Hurricane Katrina, the massive hurricane that nearly destroyed the city of New Orleans, and the United States’ War on Terror, which includes many shortcomings such as Islamophobia, are two events interconnected in their consequences. This is demonstrated in Dave Egger’s book “Zeitoun”, a cautiously non-fictional account of a middle-class Syrian-American family man as he struggles in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and is wrongfully imprisoned under terrible conditions under the inaccurate pretense of being affiliated with the Al-Qaeda terrorist group. Zeitoun faced such horrific circumstances for simply being Syrian (ie. from the Middle East and its “terrorist” countries). And although the reader is never privy to the story of Zeitoun that continues after Egger’s book, the man celebrated as a hero is now a very different person from his shining literary portrayal.
Victims of abuse can become abusers themselves. Although this is not always the case, abuse can be perpetuated by a vicious cycle. Zeitoun undeniably suffered abuse in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as a result of the influence of the War on Terror on how the United States viewed those of Middle Eastern descent. He was arrested and imprisoned by those who ascribed to the narrow mindset of the War on Terror and whose role was meant to be of aid to those who suffered from the devastating hurricane, and his experiences may have set the stage for his eventual “downfall”. While Zeitoun’s wife Kathy has noted that there had been prior instances of abuse, subsequent news coverage of his arrests suggest that this abuse worsened, and he began abusing not only his wife but his children as well.
In Zeitoun, we may see an example of a cycle of abuse taking form in an abnormal way, with Zeitoun’s anger at the systemic oppression and betrayal of the institutions meant to protect him materializing in a case of domestic abuse.

In our ASTU class, we recently finished reading Juliana Spahr’s book of poetry, This Connection Of Everyone With Lungs, and after having read the first of two poems in the book, we had the opportunity to listen to Spahr read it out loud in an audio tape.
Entitled “poem written after september 11/2001”, it is only eight pages long and much of the poem is some kind of repetition of a previous passage or line. In fact, from the end of page 4 to page 8, the same passage is repeated as more words are added to end, and due to this heavy use of repetition, I found myself skimming over many of the repeated words and phrases when I read the poem. However, on tape I was not able to skip over Spahr’s reading or fast-forward, and so I had to listen as she read out each word. Listening to “poem written after september 11/2001” being read aloud made me notice and appreciate further the rhythm of the verses that resulted form the repetition.
In addition to gaining a better sense of the rhythm of the poem, listening to the audio also put the tone of the poem in a new perspective. In the audio, Spahr sounded very monotone, and while on paper, I would notice certain phrases such as “How connected we are with everyone” (9) and stop to think about its meaning in the poem, Spahr’s reading did not place any accents on particular words or passages, and for good or worse, I felt that those “keywords” seemed to be glossed over. Still, reading the poem so that the words simply washed over the listener may have been the whole point of Spahr’s reading.
Although I have not had much exposure to poetry (or at least little that has continued to resonate with me), both read the poem then hearing the author read it aloud has made me think about its meaning and intent more than I have previously.

Our definitions of loaded terms such as “hero” depends heavily on the context, or in theorist Judith Butler’s words “frames”, through which we view them. A Clint Eastwood movie titled “American Sniper” has recently hit theaters and has incited controversy surrounding the Islamophobic mindset that some claim it promotes. The film is based on the Navy Seal sniper Chris Kyle and his career in the Iraq War during which time he killed around 160 people, including civilians. While many U.S. conservatives have perhaps unsurprisingly hailed Kyle and “American Sniper” (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30923038) as heroic and patriotic, groups such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee have brought awareness to some of the hateful consequences of this riling film.
In the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, many recognized the first-responders as “heroes” who risked their own lives to save that of others, even going so far as to suffer the effects of the polluted rubble from the collapsed buildings. U.S. soldiers are also often referred to as “heroes” for fighting to keep their country safe, and to protect (and spread) the Western notions of democracy and freedom. While some may count Chris Kyle as being among these heroes, it can be argued that his violently prejudiced attitude toward the Muslim people he killed makes it difficult to label him a hero.
One of the criticism of “American Sniper” is that it promotes Islamophobia, and glorifies the harmful world-view of “us” vs “them”, the very same post-9/11 view of the U.S. and it’s relationship with the rest of the world that was used to justify the various wars the country waged in the Middle East. Such racist and controversial mindsets continue to provoke hate crimes against people of color (http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-30972690), and clash with the idea that we must count every life as a human life, a theme in Butler’s book Frames of War: When is a Life Grievable?

For another perspective on these weighted terms, I highly recommend Alana Redka’s blog post on the term “hero”, which ties it into Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” (https://blogs.ubc.ca/alanaredka/2015/01/15/what-is-a-hero-really/).

Readers are usually only able to understand an author through their text alone, and other means of discovering further knowledge about the author can be unavailable to many. Our ASTU class had the opportunity to visit the Joy Kogawa fonds after reading her book, Obasan, and the fonds gave us insight into the many details and aspects of Kogawa’s life and the making of Obasan.
The box of documents that I looked at contained a typed letter from Kogawa to the owners of the house that appears in her book. Since the house played an important role in her childhood, Kogawa asks if the owners would consider selling the house to her. She talks about her family and how her mother is very alone, and expresses hope to hear back from the owners of the house; the house would eventually be turned into a writer’s home. Although Dr. Luger touched on the history of this particular house in class, I would not have been able to see it as clearly in the larger picture of the story of Obasan without having gone to the fonds and found this document.
I also discovered a couple letters that Kogawa had written to an individual by the name of “Fred” in which she talked about her depression. A letter from January 13, no year, mostly described her thought process in the midst of her depression, and in it, Kogawa also expressed her doubts about her relations with her friends, among other subjects. Such highly personal documents could allow us to gain some understanding of the author herself and how she fits into the greater narrative surrounding Obasan, in which she played a central role.
In addition, there was a letter from a “JJ” to Kogawa in which “JJ” asked the author whether she was on drugs because, and I quote loosely, poets often sound as though they are on drugs. Such morsels of humor can further add to the mosaic that these important, one-of-a-kind documents create to further our understanding of Kogawa and Obasan.

There are three narrative voices in Iranian-born author Marjane Satrapi’s graphic narrative, Persepolis–Marji the 10 year old Marjane who is the protagonist of the story, Marjane the adult who acts as a narrator, and Satrapi the author.

The story of Persepolis that is the events of Marji’s childhood in Iran is told primarily through Marji’s eyes. The ebb and flow of the narrative captures the youngster’s perspective, and the reader mostly experiences the story by seeing what Marji sees and observing her as she endures a revolution and a war.
However, the story of Persepolis is not simply the life of Marji. Her family, her relatives, her country’s history and its relation to world powers are an integral part of her narrative, and the reader is filled in on such details and historical elements by Marjane, the adult Marji who gives voice to these factors that little Marji can’t bring into her own life story. It is important to note that while Marjane is an important narrative voice in the entire narrative that is Persepolis, her input is always boxed off in a text set in the top (or bottom) of the panel. Marjane provides a crucial layer to the narrative, but as she is not part of the events in Marji’s story, she is never given a speech bubble (Chute 97).
Lastly, every individual comic panel and illustration, the clever plays with light and shadow, the Persian artistic influence that permeates the engaging artwork of the narrative, the significant illustrations of chapter titles all add another layer to the entire narrative of Persepolis. This layer is comprised of Satrapi, the author of Marji’s story. Like Marjane’s ability to see beyond the limited knowledge of Marji, Satrapi’s contribution to Marji’s story enriches her narrative.

If Persepolis consisted only of Marji, the reader’s knowledge would be limited to what the 10-year old knew at that time, and they would learn nothing more than Marji’s experiences as events progressed. With Marjane’s narrative, the reader is provided with the historical context of Marji’s story, as well as crucial family history that tells the back-story (and ultimate fate) of many significant figures in Marji’s life. The addition of Marjane’s perspective puts Marji’s story in a larger context due to the expanded knowledge that the older Marjane possesses. With the addition of Satrapi to these two voices, the visual element of Marji’s narrative is brought to life. In her essay on Satrapi’s graphic narrative, feminist scholar Hilary Chute argues that the author uses this “visual voice” (97) to “return to and present the historical events of her childhood”. This allows the reader to immerse themselves in Marji’s story, and conveys aspects of the story through visual means that could not hold the same significance if it were simply put in words.

I must confess my excitement to spend an entire Sociology class period on Wednesday watching a queer film. Even better, there was free pizza.
Vivek Shraya’s film “What I LOVE about being QUEER” played at the Norm Theater in the Student Union Building, and our section, taught by Sociology professor Dr. Rachael Sullivan, was required to write a reflection on the film (or a response as to why we chose not to see the film, if we made that decision).
Shraya, who rocked a blonde streak in his fashionably styled hair, provided a short introduction in which he explained his reason for making a film that celebrated queerness, recounting his work with queer youth in Toronto and the self-loathing and disgust that too many of them felt toward their identity. Motivated to illuminate the joys of being queer amidst numerous media that highlighted the struggles of that identity, Shraya interviewed a handful of individuals in the queer community in the intimate setting of his kitchen, asking them what they loved about being queer (http://vivekshraya.com/films/what-i-love-about-being-queer). Many of those interviewed celebrated the unique culture of queer communities and the beauty of their individual queer identities, but I was intrigued by how many of them reflected on the fact that the queer community is very much a chosen family and how queer individuals make an active decision to choose the queer community as a family of loving and supporting people.

The queer topic of Shraya’s film and the personal look it provided into the minds of its subjects reminded me of another film I had seen earlier this year. In June, the month unofficially reserved for many queer events such as Pride, I went to the Tokyo Lesbian & Gay Film Festival with a couple of gay friends I had met through theatre. It was my second year attending this film festival, which had been the first queer event I had attended after coming out as gay in the previous year, and after a pancake brunch, my friends and I filed into the small auditorium with the other queer folks of Tokyo.
It was there that I saw director, producer, and writer Yun Suh’s documentary, “City of Borders”.

“City of Borders” documents the only gay bar in the city of Jerusalem, and poignantly reflects the incredible unity between individuals from heavily divided communities through the shared experience of being queer (http://www.cityofborders.com/). Jerusalem has many borders between its inhabitants, from the deep-rooted border between Israelis and Pakistanis, to the borders between the various religions practiced in the city, to the deadly border between the homosexuals and those who are religiously opposed to homosexuality.
The film followed five stories of various members of Jerusalem’s queer community, depicting their struggles with their queer identity in the city, in greater society, and in their private family spheres.
One of the young gay men featured in “City of Borders” risked his life each night he traveled to the gay bar, and as I recall his spotless white shirt seeming to glow as he and his comrades quietly scaled walls and crawled through holes in barbed fences, I wonder what they loved about being queer, if they love being queer in a climate so hostile toward them. Another one of the men in the documentary had had his arm slashed by an Orthodox Christian who had charged into a crowd at a previous gay march in Jerusalem, brandishing a knife. Despite the horror of the attack, the man wore his literal scars with a sense of pride.
Through its close documentation of the lives of its subjects, “City of Borders” also captures the unparalleled love that ties Jerusalem’s queer community together as they break down the borders that divide them to celebrate their identity.

Shraya’s “What I LOVE about being QUEER” and Suh’s “City of Borders” demonstrate the possibility of individuals to come together and create safe spaces and communities for each other. These two films alone depict Jerusalem’s gay bar uniting gay Israelis and Pakistanis, and Canadian queers reflecting on queerness and queer culture and extending positivity about one’s sexuality toward queer youth who struggle to come to terms with their own identity. Offering a new take on global citizenship, Shraya and Suh encourage support and unity between and within marginalized groups, and celebrate the queer experience choosing one’s own community, one’s own family.

I am a half-Japanese half-American individual, and it was only mere decades ago that the two halves of my heritage were embroiled in war. Consequently, the impressions of World War II that I received from my relatives differed greatly depending which parent’s side of the family with which I spoke. Take, for example, Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States of America who led the U.S. in ending World War II and pushed for peace through the founding of the United Nations, according to his Wikipedia article. My grandmother dined with Truman once, and my father, born and raised in Pennsylvania, was fond of recounting that one story to me. The story was barely more than a single sentence–“My mother once dined with Truman,” or some variation thereof–but I understood that he was very proud of the fact that my grandmother had interacted with an individual who would play a large part in shaping world history. One day, I was in an elevator with my grandmother on my Japanese mother’s side, and I recounted my father’s story to her. I remember clearly how her smile ebbed slightly, showing no sign of my father’s enthusiasm. She had only been a baby, but she had experienced the terrors of war first-hand, fleeing her home in her mother’s arms as Allied troops fire-bombed civilian cities in Japan (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2014/02/15/commentary/tokyo-firebombing-and-unfinished-u-s-business/). Then came the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and as if that weren’t enough, Nagasaki was targeted, establishing Truman as a war criminal (http://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/31/us/hiroshima-a-controversy-that-refuses-to-die.html, “http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/after-hiroshima-truman-fa_b_3727286.html). I couldn’t deny my grandmother’s experience and the experiences of countless other Japanese people in WWII, but I also couldn’t ignore the effects of Truman’s actions in ending the war. Which side of the story would I align myself with? Which side of my family would I align myself with?
In her essay “The Role of Interpretative Communities in Remembering and Learning”, Farhat Shahzad addresses the impact of family as an interpretative community in influencing an individual’s memory. Throughout my predominantly American education, the information provided by school textbooks about WWII was secondary in comparison to the impressions from my family. “Human beings do not consume knowledge linearly from different technologies of memories such as textbooks and museums,” she asserts, with family being “the strongest, most cohesive, and most viable social group…on the processes of remembering and learning.” Whereas I barely remember the textbook information beyond vague dates and facts, the biased knowledge about WWII imparted to me by my family has remained years later.
The way that my personal narrative fit into Shahzad’s focus led me back to the question of “What is a global citizen?” At the beginning of this term, I considered a global citizen to be an individual who embraced the diversity that exists in the world, but now I believe the definition of “global citizen” must also include an awareness and acceptance of the conflict, be it internal or external, that can be brought about by different viewpoints.