This year in ASTU, we have explored many texts related to trauma and violence. American Sniper, based on the biography of United States Navy SEAL veteran Chris Kyle, was perhaps one of the most moving. The film is focused on the war in Iraq, but includes heartbreaking moments for Chris Kyle and his family even once he has returned home. We see traces of his PTSD and other underlying health issues caused from the war but they are not deeply explored, showing how Chris does not want to admit the war damaged him. Other moments, like when he is on the phone with his pregnant wife and abruptly drops the phone abandoning the call leading her to believe he has been killed, made me realize that I truly cannot imagine the feelings experienced by soldiers and their loved ones.

In some senses, American Sniper reminded me of Joy Kogawa’s Obasan, which we studied earlier in the year. This is because of the lingering trauma that Chris Kyle and Naomi both face, and their desire to make things right. In American Sniper, Chris talks about he wishes he could have saved more people, despite the hundreds of lives that he did save. He wanted to return to war so he could continue to serve his country. In Obasan, Naomi did not let what happened to her family be ignored or just swept under the rug. She fought for redress and compensation for the suffering and discrimination her family faced. While they are in drastically different situations, they both show that they are willing to put up a fight.

There is a point in the film where Chris has his gun aimed at a child, who is about to pick up a weapon. Chris is repeatedly saying to himself, about the child, “Don’t you dare pick that up,”. If the child picks it up and goes to use the weapon, Chris will be forced to shoot and kill him to prevent danger to his fellow troops. Luckily, the child puts it back down right after picking it up, and Chris does not shoot. If he had killed that child, we know that it probably would have haunted him for a very long time. I connected this to Phil Klay’s Redeployment. Klay states how him and his fellow soldiers shot dogs, and he could not stop thinking about it, or thinking about his own dog at home. When Chris is in this situation in American Sniper, at this point he has children at home. Just like having a dog at home made it harder for Klay to get over hurting them, having a child at home would make it immensely more difficult for him to harm a child, even though we are shown him harming a child before he had kids of his own.

If I had watched American Sniper before taking this ASTU class, I probably would have seen it the way the producers wanted us to see it – as viewing the United States as heroic and inherently good. However, after studying post-9/11 culture and the ‘war on terror’, I saw the United States as trying to assert their dominance and power, not as being intrepid. Because America saw Iraq as a threat, they invaded, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. This is not heroic, it is simply them showing that because they can kill, they will.

In conclusion, I did enjoy American Sniper, and I found it very touching at times. However, films about war and the United States should be critically thought about and carefully looked at, as things are not always what they seem, and there is more than one side to everything.

Works Cited

“American Sniper.” Warners Bros. Pictures, 2014.

Klay, Phil. “Redeployment.” Redeployment, Penguin, 2014, pp. 1-16

The Amazon rainforest has been fascinating to me since reading Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson, which takes place in Amazonia. Since then, I have thought of the Amazon as being an abundant, lush, beautiful, and massive rainforest. While it still is all these things, unfortunately, my idea of it turned out to be not as accurate as I hoped. As issues like deforestation and climate change have become more and more prevalent in recent years, the Amazon has fallen victim. Although I was aware of this, I did not realize how big the problem was until I visited the Amazonia exhibit at the Museum of Anthropology. I also did not know about the other problematic truths about the Amazon, including things happening to Indigenous people in Brazil.

At the Amazonia exhibit, I learned that 45% of the Amazon is protected natural areas and Indigenous territories. This kind of disturbed me, as that is less than half. Even worse, 84% of the Peruvian surface area of the Amazon is dedicated to oil production. The Amazon rainforest is one of the most bountiful areas in the world. It provides the Earth with 20% of its oxygen, over half of the 10 million species of plants, animals, and insects, and 1/5 of the world’s fresh water. For an area that provides so much for us, at the very least, much more than half should be protected. Then, we have the majority of the Peruvian Amazon being devoted to producing oil, a non-renewable, non-sustainable, and polluting resource. We are consciously wrecking an extremely plentiful bank of resources that our planet needs.

One of the main causes of deforestation in the Amazon is cattle ranching. This was interesting to me because I have heard vegan activists explaining that eating meat is harmful to the environment, but I never took it upon myself to actually find out why. But, if cattle ranching is responsible for 65-70% of deforestation in the Amazon, it is quite clear how the production of meat for consumption is destructive. This has inspired me to not only discover more about cattle ranching practices in Amazonia and around the world but to lower my own animal product consumption.

I was shocked to learn that it is not only the flora and fauna of Amazonia that is being destroyed – but the Indigenous people, too. From 2003 to 2015, there were 891 targeted assassinations of Indigenous people in Brazil. This reminds me of the Canadian national crisis of the missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. This is a huge problem in Canada, so it is heartbreaking to know that Indigenous people are being targeted around the world, not just in Canada. In addition, Amazonia is an extremely complex environment, that probably nobody understands as well as the Indigenous people of the area. They may be crucial to the sustainability of Amazonia, but they are also people themselves – they do not deserve to be targeted or removed from land they own.

The Amazonia exhibit really opened my eyes. I got to see some of the species of beautifully coloured birds and learn about the ways of life of people who live in the Amazon. But, I was also exposed to facts that show how a place that I have always glorified has some dark sides, too.

Sources

Last week, my ASTU class was given the opportunity to learn about the documents and archives related to our most recent read, Obasan. Being able to read these documents really opened up my eyes about both the historical and emotional context of the historical narrative. The documents that I got to closely examine were letters from the author Joy Kogawa to people including the Archbishop, the Premier of Ontario, and the Prime Minister of Canada, and replies from these people if there were any.

Kogawa wrote these letters with concern about the elderly Japanese citizens. They were not being treated well enough, and Kogawa wanted them to have their own nursing home, so they at least felt comfortable.  After all, they deserved this after going through discrimination, internment camps, and more. She also argued how if there was a Bill of Rights, all of this may never have happened. Her letters were well articulated and you can tell the importance behind them. She stated, “a culture is only as good as the way it treats its young and old”. After all the injustices her and her fellow Japanese Canadians face, it would be expected for the government to be willing to compensate them. The reply received from the Premier was positive but not promising. The reply from Prime Minister Trudeau was outright shocking. In fact, be barely even replied – he merely regarded her book as being something for his summer holidays, implying it is a “beach read”. While he could have used this opportunity as an attempt to heal broken relationships with the Japanese Canadian community, he used it to do nothing at all. Kogawa must have felt tremendously frustrated and angry toward this reply. Without saying it, his letter carried on the message that Obasan and her concerns were not a priority to him. It seemed that frankly, he did not care how the Japanese Canadian community still had to deal with the repercussions of what they went through.

However, positive fan letters somewhat began to make up for the lack of action by the government. These letters showed that even though some people did not really care, it still did make an impact on others. While there may have been some negative response to Obasan, it also shifted how people viewed this injustice. It educated some, and touched the emotions of others.

Reading both Obasan and the letter from Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau has made me think deeper about my privilege of being caucasian. Obviously, caucasian people would never be ostracized like that in Canada. And, in the unimaginable case that it did, if and when a white person reached out the government for help following the trauma, they undoubtedly would receive what they needed – maybe because the government would genuinely care, or maybe because they do not want their image to be tarnished. Just the fact that it is unimaginable for something like this to happen to one race but it did happen to another shows the leverage white people have over society in Canada, even though it presents itself as being a diverse and welcoming country. Although times have changed, Japanese Canadians today are still dealing with the consequences of the major trauma they faced – the apology from the B.C. government 70 years later cannot erase history.

Reference

https://www.straight.com/news/bc-government-apologizes-internment-japanese-canadians

Reading the graphic narrative Persepolis has been a pleasant surprise for me. Truthfully, I did not expect to like it when I saw it was a comic book but I found myself finishing it in one sitting. What intrigued me was not only the history about the conflict in Iran, but how Marji really immersed herself into the politics of it. Seeing the troubles unfold through the eyes of a child made it easier to understand and also more meaningful – although I am at the in between age of a child and adult, I definitely still relate more to a child in some senses.

Growing up white in Vancouver I obviously can’t relate to Marji’s situation. However, this book relates to my family, my uncle specifically, and helps me get a better picture as to what he went through. My uncle Bobak was born in Iran and is about the same age as Marjane Satrapi so they most likely had similar experiences growing up in Iran. I’ve never really been told or even thought to ask why he came to North America and how his experience was, but after reading Persepolis I am much more informed and interested in hearing about his personal story.

The stereotype of all Muslims and people who “look” Muslim being terrorists is a big reason why I do not know much about my own uncle’s history. He lives with my aunt and their two sons in Atlanta, Georgia – as we all know, some places in the United States can be very racist and Georgia is one of them. When the family comes to visit family in Canada every year Bobak has to stay home because the few times he has left the United States, it is nearly impossible for him to re-enter due to racial profiling. His caucasian wife and white-passing children get back across the border with no problems but it has never been easy for him. It has only gotten worse since 9/11, and even worse since Donald Trump became president. He decided to come to Canada for the first (and probably last) time in 15 years a few months before Trump would officially become president because unfortunately re-entering the states would probably go from near impossible to impossible.

Because his situation is not unique and millions of non-white Americans, Canadians, and people all over the world are discriminated against and stereotyped as being terrorists, I think that everyone should educate themselves deeper on this matter, and Persepolis is a good way to start. Persepolis tells the story of regular people in Iran – and they are not terrorists.

Over the last couple weeks in my ASTU class, we have discussed genre quite thoroughly. I’ve been able to gain a deeper understanding of it because we have spent so much time on it – contrary to high school where you spend one class on a topic and you move on to something else the next day. Genre is something that I have picked up on over the course of my life but I don’t recall actually learning about the various types of genres in school. To me, genre just meant different types of media. However, it can be expanded upon immensely. Genre can be interpreted and responded to in so many different ways.

Many people do not realize how many genres we see or experience in only one day. Some of the most obvious genres I experience in a day are reading my school books to magazines to the menu at the dining hall and listening to different types of music. Throughout the course of a day you also see people taking photos, whether it be of the scenery, with their friends, or even selfies. Reading and discussing the essay by Kate Douglas about selfies has shown me how a selfie is its own genre in itself, albeit a much less obvious genre than simply a type of music. Selfies as a genre receive much more backlash than other types of photography. They are much more casual and considered  narcissistic and disrespectful in many settings. Many people take photos of things or scenes they admire, so putting yourself in front of whatever else may be in the photo is showing that you are more important than the rest of the scene. Douglas’ essay clearly describes the negative connotations associated with selfies and even modern technology such as phones in general – people who take selfies may be seen as conceited and we have become so attached to our phones that they have become a form of witnessing. While these may be true under certain circumstances, the essay was about more than selfies themselves.

After reading this essay, I am now able to see how thin the line is between something being socially acceptable and unacceptable, and how people can be very blind to this. This article focuses not only on selfies as a genre, but how they are not acceptable in certain situations such as memorial sites. People, specifically young people, may not realize this because taking a photo of the memorial itself would be appropriate – so they may not realize how a selfie would be any different. I now realize how big of a role genre plays in social norms and society – even though a selfie is just another genre of photography, it is one that is not seen as socially acceptable. This is one of the social norms that can be seen as common sense by some people, but others may be totally oblivious to.

Sources

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1750698017714838