you can eat sushi restaurant,
the videomaker must re-imagine how to work with her subject, and must
reveal the power invested in the camera's gaze. It is a power that she
can't deny, and that she can only take responsibility for through deepening
her relationship with her mother. The power relations between the videomaker
and the subject are accentuated by the tension between her intellectual
perspective and her mother's lived experience. This piece is a meditation
on resistance to capitalist exploitation, the distance between the halls
of academia and the restaurant kitchens of Los Angeles, and the relationship
between a Japanese immigrant mother and her Americanized daughter.
-
- Sabeena Shah (Hampshire College), "Now I'm the terrorist, See
how it feels"
- My project began as a 'zine (or magazine) about Afghani-American identity
post-September 11th. Now I find it works better as an exhibit. It focuses
on issues of war, racism, gender, sexuality, and 'authentic identities.'
I've incorporated a lot of information about the war on Afghanistan
and conditions there. Also, I've included personal stories, about myself,
my family, and my friends, and about how conditions in Afghanistan affect
its worldwide Diaspora. I have told some stories of the hate crimes
committed against Arab Americans and South Asian Americans. I made this
project because as an Afghani-American, I was very concerned to hear
the complete absence of the voices of women, immigrants, people of color,
particularly Afghani and Afghani American voices. It became more and
more necessary to me to be able to tell this story of our paths in America,
and how they are hindered by endless wars, by racism, and by neocolonialism.
I found myself really enjoying the format of the collage, having the
pictures and the words tell the opposing stories of our technical freedom
in the United States, the United States led 'liberation' of Afghani
women, and gender's place in the construction of the terrorist. This
project became a way for me to express the anger, frustration, and isolation
I feel, having all this happen while I'm at school, separated from my
family and my community. But I also always feel separated from 'my community,'
as a more progressive person, and as a queer woman, and I express this
also.
12:15-1:30: LUNCH (Faculty Lounge, Seelye Hall)
1:30-3:00: Memory and Community
- Poulomo Saha (Mount Holyoke College), "On the Margins of Marginality:
The Silent Narrative of Bangladeshi Hindus Living in America"
- I seek to explore the factors that appear to be hindering the emergence
of a coherent Bangladeshi-Hindu narrative in America. My analysis will
include an examination of the historical factors that have contributed
to a disconnected identity, as well as the socio-religious dynamics
that are elemental to the interface between the cultural groups within
the Bengali-American society. All of these issues are integral to the
understanding and analysis of the immigrants who arrived in America
from a country that is not only fragmented by war but also by internal
conflicts that reach into the heart of individual and national identity.
-
- Mary C. Yang (Mount Holyoke College), "Escaping to the Margins:
The Hmong Immigrant Generation in America"
- For the Hmong immigrant generation, assimilation and acculturation
into American culture can never be completed because its experience
is less one of migration than exile. Because the Hmong were forced from
their homes, risking persecution and death if they stayed in Laos, many
from the Hmong immigrant generation long to return "home,"
to return to Laos. Language is the key, defining divergence between
the Hmong and American societies. All immigrants face language barriers.
However, for the Hmong immigrant generation, the experience of exile
has made the language barrier more difficult, since it has caused Hmong
immigrants to reject English and written language in general: For the
Hmong, no written language existed for hundreds of years. Instead an
oral history kept their traditions and culture of alive. By contrast,
America bases much of its history, society, life on the written word.
This difference has proven a large obstacle that the Hmong immigrant
generation cannot overcome.
-
- Jayna Huot (Mount Holyoke College), "History and Memory: Community
and Imagery"
- In Rea Tajiri's film, History and Memory, and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's
novel, Dictee, the themes of history and memory are central. Their intersections
form the basis for both personal as well as community identity. As Tajiri
tells of her quest to discover the forgotten past of her family's experience
as Japanese internees during World War II, Cha writes of her travels
to her distant homeland, exposing the dormant memories and unspoken
history comprising the Korean national identity. In coming to know –
and participate in – the larger communal histories of family and
nation, both women come to know their own personal history, and thus,
to understand their own identities. As this is accomplished, Tajiri
and Cha take into account the many voices and the many faces that have
been left out of history's supposedly all-encompassing meta-narrative.
And they are left with no choice but to challenge the very foundations
of such a notion of history, by questioning how it was formulated, by
whom, and on what basis. They recognize, too, that just as images have
been used to create inadequate and exclusionary histories, they can
also be used to create a more inclusive history – one that includes
not only Asian Americans but women as well. In this paper, I will argue
that to the extent that both are actively involved in retracing the
steps of their ancestors, Tajiri and Cha not only a recreate history,
but reenact it. Their works are themselves transformed into forms of
cultural memory through which personal memories are shared, historical
narratives questioned, and memory contested and claimed. History and
Memory and Dictée are complete only when the fragments of individual
voices, and memories, along with the remnants of forgotten images, are
pieced together for themselves by viewers and readers.
-
- Sasha Senderovich (University of Massachusetts Amherst), "Golems
and Mice in New York City: Holocaust, Postmemory and the Question of
Representation"
- In this paper, which is part of my honors thesis research, I investigate
the notion of "postmemory" and its application to inter-generational
"memory" by examining the works of post-Holocaust writers
and conceptual artists in the United States. I am interested in how
subsequent generations approach the "realist" conventions
of representation created by the historical events of the Holocaust.
It is in the study of cultural production of these subsequent or "after"
generations that my primary interest resides. I explore how subsequent
generations locate their relationships to particular events between
"history" and "memory," defying the established
conventions of representation through the work of their personal memories
while embedding some of their own understandings of remembering within
the material provided by these very same conventions. In my thesis,
I argue, after James E. Young, that a synthesis of these approaches
to representation may be found in "received history," - a
concept that includes both "history" and "memory."
I structure my argument around the idea that for the "after"
generations, a relation to memory of the Holocaust is mediated by way
of travel – whether real or imaginary – to the world extinguished
by history, and through subsequent search for artistic and literary
forms established by pre-Holocaust or Holocaust writers and artists.
In my thesis, I find that it is by way of being mediated through such
lost and subsequently discovered (and altered) artistic forms, that
the post-Holocaust generations are able to create narratives of their
own. In the end, it is precisely with the nature of creativity and the
limits of representation that my thesis is concerned.
3:00-4:45: Identity in Transition
- Abigail Horne (Mount Holyoke College), "Colorless: Postmodernism
and Racial Identity in Yellow"
- The main characters in Don Lee's collection of short stories, Yellow,
are predominantly Asian American, although their families come from
different parts of Asia. Two short stories in particular, "The
Lone Night Cantina" and "Yellow," convey strong messages
about the Asian American racial identity of the characters. In "The
Lone Night Cantina," Annie Yung, seeks solace in the culture of
country songs and Western-style bars and attempts to transform her identity
to that of a blonde cowgirl with a Southern accent. In "Yellow,"
Danny Kim spends his adolescent and early adult years desperately trying
to escape the Asian component of his racial identity. I argue that both
these characters attempt to create postmodern racial identities, because
they want to form racial identities that are without boundaries and
that defy essentialism. However, Annie and Danny cannot reconcile a
postmodern racial identity with the world they live in, and the racial
identity they actually construct is a realist identity, as defined by
Paul M. Moya in her article, "Postmodernism, 'Realism,' and the
Politics of Identity."
-
- Collin Hull (Mount Holyoke College), "The Challenge of Identity
In Postmodern America"
- This essay examines identity as it is explored in Haraway's "Cyborg
Manifesto," Kingston's Tripmaster Monkey, critical essays written
by Patricia Lin and Isabella Furth, and Trinh Mihn-Ha's "Woman,
Native, Other." It concludes by suggesting that those who have
to struggle to create an identity in the face of prejudice do not have
the same luxury to deny the concept as those who speak from positions
of power.
-
- Rudy Malabanan (Hampshire College), "Being Shipped Out: TransnationalNarratives
of Family, Culture, and Gender in the Life Stories of Two Young Filipina
American Women"
- Through a "reading" of life stories, this paper ethnographically
explores the construction of cultural identity and belonging in the
narratives of Gwen and Vanessa, two second-generation Filipina American
young women sent to the Philippines for higher education. Based on tape-recorded
interview conversations we conducted together, this paper interrogates
the gendered nature of their parents' decision to send them "back"
to the Philippines; and consequently, the everyday negotiations they
found themselves making while living in the setting. It pays attention
to the varying strategies the women use to construct and differentiate
their hybrid identity through what I call disidentifying vis-à-vis
their immigrant parents and the larger Filipino society. Finally, this
paper looks at what youth's incorporation of transnational movements
tells us about the workings of migrations, Diaspora, and globalization.
-
- Brita Kate Zitin (Smith College), "Decolonizing Translation:
The case of the Francophone Caribbean"
- In my paper, I outline the evolution of translation theory in order
to trace the emergence of the contemporary postcolonial perspective,
then discuss the economic and ideological impact of colonialism on literary
translation. I review some of the strategies that have been proposed
for disentangling translation from imperialism by preserving the cultural
opacity and resistant quality of postcolonial texts. Finally, I examine
the specific case of Caribbean texts that are translated from French
into English, focusing on how the métissage of identities and
languages in francophone literature can be conveyed in translation.
As an illustration of these theories, I offer two English versions of
the short story "Fragment n 1" by Martinican writer Muriel
Wiltord. One version conceals the story's cultural markers in fluent
English prose, while the other is heavily annotated to expose the proliferating
meanings of the original. The paper ends with a reflection on my own
translation work in light of the theories I read. In my presentation,
I will draw on my experience of translation practice in an effort to
identify strategies that enable translators to transmit the postcolonial
literatures of the Americas into the dominant English idiom without
stripping them of their cultural specificity and resistant potential.
-
- Sky Chandler and Katie McCarthy (Smith College), "The Minority
Student's Transition into the World of Higher Education"
- Coming from an educationally under-prepared background, how do minority
students, in particular, experience college education? Last fall, Sky
Chandler and Katie McCarthy interviewed five students about their background
and transition to college. They sought to identify the main areas that
lead minorities to have a more complex and difficult transition to college
than students who are in the majority. Using statistics along with quotes
from their interviewees, Sky and Katie found the critical areas to include:
a lack of support from their culture for aspiring to go to college,
an academic struggle due to under-preparedness, a deficit in their college's
attempts to create support networks, their rejection of the dominant
white culture leading them to feel alienation, stereotypes about race
and class which prevent mixing, and other added stresses leading to
a sense of isolation. Sky and Katie listened to these students and learned
the unsettling reality that once minority students finally gain entrance
into the dominant, white world of higher education, they risk losing
their sense of cultural identity and motivation to succeed in that world
even beyond college.
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