Tag: identity

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Wah Speaks

In the interview that Fred Wah provided for   Canadian Literature in September of 2000, he highlights contemporary issues of race within his experiences. Diamond Grill takes up issues of identity, ethnicity and responsibility throughout, but what is interesting is how Wah’s experiences have shaped his interactions with current Asian students of his about race. In the interview, Wah expresses his uncertainty with who the Asian students are in his class and how to breach the topic of race with the class. It’s important to note that since the Chinese were only allowed to bring their families into Canada after 1947, the 1950s still contained abundant racism towards Chinese people. In modern day classrooms, taking into account racial diversity and teaching the youth about it are experiences Wah never had himself growing up during the 50s; in fact he had the opposite. This can be seen in his childhood memory of his school teacher forcing him to identify as Chinese, and not Canadian on a form he had to fill in, despite Wah being both.

Wah explains the difficulties he faced about teaching about race by making the point that ‘we almost tried to talk about this in the class, you know, the whole sense of what’s all this whiteness doing examining, gazing on this race problem, and we tried to turn it around a little but didn’t get very far with it’. It can be challenging to teach an increasingly diverse group of students about issues of gender, race and class, without disrespecting anyone in the class, and teaching ideas which can then possibly be misconstrued by the student. Some scholars, however, have suggestions to ameliorate these difficulties. As Marilyn Cochrane-Smith points out in her article entitled ‘Color Blindness and Basket Making Are Not the Answers’, “if we are going to prepare teachers to work intelligently and responsibly in a society that is increasingly diverse in race, language, and culture, then we need more teachers who are moved by their own intelligence and actively involved in communities that engage in “the heresy” of systematic and critical inquiry” (520). Essentially, if teachers begin to think individually and from a critical standpoint about how race is being taught in education, we can begin to teach about it in an informative and respectful manner. In Wah’s comment, he refers to his inability to use his own race to discuss the ‘race problem’, as he terms it, with students. Perhaps as classes further diversify and teachers commence this ‘critical inquiry’ of which Cochrane-Smith speaks, this problem will not be as potent in the coming years as it is today.

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Analysis of the BBC Article ‘South Africans on Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’

In today’s BBC article about the new South African film about Nelson Mandela, Milon Nkosi highlights the disparities of race even in today’s society. The film, which is a life narrative of Mendela’s life, struck well with most who left the theatre after it finished, which is the method with which Nkosi collected his qualitative data. Interestingly, he highlights that despite the consensus being that the film was accurate and positive, there were clear differences in the comments of the Caucasians who watched the film and the Africans who did.

The Africans who watched the film found it to be very uplifting and symbolic of the freedom Mandela fought so hard to achieve. These young black girls who were surveyed are in fact free, because they were raised after the apartheid ended and so did not face the strife related to it directly. In contrast, those who were surveyed who were Caucasian and slightly older were less effusive, but felt that it was an accurate film for indicating that there is still a long road to travel for the liberation struggle. It can be extrapolated then that those who faced the apartheid saw it as accurate while those who did not simply felt it was a good film about freedom which they have and deserve. It does seem that the girls do not have a good understanding of the gravity of the situation, however.

Race is also brought up in our reading ‘What is the What’, by Dave Eggers. In this autobiographical novel, Eggers writes about the continual subjugation that the protagonist, Achak Valentino Deng, faces. In Africa, Deng is not marginalized due to the colour of his skin, and in fact the opposite occurs, with humanitarian aid workers providing assistance and goods due, in part, to the colour of his skin. When he reaches America, however, racism seriously affects him and there are problems with him getting basic medical care, a good education and also a well paying job. While neither South Sudan nor the United States of America went through apartheid, there is a clear message which links the two. Both show that one must go through an experience which affects your identity in order to be affected by it and have it encapsulate your day to day life. In this case this means racism, but in others this is their gender, ethnicity or age. Removing stereotypes from this is essential to living in a more peaceful life with less subjugation which here is seen to occur globally.

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The effectiveness of the bildungsroman genre

In class last week, the majority of the Thursday lecture involved analyzing certain effective elements within ‘What is the What’, by Dave Eggers. One such element is the genre of which ‘What is the What’ is a part of, bildungsroman. A major problem or loss occurring in the earliest stages of the novel, and multiple events of adversity throughout its course, and self-realization are essential components of bildungsroman, all of which ‘What is the What satisfies in some way or another, proving the genre’s usefulness in comprehending the novel.

In the case of a major issue occurring in the commencing chapters of the novel, Valentino Achak Deng must flee his village from the murhaleen, or the Arab militia, and may not return. This is the key element of the novel in that the majority of the text following concerns his migration across Africa and then the United States. Bildungsroman is here seen in how quickly Deng must mature from this event, and the continuation of this rapid growing up with the strife, death and war that surrounds him in his travels. It is bildungsroman which this flaw is inherent in and aids in our understanding of Deng’s character.

The multitude of issues Deng faces throughout the novel are equally examples of bildungsroman. In his struggle to flee from his village, the disastrous journey across South Sudan and into Ethiopia and Kakuma, and also the death of his childhood friends William K and Moses as a child himself are examples of this. Bildungsroman is a coming of age story, and adapting to these struggles proves Deng to be well suited to surviving all that life throws at him. Life in the United States, however, provides disparate difficulties to the ones he faced in Africa, which are harder to deal with. This is because they are social issues affecting the majority of the population, like unemployment or insufficient funds for university. Deng finds that the idealistic American Dream which his peers and him so longed for was not how the United States was in reality. The bildungsroman nature of the novel indicates this transgression of more difficult problems occurring later on in life, which is an applicable message for much of humanity.

Self-realization occurs within ‘What is the What’ in the moments of clarity which occur for Deng in the novel. One such example is present in the final paragraph, in which Eggers writes, ‘I am alive and you are alive so we must fill the air with words’ (529). It it his compulsion to tell stories, albeit silent ones, to people which has helped him survive and prosper as much as he did over his life, minimal as it was. The realization that he is able to have ‘unbelievable strength’ deriving from these stories proves that Deng achieves a sense of identity through his experiences (529). Despite his life being riddled with strife, the book as bildungsroman proves that these problems he faces are in fact what make him as strong as he is as a Lost Boy of Sudan.

 

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