Aatia Jaine Davison
Reading Reflection #1
“Invisibility is an Unnatural Disaster” by Mitsuye Yamada begins with an anecdote. In the middle of one of her lectures on Ethnic American Literature, a white student pipes up to expresses her resentment toward the apparent “militant tone” of one Asian American writer’s works. This student claimed to be fed up with being blamed for the oppression of all minorities just because of the color of her skin. How was that fair? She certainly didn’t ask to be white.The student’s anger is hard to get out, hard to pin down, hard to explain, but as Yamada notes, she’s not the only one in the class who feels this way. Discontent is beginning to spread through the like a bad cough. Finally, someone says it, “Their …show more content…
And this, according to Yamada, is no small problem. “Asian Americans as a whole are finally coming to claim their own, demanding that they be included in the multicultural history of our country” (36). They are demanding an end to erasure; this coming after decades of not admitting to themselves that they are oppressed. “The most insidious part of this conditioning process . . . was that we have been trained not to expect a response in ways that mattered” (39). What is so strikingly effective about Yamada’s argument, though, is how she embraces intersectionality without ever even using the words. She communicates clearly that her identity is more than just one label or one category. Her experiences are not synonymous with that of Asian American men or white women. She falls into category that is unique, and even those labels-- Asian, American and woman--- her identity does not end there. She describes her desire when she was younger to break the mold of the typical Asian American woman “the submissive, subservient, ready-to-please, easy-to-get-along-with Asian woman.” Yamada even goes so far as to contrast her experiences as an Asian American woman to those of her male counterparts, the second generation “Nisei” …show more content…
Her argument is simple: black lesbians are women, too, and the homophobia that causes the black community as a whole to shut out its LGBTQIA+ members is detriment to that community. “We sometimes find it difficult to deal constructively with the genuine differences between us and to recognize that unity does not require that we be identical to each other” (25). She points to how this homophobia/heterosexism in the African American community is part of a bigger problem that queer black women and straight black women need to come together to combat. One particular line struck
Reading Reflection #1
“Invisibility is an Unnatural Disaster” by Mitsuye Yamada begins with an anecdote. In the middle of one of her lectures on Ethnic American Literature, a white student pipes up to expresses her resentment toward the apparent “militant tone” of one Asian American writer’s works. This student claimed to be fed up with being blamed for the oppression of all minorities just because of the color of her skin. How was that fair? She certainly didn’t ask to be white.The student’s anger is hard to get out, hard to pin down, hard to explain, but as Yamada notes, she’s not the only one in the class who feels this way. Discontent is beginning to spread through the like a bad cough. Finally, someone says it, “Their …show more content…
And this, according to Yamada, is no small problem. “Asian Americans as a whole are finally coming to claim their own, demanding that they be included in the multicultural history of our country” (36). They are demanding an end to erasure; this coming after decades of not admitting to themselves that they are oppressed. “The most insidious part of this conditioning process . . . was that we have been trained not to expect a response in ways that mattered” (39). What is so strikingly effective about Yamada’s argument, though, is how she embraces intersectionality without ever even using the words. She communicates clearly that her identity is more than just one label or one category. Her experiences are not synonymous with that of Asian American men or white women. She falls into category that is unique, and even those labels-- Asian, American and woman--- her identity does not end there. She describes her desire when she was younger to break the mold of the typical Asian American woman “the submissive, subservient, ready-to-please, easy-to-get-along-with Asian woman.” Yamada even goes so far as to contrast her experiences as an Asian American woman to those of her male counterparts, the second generation “Nisei” …show more content…
Her argument is simple: black lesbians are women, too, and the homophobia that causes the black community as a whole to shut out its LGBTQIA+ members is detriment to that community. “We sometimes find it difficult to deal constructively with the genuine differences between us and to recognize that unity does not require that we be identical to each other” (25). She points to how this homophobia/heterosexism in the African American community is part of a bigger problem that queer black women and straight black women need to come together to combat. One particular line struck