Chinese Girl in the Ghetto reactions

In her memoir Chinese Girl in the Ghetto, Ying Ma expresses both resentment and a feeling of superiority towards everyone in her community. She thinks she is better than other Chinese people because she chooses to fight back against the system of racial oppression rather than turning the other cheek. Even while she participates in the violence of the "ghetto" she feels like she is above other students because she excels in academics. She thinks she's better than other students in her academically gifted classes, who are mostly financially privileged and white, because she struggles against a lot more odds to succeed academically. Ultimately her book comes off as self-righteous and arrogant and she seems unable to see her own racism because she is blinded by her own experiences.

After getting into a fight with a Latina girl in which none of her Chinese peers intervene, Ying Ma seems to feel that she is the only fighter in her ethnic community. She takes pride in the fact that she fights back against people who make racist comments about Asians. In her experience other Chinese people do not fight back, but instead stay silent in the face of racism. She herself frequently takes this stance, but her ethnic pride comes into play when she violently retaliates against racist comments. In this instance she stands alone, showing that she does not feel ethnic pride in connection to her ethnic community. Instead her pride separates her from her Chinese peers and makes her feel superior to them because she stands alone against the system of racial oppression.This is a very individualistic version of ethnic pride, which is almost contradictory because we think of ethnic pride as being proud of a group to which you belong. In her case, she does not show that.

By John Oco, Yanping Tan and Clara Leonor Cruz

Ying Ma’s Facebook page and Blog

      Ying Ma is a policy advisor at the Heartland Institute and the author of "Chinese Girl in the Ghetto." Her facebook page basically is about her book and some immigrant policy that she concerns. In Her latest article “A Legal Immigrant’s Story”, she wrote about her family immigrated to the U.S. 30 year ago. In the article, Ying Ma wrote that her family faced a series of problems when they applied to immigrant to U.S., including her mother’s no-birth-certificate issue, Finally after a longtime waiting, her family’s application was approved. However, Ying Ma aunt wasn’t that lucky. Her aunt got cancer and died while she was waiting for the immigration to America. Ying Ma wrote:” We did not disrespect U.S. borders, even though our dreams for a better life were no less desperate than many of those who are now illegally in this country. ”( Ying Ma, A Legal Immigrant’s Story, 2013) Ying Ma brings out the issue: even if she and her family immigrated to this country legally, they only live like the other illegal immigrants in the country.

     Ying Ma’s blog and facebook page focus on the social issues such as immigration, tax, and welfare states. She wrote articles about the legal immigrant’s right and they deserve good benefits and welfare from the government. She thinks the U.S. government policy makers should not protect the border so strong as they did in the past. Besides, she thinks the legal immigrants’ rights in the U.S. society should be valued, meanwhile,  the illegal immigrant problem should be solved.

The context of reaction in 1970s

In 1970s’ the context of race and reaction seemed stable, because there is no huge racial movement in the U.S. . However, people in the North states started to lose their job and have to find another jobs in the southern states, which makes white people in the southern states started to take the power back. In 1970s’, the U.S. government faced to a big economic fail, the stagflation, people blamed the government didn’t do anything to help their situation, but once the state government started to make a program as a treatment to deal with the problems, the program itself became a disease. Beside, the U.S. ‘s industry had to accept the fact that they were losing the market to the international competitors. The U.S. were not “No.1” anymore.

In the international arena, because of the war in Vietnam, Nicaragua and Iran, the state government suffered humiliating. People in those countries started to go against the U.S. government. Suddenly, America was “held hostage” by politico-religious forces far beyond popular comprehension.

These changes started in 1970s’ and continued developing in 1980s. The popular ideology made the U.S.’s reputation in the world lower than before, especially the fiscal crisis.

The reversal appeared 1970s make people doubt to the so-called “welfare state”. The government tried to solve the problems by national welfare program, but the problem remained. People called it “throwing good money after bad”, and tried to stop it. Taxes were argued as the source and help to fill up the state’s welfare. It had put more stress on the taxes payers.  

  

In class blog about Untouchable

       Untouchable is a novel about young Bakha in 1930s’ India. Bakha is a “strong and able-bodied” young man who came from the lower caste. Bakha’s father was a sweeper who cleans the toilet. Therefore, even though Bakha’s family was living in the outcaste’s colony liked other lower caste, they were discriminated by others. However, Bakha is a young man who had his own dream. He had his own “fashun” style, dressed like “Tommies” (Englishmen), and he wanted to play hockey. Bakha;’s dream and “fashun” was laughed by his friends, because they thought Bakha was trying to be a person that he could never be.  In 1930s’ India, the lower caste couldn’t even get a bottle of water from the upper caste, if they touch the upper caste accidently, they would be punished. All of these unfair situations made Bakha realized that he was an untouchable, he screamed in his mind,”For them I am a sweeper, sweeper—untouchable. Untouchable! Untouchable! That’s the word! Untouchable! I am an untouchable!” (Anand 52) he wanted to change the unfair caste system. Young Bakha‘s dream was hard to reach. Because the caste system in 1930s’ India was basically a power system controlled by the upper caste.

     Just like racism or so-called class system in nowadays, caste system is always related to power. In Untouchable, Anand shows us that young Bakha, who was from the lower caste, was not only discriminated and excluded by the upper caste, but also by people who from the same caste. On my opinion, I think that caste or class system actually is the power system.

      The upper caste people are using the system to maintain their power, control the lower caste people’s mind.

      For example, we’ve all known that race doesn’t exist biologically, but the upper class people defined it, made the lower class people identify ourselves by their skin color, and believed they are not brilliant race if they are colored skin. This is the way how upper class passed their ideology to the lower. Once the lower class people accepted the ideology, they’ve lived in the racism culture, or we could say, the colony culture.  We can see that in Untouchable, Bakha was  always trying to learn how to be a “Tommie”, he learned how to dress like them. It’s because the English’s colony culture was in his mind forever. The Englishmen colonizer was trying to control people by making them accepted that English culture is the best, and theirs are not.

The Apple Factory Story

   Hi, everyone, since I talk about the Apple Factory Workers’ Suicide Incident in ENG101 class. I would like to share something more with you guys. Firstly, I want to share a short story with you. It’s not a real story, but maybe from this story, you can know the apple workers’ situation in China.

   Life of a country girl in China

    Lin came form Hunan province in China, recently she got a job in Foxconn company in Shenzhen, which is one of the biggest multinational electronics contract manufacturing company in mainland China. She and her family were very happy for this, because that mean she could get labor insurance, clean and beautiful uniform, and live in Foxconn’s beautiful worker dormitory.

Compare with the small electronic component manufacturing factory she used to work in, the beautiful , huge Foxconn is like a heaven. The reason why lin wanted to go Foxconn is because she can work as long as she want in the producing department. The workers get paid hourly in Foxconn, so if they want, they can work over 16 hours a day. As a new comer, Lin worked really hard in Foxconn, she gave up all of her off days, so that she can earn more money. She thought, if she could earn more money, her family could build a new house in their village, so that her brother can get marry.  She and her family knew that today in China, if a marry-age man doesn’t have anything, especially a house or an apartment, he could never get marry. No one will marry him. That’s why she can her parents went to Guangdong, one of the most developed provinces in China to be farmer-workers.

However, living in a big city like Shenzhen for Lin is tough. She had never been to those fancy malls, she didn’t know what it is in there. She hear some colleagues talk about those beautiful places all the time, but she thought she could never go there, because she didn’t have time, besides, she didn’t have money either. Recently Lin’s mom was so anxious, Lin’s brother has been 25 now, every girl he dated left him after seeing their poor little home. Lin’s mom cried every time when she called Lin. Lin felt really depressing, she thought, being poor isn’t her fault, why she have to take the blame? She felt so exhausted and despaired. Hearing her mother’s cry, she thought her life or their life is hopeless, she needed to find a way out.

   Last month, one of her colleague suicide in their dorm, jumped form the top of the dormitory building, the worker’s family got 300,000 RMB, almost equal 50,000 U.S. dollars as reparation. Lin thought, maybe the best way to solve all of her and family’s problems is killing like that colleague. After the pressure and despair in these days , she finally gave up struggling and jumped from the top of her dorm building.

   Lin’s story is not real, but the similar stories happen in China everyday. In the next blog I’ll continue to talk about social ressesstiment in China.  

Dominant Culture in Untouchable

In Untouchable, we can see that people in 1930s’ India were living in a dominant culture. They were living under their caste system, which was divided by they belief and race. In the Indian people only respect the upper class, which shows their dominant culture. For example, Brahka’s sister was almost raped by a priest. However, because she was in a lower class, nobody cared about what happened to her. In fact, people just believed the priest without conditions: ”The crowd on the temple steps believed that he had suffered most terribly, and sympathised, for it had seen he sweeper-boy rush past him”(Anand 62). We can see that how dominant culture was in deeply the Indian people’s mind by their behaviors. No one trusted Bahka’s sister when she screamed. On the contrary, they believed that the priest was polluted.

         Reading the Untouchable, the words are not that hard for me, but it’s hard to read the Indian people’s miserable life. I think there’s one more thing in the book that shows dominant culture. Even though people in 1930s’ India were suffered from the British’s colonization. They don’t like the colonizer’s behaviors, but they still want to be them, they wanted to dress like an Englishman, act like an Englishman and talk like an Englishman. “acquire in pursuance of his ambition to live like an Englishman”(Anand 22). Bahka wanted to be a real Englishman, so that he can get rid of the shadow of the lower class in the caste system. It reminds me the Apple Factory Suicide tragedy happened in my city several years ago. I would like to share it with you guys in my next blog. 

Chart analysis

   From the Chart, we can see that before 2001, the anti-Islamic hate crime incident number was in a low level, which means that before 2001, anti-Islamic hate crime rarely happened in the country. There were only 27-32 crimes happened each year during 1995-2000. Then we can see the number of the anti-Islamic hate crime incident was suddenly became very high in 2001, 481 crime incidents happened in one year and it’s more than the total number of the past 5 years. In 2001, the “911” incident happened and it made some people in this country started   to take revenge. After 2001, the number of crime became lower but it keeps in a higher level than before.

     I think that the “911” incident in 2001 is a turning point of the anti-Islamic hate crime number growing.  Before the attack, there’re a few anti-Islamic hate crimes happened, it means that there were a few people hate Islamic people in the country. However, after the crime number reached the peak value in 2001, it can’t be back to the lower level.

Response to Nico Colomer's Blog

       I agree that Colomer says there’s actually no difference between the U.S. slavery and Latin American slavery. In Colomer’s blog, she argues: “When Tannenbaum says that there was a difference between the Anglos and Spanish slave system, I disagree” (Colomer Blog). On one hand she writes about how people suffer in this country, she says they think the country is hopeless. On the other hand, she quotes Tannenbum’s argument about that African American’s cognition in the text:"An American, a white man with a black face" referring to the African Americans gaining a sense of recognition for learning the ways of the Americans and with that recognition came the honor of being called an American (Tannenbaum 41). Colomer thinks it is a contradiction because the Negro had gained the recognition as their labors not as their own person. As Tannenbum says in the text: “Wherever we had slavery, we had a slave society, not merely in the blacks, but for the whites not merely for the law, but for the family, not merely for the labor but for the labor system, but for the culture—the total culture” (Tannebum 117).  If the slavery is in the total culture, I think it would be no difference between the U.S. slavery and the Latin America Slavery. Tannenbum wrote thousands of words to tell us there are some differences in between slaveries, but he toppled his own thesis at the end of the book.

The Second Week in LAGCC

Last week was the second week I study in LAGCC, we are still reading Frank Tannenbum’s “Slave and Citizen”. I am getting familiar with the college classes, although sometimes I couldn’t understand what teachers said in the class, I got many helps from my classmates and I want to thank them here. I also want to thank my teachers, they know that I have problems and to shy to tell them, so they always try to help me. I learn American culture from the book, while I also learn some American culture from my classmates and teacher.

   I was surprised that we are going to do a film project for LIB101. I learned film making before I came to New York, and I am so glad I still remember how to do it. Diane, Stefan, Joel and I is in one group, we decided to meet every Friday to do the project, and we have had the whole story so far. Next step is just making a “script table” and preparing all the things we need, like camera and costumes, pops. Actually I am not really into the film making business, but I think doing the project with my American classmates will be fun. I think we have become friends now.

  Well, get back to the text, I am still working on the “claims”, I think I am going to focus on the slaves ‘ “rights”. Since Grandpa Tannenbum’s book is about the slavery’s difference between the United States and the Brazil and Latin America, I think the rights they got in these different areas is different. Therefore, I am going to do some research on the web, and try to find more information in the text.

A moral difference of slavery in the United States

Tannenbaum's argument in Slave and Citizen is that Negro slaves' adventure in United States is different with in other parts of the hemisphere (page 42). On the one hand, he argues that the Emancipation may legally free a Negro. A Negro maybe can live like a freeman in the country. On the other hand, he argues that the shadow of slavery is still cast ahead of the white people.  The main different is that although they freed a Negro in a legal way, he still cannot live in the country like other free white people , because he didn’t accept by the society.  That’s why he wrote ,”The Emancipation may have legally freed  the Negro, but it failed morally to free the white man, and by that failure it denied to Negro the moral status requisite for the effective legal  freedom.”

     Then he argues that other part of the New World’s slavery “was developed by in a different moral and legal setting”, it helps him to explain why the slavery’s development is different in the United States. He argues that the United States slavery situation was separated in a moral way with the other parts of the New World. He gives several facts to prove it in the following text.

let's tweet!

 I have gotten a class twitter account. My class teitter is @yanpingeng101, and I have also follow some of my classmates. I was impressed that I read NAJARA's tweet.Nayara Bottaro ‏@NayaraLagccProtected account

It's so sad to here how African Americans were haggled like about like any cattle.They were treated like animals, sold, and then branded.  I agree with that. That 's sad........

The Frist week in college

      Hi, everyone. This is the first week I study in LAGCC, and I feel very happy to meet new people in the class. Since I am the only Chinese in the class,  it's a little bit lonely but  it also feels good to be different. 
      We learn race and culture this semester, and have to read several books about slavery. I think it's very impressed to learn that slaves were treat as not human at that time. I learn something about slaves trade in our history class when I was in high school. Actually, I thought people at that time they’ve known that slave trade is an evil thing, they just did this for the great profit. However, Frank Tannenbaum gives us several facts make us know something about the real slavery.
     Another interesting thing I found in the text is that the slaves built the New World. In the high school history I learn some knowledge about American’s history, it’s says that some Europeans came here to built their new home. Except the American Indian lost their land during the New World development part, we didn’t learn anything about that slaves built the New World. I thought that slaves was sold in Southern America as servants, because I read about that on “gone with the wind” when I was in middle school.
    Anyway, I think although it’s a little bit hard for me to read such many pages text in a week, but race and culture is interesting, I’ll try my best!