Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Half-Chinese Children
I think that Sui Sin Far is writing this to a mainly white American audience. The things she says are so stereotypical that I did not think it was a real article. Being Asian-Canadian I would not think she would say these things about her own people. For instance, on page 188 she writes "They are by nature proud and reserved (some say sullen and hardened). They are quick to understand and appreciate book-lore and the little girls are particularly clever with their needles and can be easily taught the most difficult patterns in embroidery". This statement is equivalent to saying all Asian children are straight A students and are good in math. It's not true and why would she generalize about her own culture. I can kind of understand her generalizing about other cultures because she is not aware of who they might be individually, like the way some people only now Americans by what they see on TV. After I heard the discussions in class about different topics, maybe she wrote this to provoke thought on how Asian-Americans are being viewed by the public, the same way a satire is funny about serious situations. What do you think, did she mean the things she said to be true or was she trying to make a statement?
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2 comments:
I see where you are coming from. The statment about the cleverness and skills of the Asian American children she brings up can be seen as stereotypical and, especially in the case of the young girls she talks about, belittling. Certainly it is an obvious generalization.
However, these were standards by whichchildrens' intelligence and worth were measured at this time in history...both white American and immigrant children. So she is merely comparing Asian American kids to their white immigrant and naturalized counterparts.
This question you raise is excellent. I wonder what other members of the class think.
I thought that throughout that article Sui Sin Far wasn't trying to put down people by generalizing about the Chinese race because that is what she really thought or meant. I thought that she was trying to point out how most people do make these generalizations about cultures and ethnicities. When looking upon another race, we sometimes make the same mistakes as she was pointing out in this article. We tend to forget to look at the person as an individual but look at them based on the way the person looks or the generalizations made about their ethnicity. I think Sui Sin Far is trying to point this out to her readers by making these generalizations here.
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