Beyond Dominant and Dominating Narratives in The Writing on My Forehead by Nafisa Haji

Haji's work is a post 9-11 (September 11, 2001) novel, not only written after that date, but also incorporated as a life-changing moment within the novel’s narrative.  This is the first time I consciously thought deeply about and was nudged to deeply ponder how what we now call 9-11 shaped a work of fiction (though works of fiction such as the television series Rescue Me and 24 are part of dominant discourse).  Though fictional, the book brings to life with verisimilitude how both the before (the beforemath) and the aftermath of that event was experienced by one Muslim family in the United States, particularly within women’s varied experiences.

The story told within the novel crossed national boundaries into transnational spaces with lives that criss-cross in the U.S., Britain, Pakistan, and India.  So September 11, 2001 also is experienced by the characters in a transnational space.   The author provides background for the readers who may not be as aware of transnational lives. The author, Nafisa Haji, provides a timeline of India’s history, a personal biographical sketch, a musical play-list of what the author listened to as she wrote the book,  and an excellent  accompanying essay to explain influences on the text. The essay (with excerpts below) contains insights that make the readers take notice of what the author wants us to notice without being overly prescriptive and leaving a sense of thought-provoking wonder about the story and how family stories can tie into, be influenced by, and be analogous to national and transnational stories.

The theme of how many versions of stories centering on personal choices reverberate across the lives of family members  and non-family members threads through this novel on the childhood and young adult experiences of the protagonist, Saira Qader.  Speaking of stories, Haji ended her novel’s accompanying essay, “Storytelling: The Allure and the Danger” with these thoughts:

How does the individual quest to define oneself play out in the larger narrative of family history, social development, and political upheaval? What does the individual owe the group and at what cost should the debt be paid? These are universally human questions, played out again and again from one generation to another.  In the end, heritage, duty, and the tension between family and individual all came into play when I began writing The Writing on My Forehead.  (p. 7 in the P.S. section)

Not only is Author Haji concerned about these questions, but she concerned herself about the many versions of stories explaining and detailing past choices that get forwarded to new generations within families and in nations and in transnational spaces.  Stories and storytelling provide a continuous thematic strand through the novel. Saira’s mother used stories to keep her daughters grounded and to help guide their lives; different versions of family stories that Saira uncovered both separate and unify family members over the course of the book; and Saira became a kind of storyteller in her adult life working world-wide as a journalist for underprivileged populations and their stories. Versions of national stories have particular consequences, as well and the book discretely emphasizes this.  Emphasized not only in the above quote, but also earlier in the accompanying essay,  Haji wrote the following words about the portions of stories that get lost during their telling (such as U.S. Muslim’s experiences in the aftermath of 9/11/2001), and that ultimately become a shaping influence of what a nation (or a family or an individual) becomes.

That is the allure and the danger of storytelling—the solidification of memories, the construction of the truths that we agree, together, to believe in. I always wondered about the role of interruptions—and about other details that might have gotten left out of the shared process of remembering.  I came to believe that who we are—as individuals, as family members, as parts of our communities, and citizens of our nation and the world—is not only a result of the stories we tell, but also the stories and the parts of stories that we don’t recall.

In the aftermath of 9/11, I saw the same process play out on a national scale—some stories told over and over again so that they became a permanent part of the record of our collective memory, while others were laid aside, forgotten in the shadow of the mass incomprehensible tragedy unfolding before us. Certain questions, too, were asked over and over again—why? why?—and the answers that eventually emerged as dominant would determine who we became as a nation, but not more so than those other answers, the ones that were submerged and silenced.  (pp. 4-5 in the P.S. section)

We all have examples of this, maybe in our families’ stories, maybe in powerful dominant narratives that we analyze and deconstruct with academic tools, maybe in how dominant narratives attempt to overcome non-dominant narratives by drowning them out, or maybe even (less discussed) in how differing non-dominant narratives may compete with each other. One thing that Nafisa Haji asks us to think about is how narratives about choices made in the past and present and the future, link together on many social levels (personal, family, and larger social groupings) as well as the possibility that some versions contain gaps that other less well known versions expand upon, resist, contradict, and recompose. If you want to think more about this, this novel is a good place to begin.  Optimistically, Haji asserts that the less well known/publicized stories matter to national identity and for national significance (and transnational identities and significance) just as much as the loud, blaring dominant narratives. This is a novel recording experiences about 9-11 beyond the dominant narratives portrayed in Rescue Me and 24. Soon, I will discuss Immigration Stories from the Arizona-Mexico Borderlands and my thoughts on the Tucson Book Festival panel that included this book.  More stories to come…..

References

Haji, N. (2009). The writing on my forehead. NY: HarperCollins Publisher.



Some Haiku

Here is a sampling of haiku from Haiku: An Anthology of Japanese Poems edited and compiled by Professors Stephen Addiss, Fumiko Yamamoto, and Akira Yamamoto from newly translated work as well as selections from other publications. An introductory essay provides a background about the origins of the 5-7-5 syllable verse or the free style haiku verse in Japan; haiku’s long legacy; humor and haiku; the way a particular verse has spawned numerous versions and playfully inspired satirical versions; and the technical aspects of translation. Throughout the book illustrations from artists in the 1600s-1800s, some also poets, add more beauty to the text.  At the end of the book are poets' and artists' biographies. The sections of the book divide into The Pulse of Nature, Human Voices, and Resonance and Reverberation.  Haiku might be useful to incorporate into teaching.  This book helps you think about whether or not you like haiku. Here are Haiku poems from this anthology for your enjoyment.

Even the clams

keep their mouths shut

in this heat.

  By Bashō  [lived 1644-1694] (p. 42)

Even in a single blade of grass

the cool breeze

finds a home

 By Issa  [lived 1763-1827] (p. 47)

Harvesting radishes,

he points the way

with a radish

By Issa (p. 108)

“Let’s pull them all”

says the dentist

generously

Anonymous  (p. 115)

Reference

Addiss, S., Yamamoto, F., Yamamoto, A. (2009). Haiku: An anthology of Japanese poems. Boston & London: Shambhala.



Power and Resistance in Roxana Saberi's Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran

Roxana Saberi, an Iranian/Japanese American, worked as a journalist then author (after her journalism credentials were confiscated by a part of the Iranian government) in Iran for about nine years.  She was arrested and sent to Evin Prison for a series of falsified charges including alcohol possession, spying, holding classified documents, and sponsoring a “soft revolution” in Iran.  Interested listeners and viewers around the world followed her imprisonment. Information released through the news stories contained a very limited purview of her experiences. This memoir provides a deeper, more complex recollective record into what Roxana viewed and experienced over the course of those several months from January 31, 2009 to May 11, 2009.  She delivers a different book than she first intended.  Her first book’s purpose was to compile a multivocal portrait of Iran.  The actual completed work textually interweaves other moments and voices from multiple life stories in Iran, but centers around her imprisonment and strategies of resistance.  Her imprisonment moved her book project into a different direction with a new book as an end result, providing examples and insights on power and resistance.

 Before we get to a discussion on power and resistance, I want to introduce several texts that would work well as duet texts, books that provide an intensive dialogue of ideas that the reader brings together and interprets. Roxana Saberi’s book Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran nicely juxtaposes with James C. Scott’s (1990) concepts of power and resistance, that of hidden and public transcripts, making these great pieces to potentially teach together in a university classroom.  The interview by Kerri Miller with Roxana Saberi provides another source for a preview or even an afterword to her book.  Another complementary read would be Honeymoon in Tehran: Two Years of Love and Danger in Iran by Azadeh Moaveni, which in part covers the experience of journalist Moaveni having a “minder.”² All these sources provide informational contexts so readers can pick up either Moaveni’s or Saberi’s book and find history and social contexts explained within the books’ narrative.

 An understanding of these histories and social contexts are required in order to understand the power and resistance operating in Saberi’s book. Her text in itself, as an object you hold in your hands, not only provides a peek into hidden transcripts of power, but is the hidden transcript disclosed onto a public “stage.”  This memoir’s underlying themes would attract the attention of anyone interested in Iran and relationships between Iran and the U.S., as well as anyone curious about how power functions.  Scott (1990) explains that relationships between subordinate and dominant power holders are fraught with tensions that are smoothed over by a type of “civil” discourse and engagement that favors the dominant group—the public transcript. Behind the backs (or hidden in plain sight) of the dominant group, the subordinate actions and matching speech resists the dominant’s group oppression—the hidden transcript.³  Scott (1990) gives examples of hidden transcript resistance using poor farmers in many societies as an example, “poaching, pilfering, clandestine tax evasion, and intentionally shabby work for landlords are part and parcel of the hidden transcript” (p. 14).  Saberi’s situation, and the situations of other prisoners she depicts, dealt with being on the subordinate side of interrogations. The interrogation methods included “white torture,” manipulation, and imprisonment requiring on the prisoner’s part a whole other set of strategies and techniques of durability and resistance, including a confession (put down in different mediums: written, videotaped, articulated) to a whole set of actions she had not actually committed (a false confession)⁴.   Even this false confession is a type of resistance strategy, as it derives from a whole set of potential courses of action she could take while still inwardly resisting or with plans to resist more openly later while also empathizing with other cell mates beyond the earshot of prison guards. In the midst of this long period with the false confession in play, she begins to resist in small ways.  The following lengthy excerpt is an example of this type of defiance.

I sat facing the wall with my eyes bound in the interrogation room, where Javan had summoned me one day later that week.  I thought he might quiz me about my conversation with the magistrate, but instead he informed me that my father had started to “make some noise.”

I wasn’t exactly sure how to interpret the word “noise.”

“Really?” I asked. “Does he know where I am?” Even if he didn’t know, he must have decided he could no longer stay quiet—ignoring what I had been pressured to tell him by phone nearly three weeks earlier.

The interrogator answered my question with an order: “His noise is not helpful for you. Call him. Don’t tell him where you are. Say you’re fine and he should remain quiet.”

I reflected for a moment on this latest command. My bâzju [interrogator] was noticeably irritated. On the one hand, my father’s actions might hurt me if my captors decided not to release me in order to demonstrate that they were impervious to outside pressures. On the other hand, media attention, if that’s what my father was drumming up, could compel them to free me sooner—that is, if they even admitted to having me in custody.

In any case, my interrogator was telling me to lie once again.

The women I had met over the previous several days had defied their interrogator’s demands to lie, while I had abided by many orders that were in conflict with my conscience. It may have been late for me to start resisting, but if those women could do it, why couldn’t I?

“No,” I told Javan meekly.

“What did you say?” he asked.

“No,” I repeated, a little louder.

“Why not?” The pitch of his voice had become higher than usual.

“Because,” I said, straightening up in my chair, “I don’t want to lie anymore.”

Javan fell silent. Several seconds went by. He must have been analyzing my unexpected act of noncompliance.

I heard a pen drop onto my desk, followed by the swoosh of a piece of paper. Then came the interrogator’s voice, once again under control. “Write: ‘I don’t want to call my father,’ and sign it.”

I lifted my blindfold, picked up the pen, and wrote: I don’t want to call my father unless I am allowed to tell him the truth. Then I signed it

Javan took to paper and read it. Without another word to me, he instructed the guard to return me to my cell.” (Saberi, 2010, pp. 156-158)

In this description, Saberi adds her own words to what Javan, the interrogator wanted her to write, therefore changing the meaning of the recorded statement as well as the meaning of the exchange between interrogator and prisoner.  She actively manipulates the statement to further her sense of freedom and self-assertion.   The book is full of these hidden transcript moments, some of which take place in a way that  reveals  them out of the hidden realm onto the public stage, as in this particular case.

 Before concluding, I leave you with another vivid example of the hidden transcript in an image that we can apply to the video images of large groups marching and chanting “Death to America.”  Saberi recollects one such march in Iran in which she explains that sometimes marchers are paid to attend and some students are compelled by school officials to attend. She describes some youthful students taking the “Death” chant and adding other countries’ names as a way to parody it as a form of joking resistance (Saberi, 2010, p. 105). Just as viewers and listeners of news during the start of the months of 2010 did not really know what was going on behind the scenes and Saberi’s experiences, we cannot be sure what the numerous images before us each day actually mean to the actors and agents within them.  Saberi makes it very clear as Moaveni  does that the Iranian government and Iranian people are not a unified entity, but a heteroglossia and diversity of voices and actors.  In her description in her reflective epilogue (maybe also part of a therapeutic reflection), she wrote, “Iran’s regime comprises many different players and factions, and its inner workings are far from transparent.” (Saberi, 2010, p. 302)

 This lack of unification emphasizes how in every moment the tugging, pushing, and pulling  power differentials  enact verbal sparring, manipulation, unheard dialogues, and physical actions of resistance as well as compliance as a form of resistance.  Saberi’s memoir richly exemplifies such power struggles, and at the end readers who also read from places with small or great measures of autonomy can savor her and their own small acts of resistance and autonomy.

Notes

1. This idea of “duet texts” is inspired from a type of student assignment given by Dr. Katherine Morrissey in the Department of History at the University of Arizona. 

2.  A minder consists of a government official with whom some visiting journalists in Iran periodically must meet with, not to show finished work before publication, but to discuss upcoming writing projects, sources, and to receive any government regime feedback on past publications.  

3. It is important to point out that Scott (1990) explains that the dominant group also has a “hidden transcript” as well.   This part of Scott’s conceptualization also resonates with Saberi’s memoir.

4. Saberi (2010) writes, “I discovered that what happened to me was remarkably similar to what many people in Iranian prisons endure. Human-rights activists call the mix of intimidation and persuasion that I experienced ‘white torture,’ which does not leave a physical mark but devastates one’s mind and conscience” (p. 297).

References

 Midmorning with Kerri Miller. (2010, April 16) Roxana Saberi on Surviving Prison in Iran. Retrieved from http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podshows/7614155

 Moaveni, A. ( 2009). Honeymoon in Tehran: Two Years of Love and Danger in Iran. NY: Random House

 Saberi, R. (2010). Between two worlds : My life and captivity in Iran. NY: HarperCollins.

 Scott, J. C. (1990). Domination and the art of resistance: Hidden transcripts. New Haven and London, Yale University Press.                                                                                                                                                                                 



Prescott Mural, Racism and Critical Race Theory

A Prescott, Arizona elementary school principal and a superintendent of Prescott Unified School System recently apologized in front of a large clapping crowd.  Both educational representatives admitted that they were mistaken when they had asked some mural artists to lighten the skin of children portrayed in a mural emphasizing environmentally “green” transportation.  The mural painters had noted racist slurs being said as they painted and created the mural and then later were confronted with this order to "lighten" the skin color of children in the mural . See this link for the public apology on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnO6DJ8RqIE . The “mural mice” are a group of about 300 youth artists who created this mural at the Miller Valley elementary school.

The suggestion and school pressure for the re-paint and “whitening” of the images of the children on the mural came after a Prescott councilman/former radio host Steve Blair (no longer on the air in his radio show due to his statements) made several comments regarding the mural. The Daily Courier, a local paper, and a Tucson TV news outlet reported these comments,

On his May 21 show, for instance, Blair said, "I am not a racist individual, but I will tell you depicting a black guy in the middle of that mural, based upon who's president of the United States today and based upon the history of this community when I grew up, we had four black families who I have been very good friends with for years to depict the biggest picture on that building as a black person, I would have to ask the question, 'Why?'"

On Wednesday, Blair again emphasized that "I'm not a racist by any stretch of the imagination, but whenever people start talking about diversity, it's a word I can't stand."

Blair questions whether the mural is representative of Prescott, noting, "The focus doesn't need to be on what's different; the focus doesn't need to be on the minority all the time."

Blair said he has received a number of calls from long-time Prescott residents who ask, "Who authorized that graffiti on the wall?" He added: "What these people don't like is somebody forcing diversity down their throats." (KVOA, 2010, June 4)

On a clip from YouTube, Blair was using colorblindness to push his views while finding an ally in a caller, who was also another councilman’s wife and Latina, as they endorsed each other’s views.  The caller was complaining about the purpose of the mural which was “To promote diversity and to promote minorities.”  Blair replied “Why do we need to do that?”  Later in that same show, Blair states: “Diversity we had naturally…we did not recognize that people were of color…because we treated everyone the same…so when you start waving that flag of diversity that we need to be diverse there is a lot of us including myself that don’t understand and the only reason they are bringing it up is to conquer and divide, to draw attention to something that is not something necessary to draw attention to. To excite some kind of diversity power struggle that doesn’t exist in Prescott, Arizona.” He repeats that the caller is “someone who is married to a White guy.”  The caller then encourages colorblind approaches and Blair states “quick drawing attention to it [diversity] for crying out loud.”  See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPIRKnaCKzo&feature=related . The news organizations did not pick up on these particular statements to show to the public, but the comments could benefit from deconstruction.  This deconstruction will differ from the celebratory picture at this site: http://www.examiner.com/x-31346-Phoenix-Abusive-Relationships-Examiner~y2010m6d5-Prescott-Arizona-Proves-It-Has-A-United-Voice

Several dimensions of this rhetoric must be deconstructed (such as Blair’s scoffing at seeing diverse faces on a community mural), but I will focus on the dimension of the romanticized nostalgic past.  From Blair’s statements, the mural seems to cause discomfort for him and newly creates an imagined “diversity power struggle.”  Blair and the caller draw on a glorified “the good old days” notion or even a “racelessness” to keep racism in place. Blair is using “natural law language,” (using the excuse “that is just how it is” or it is “natural”) in his remembrance of the past (Bonilla-Silva, 2003). The past contained a “natural” equilibrium of which the present activities such as the mural disrupt.  To pacify such discourse the school officials came up with the idea of making the children appear physically “White” or more mixed race.  As a racial project to use Omi and Winant’s idea, newer, visible, and spoken (possibly unassimilated?) diversity (used in Blair’s words as a code term for racial diversity) becomes suspect, threatening, and dangerous, even violent “to conquer and divide.”  Other theories can help us interpret this discourse.

This also is a good juncture to look into and review how Critical Race Theory (CRT) would inform these statements and the “whitening” order for the mural that came from the school.  A great introduction to CRT is the book Critical Race Theory: An Introduction by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic.  The basic tenets (with some variety among the different scholars using this theory) to apply to current events such as this are the following:

1)      Racism is the normal part of society not something that happens once in a while. This normalizing creates a tough challenge in dismantling and eradicating racism. Another paradigm shifting tenet is that color-blindness actually can be used in the service of racism.

2)      Race is a social construction, categories that are made up within human societies, which serves purposes described as “psychic and material” to those who benefit from racism and White supremacist thinking.  In other words, it is not just about hateful feelings, but ways dominant-power groups with their own multi-dimensional identities profit from racism and/or do not fully understand how racism works.

3)      Storytelling,  or the sharing of distinct stories of what it is like to live as a person of color on a daily basis, is one way or attempt to bridge differences in perception.  (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001, pp.6-9)

More constructive and necessary is an even deeper conversation about racism and an opportunity to dialogue about race, color-blindness, and how the mistakes the apology tries to correct were made in the first place.  If we were to juxtapose Critical Race Theory we might see that there are more mistakes that need more than apologies or that since racisms are part of society’s normal functioning we are tricked into believing that these are “mistakes” when they are actually the events of daily life.  The apology or the firing of a radio personality does not stop the discourse and or undo what has been done. Maybe those actions mask the racism with small, conciliatory gestures that might be important if the events become more than a blip on a news story or a moment in the history of a school and community.  Would CRT want more storytelling, please, and more discussion about racism and colorblindness …more explorations of language and racism as well as explorations of institutions and racism that actually lead to more socially systemic change?  What does CRT tell us about this particular moment?

References

 Bonilla-Silva, E. (2003). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Oxford, United Kingdom: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2001). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York & London: New York University Press.

 KVOA. (2010, June 4). Prescott school mural’s racial themes spark debate. Retrieved from

 http://www.kvoa.com/news/prescott-school-murals-racial-themes-spark-debate/

 Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. (2^nd ed.). New York:  Routledge.

Eight Academically-Related Ideas Inspired from the Phoenix Comicon (PCC)

I attended two days of the Phoenix Comicon, hopeful about getting my Roots DVD signed by LeVar Burton since he was slated to be one of the “guests.” Entering the Comicon surely was like entering another world, a world that represented several worlds, some delightful worlds and some worlds containing more gratuitous “violence” (much toy weaponry being wielded). A Comicon is short for a comic convention, and fans recognize the San Diego Comicon as close to the quintessential comic convention, but the Phoenix event is probably less overwhelming. The mission statement off the San Diego Comicon reads as follows:

Comic-Con International is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to creating awareness of, and appreciation for, comics and related popular art forms, primarily through the presentation of conventions and events that celebrate the historic and ongoing contribution of comics to art and culture. (Comic-Con International, 2010)

For many, especially academics, it seems like a silly event, but actually the event carried many levels that require serious thought and an opportunity for other types of educational experiences. ¹ I left with much to think about. I list below these ponderings as questions and statements.

1. Why do people use fantasy to work out their hopes and fears?  (I know this has already been answered academically, but it is just so striking to see costumed people and striking to watch how the non-convention bystanders react to them.) What does it mean when children work through life’s issues through fantasy? What does it mean when adults do this?  Is costuming/cosplay² and fandom a way to pretend to be “Other” or an imaginary “Other.”  Or isn’t the “Other” always imaginary?  (Philip Deloria’s book Playing Indian provides insight on this costuming except the costuming he discusses is “suppose to” represent living peoples or allegedly “long-gone” communities.)  This cosplay appears to me to be an upper working class and middle class phenomenon. Looking about I saw Latinos, African Americans, and Native Peoples attending the Comicon as well, but not in the numbers of people phenotypically (but not necessarily) White.  Does Whiteness (as in the form of privilege) add another dimension to cosplay and costuming?

2. How can the Comicon be used to further social issues and show how social issues become elided and invisible as well as part of the built in structure of these fantasy worlds? Certainly present were non-profit role-playing groups raising money for cures for specific diseases, but at the same time homeless people, marginalized on the streets, merged with the costumed zombies and anime characters in a stranger and more troubling than the movies type of way.

3. Why isn’t popular culture(s) more often seriously engaged in academics? Popular culture(s) seem to have such a TREMENDOUS influence for so many people. I watched people of all ages spending money and investing time and effort in connecting with pop culture figures and worlds and a little bit with each other. This included myself. I wanted to purchase someone’s autograph and get a sense of their real life presence so I stood happily at the front of a line for two hours waiting for the famous person to arrive at his signing station. I realized after that experience I really did not know much about LeVar Burton as a person. Even beyond my crazy behavior, it seems that some of the Comicon participants live to attend the Comicon. The PCC facebook page contains such enthusiasm.

4. How will the great impact of Japanese popular culture or Japanese-inspired popular culture and how it is interpreted by U.S. youth shape that group’s future and approaches to life as they become adults?  Many of the younger Comicon attendees cosplayed and costumed in their beloved anime characters including Steampunk, a version of Victorian Science Fiction.  One of the educational panels held at the event was on learning Japanese, for example. Will this section of this generation be friendly to other countries? Or is this a new form of cultural appropriation? Is this the Imaginary Other as mentioned above? Or another possibility, is this a form (though likely watered-down) of global citizenship?

5. On another note, back to Number Two, why does Lou Ferrigno (The Hulk), present at the Comicon to sell and sign autographed photos, support Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County and his policies, as well as Arizona's new immigration law?  Another blogger wrote about this at this site: http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2010/05/lou_ferrignos_first_assignment.php . Some background about Joe Arpaio is that news reports describe his creation of jail tent cities, work chain gangs for inmates, and intentional profiling of Latino immigrants. What does this say about linking a version of hyper-masculinity to xenophobia?

6. Back to Number Two again, I did get the impression that LeVar Burton supports Ethnic Studies at every grade level.  (He actually tweeted a comment showing his disgust with the Arizona law banning that area of study.) With his work on Reading Rainbow, I think he really is an example of an interdisciplinary thinker, as well. It will be interesting to see how Reading Rainbow 2.0 contains Ethnic Studies themes.  Additionally, I received some insights into how different people might be interpreting the Ethnic Studies ban at the Comicon, of all places. For example, one person told me she thought the law was just to stop teaching about the "hateful things not about cultural aspects."  

7. How can sequential art be more often used as an Ethnic Studies tool? This book might be helpful: Teaching the Graphic Novel by Stephen E. Tabachnick (2009).

8. I find the sequential art and popular cultural preferences (not to essentialize or boil down specific group preferences to a limited selection) of generations younger and older than myself fascinating because those age groups represent potential students. With my own positionality, I can only glimpse into a different generation and their lives.  For example, in the diary sequential art of graphic designers, painters, and comic artists Sam Spina and Jon Garza (who drew his reaction to Arizona law SB1070 in his diary comic), the use of colloquialisms (including words that I would not use in similar ways), language, and descriptions of interactions and everyday life helped me as an instructor see a little bit into the lives of those in age groups similar to some of my students. I think this can benefit my teaching because I have assigned texts that some students felt alienated from or were not able to relate to even though the text’s subject matter met my objectives to show or exemplify ideas about ethnicity, race, and racism. I would still use that text but find ways to better contextualize it. In one of his pieces of sequential art, Sam Spina discusses painting a “deck” or a skateboard. I was able to link this with a paper titled, “The Indigenization of Hip Hop: The Art of Storytelling” by Asa Kelon Washines from Fort Lewis College at the NAISA Conference (see my last blog entry) about the use of hip hop by Native Youth. Washines pointed out how the decks were a form of “traditional” storytelling for Native Youth.

These eight ideas are a bit all over the place as far as subject matter, reminiscent of the Comicon environment itself, blending different worlds and areas of study together.  Thank you for reading even if the Comicon didn’t interest you!  I think the Comicon shows how different groups of people and generations need to interact more, including socioeconomic classes, age groups, racialized groups, ethnic groups, and fans of different forms of popular culture as well as how real life and understandings of real life merge from and inform fantasy worlds and popular art forms. This particular theme has been a common one appearing across my blogs, actually.

Notes

1.  How-to and informational as well as purely entertainment panels were held over the course of the event. Some of these were lead by youth panelists who were prepared with Power Points and key points for discussions and instruction.  They were sharing their literacy about popular culture(s).

2. “Cosplay” is a new word for me.  The term refers to “costume play” or role-playing in elaborate, often home-designed- and -assembled costumes.

 References

Comic-con International. (2010). Mission Statement. Retrieved from http://www.comic-con.org/