asian nerds vs. the cool asians

i was watching Mean Girls and that movie is very sterotypical and the part where they were mapping out the cafeteria, i saw how they divided the asian population into "asian nerds" and the "cool asians" .. and then i started thinking, is that true? hell yeah. i started to think about highschool and how it was very distinguishable.. then i got to thinking globally does it really seem like that out in the "real world?" frankly saying the "asian nerds" were those who were fobs, had glasses, and dressed that look. loved video games and anime and was very in touched with their asian culture. like you can tell, and the movie reflected that. same with the "cool asians" they have that swagger; dressed to impress, have that confidence that makes you know they're cool.

i know this pertains to other races as well, but i will focus on our asian american community. how did this separation come to be? i think that everyone forms their own little nitch with their type of people and thats how cliques came to be. the interesting thing is, is how the general belief integrates thes image and criteria on what is "cool" and thats how we judge people, and maybe not just people - but music, dance, art, movies - everything. and that's why we stereotype the typical cool asian rocking underground hip hop cuhs thats cool. that urban swagger- cuhs thats cool. they rap, dj, break, produce, tag, and play contact sports- cuhs that is cool!

on the other hand, those who represent the soft side of things are not as cool. video games 24/7 photography, tennis, their vastness of knowledge, non-designer clothes.. you get the point.

how do i feel about it? that's just how it is. you can follow the hype, or you can make your own. honestly, i wear whatever i'm comfortable wearing, and although it's not totally bullseye on either being a "cool asian" or an "asian nerd" i do still get pressured into wanting to fall into the category of being "cool" because you are constantly being judged and i want to make a good impression. the "cool" scene influences me everyday and i constantly shape myself to be noticed- what i wear, how i talk, and just how i wanna compose myself. and being an asian american emphasizes this need to be noticed.

being a minority i am already crippled tho - lost in a sea of hella asians and having this hunger to distinguish myself. and by picking a side.. cool or not, you are already weaving yourself out of half the population. and being asian, you really want that. to be noticed out in the world.

Background on poet

Suji Kwock Kim was born in Milton, New York in 1969. She attended Yale University where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1995 and received her master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Iowa’s writing program in 1997. Kim was also educated at Seoul National University and Yonsei University as a Fullbright Scholar, and at Stanford University as a Wallace Stegner Fellow. When she was twenty-one years old, she began writing poetry after she attended a poetry writing workshop in college. She was motivated to write poetry because she was intrigued by its structure. The rhythm and music of inspires her and she loves to write poetry even though it may seem tough at times because she has a hard time containing all her intense feelings and emotions.

Kim’s first book of poems, Notes from the Divided Country, won numerous awards. Some of the awards include the 2002 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Addison Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award. Since then she has written a number of works and several anthologies. Her works have appeared in newspapers including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times and have been heard on National Public Radio. 24 of her anthologies have been translated into several languages including Korean, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Italian, German, Arabic, and Bengali. Her works have also appeared in other works of poetry and anthologies such as Poetry, Paris Review, The Nation, Yale Review, New England Review, Southwest Review, Harvard Review, and Asian-American Poetry: The Next Generation.

Besides being a poet, Kim is also a playwright with music and theatre. Her work Private Property is a multimedia play that showcased at Playwrights Horizons in New York and was featured on BBC-TV. Texts from her poetry book Notes from the Divided Country were sung by choruses, voiced, and had music accompaniment. Poems "hwajon," "Flight," and "Looking at a Yi Dynasty Rice Bowl" were sung at Pablo Casals Hall, Tokyo in December 2007. Poems "Occupation," "Fragments of the Forgotten War," and "Montage with Neon" had voice and piano composition accompaniment. Other numerous awards that she has received are being named a Notable Book by the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Association and the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights and also being a finalist for the PEN USA Award and the International Griffin Prize. Kim is also the recipient of grants from organizations such as the Association of Asian American Studies, Korea Foundation, Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, and San Francisco Arts Commission.

Suji Kwock Kim now divides her time between San Francisco and New York. She is married to her husband whom she met during her freshman year at Yale University.

InvASIAN of the Cultural Sort

Instead of the usual exam with 75 questions or a ten page essay, our Asian American Culture class went in a more dynamic direction for our midterm: cultural guerrillas with the intent to spread knowledge about the 1968 strike and to create an Asian American presence on campus. We split into four groups: visual/propaganda, fashion, skit, and poetry. My group (Just So Sick Girls + The Warriors) executed the poetry part by writing lines from poems and quotes about the SFSU strike of 1968 on boards all over campus. To cover more ground, each person paired up with one other group member and hit different buildings. Stephanie and I did our "invading" on the first and second floor of the Humanities building. One of the quotes we used was "Schools continue to be factories of the status quo, where children are shunted into prefabricated futures based on their class, gender, sexuality, and color" (from "A Letter to the Campus Community From the third world Liberation Front" written by TWLF participants). As it neared 8:00 a.m., students started filling the classrooms, so we began writing on the chalkboards in the bathrooms (ladies rooms only, of course). Watch the awesome video that Gelline put together for a better visual of what our group did.

In the beginning I dreaded waking up early to be on campus before classes started (I already get less than six hours of sleep each night), but I really enjoyed participating in the InvASIAN and was glad to see our whole group putting a lot of effort into it as well. The experience was quite thrilling—writing as fast as we can to lessen the possibility of someone walking in while we were still inside (to avoid the awkwardness) and opening doors to a crack and peeping into rooms to make sure they weren't occupied. With all the rooms we did, I'm sure that we raised a lot of awareness about the Asian American Studies panel and what happened in '68. Later while marching towards Malcolm X Plaza with the whole class, I felt like we were really striking, chanting "On strike—we're gonna shut it down."

Cultural InvAsian of Art

On Thursday, October 30, 2008, our group split up into pairs and "invaded" different buildings on campus at approximately 7 in the morning as part of our Cultural InvASIAN midterm, where we were supposed to use performance art to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the strike of 1968 at SFSU. Katrina and I were invading the first and second floors of the Humanities building. We wrote lines of poetry and quotes from Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) strikers on boards in classrooms and documented each with a photograph. Each of the pairs were supposed to get a bit of video to contribute to the 5 minutes documentation of our invasion, but a few people had trouble uploading their videos. It didn't matter though, because we had a lot of pictures and other members have videos. We also wrote the quotes in blackboards in the girl's bathrooms and posted fliers on the bulletin boards in the halls whenever we could find an unused tack.





We slowly peeked in each classroom and as it got closer to 8:10, when class starts, we skipped the ones that had their lights on because we didn't want to be seen during our "invasion." We did get the majority of rooms, and it was a lot of fun sneaking around. We were afraid someone might come in while we were writing, so we wrote everything really fast and messy, but no one came in. We left a flier at the bottom of the board where we wrote the quotes so anyone who was interested could read the flier and know what it was about. I felt as though I was doing my part in contributing to the struggle of Ethnic Studies and maybe influencing others to do the same. Hopefully, it got some teachers to remember the strike of '68 and maybe explain about it to their class.

40th Anniversary of TWLF Strike at SFSU

An article in The Chronicle, titled "S.F. State to mark 40th anniversary of strike", written by Tanya Schevitz on october 26, 2008, helps commemorate the strike at SFSU in 1968, and also speaks about its impact on ethnic studies today. Joseph White, dean of undergraduate studies and former faculty sponsor for the Black Student Union, said "Black people were invisible in higher education in California. We were invisible on the faculty, in the curriculum and on the staff. And we were almost invisible in the student body." This relates to how Asian Americans are practically overlooked today. There are so many of us in the United States today, and yet there aren't many well-known Asian American icons in American music, literature, or art. The ones that exist have trouble breaking away from being labeled as "ethnic," and therefore, people view them as not truely American.

The article also talks about the tactics that students used to be heard, San Francisco police Lt. George Eimil, who was on campus every day during the strike, said "They placed a bomb in the administrative offices while school was in session. They were setting fires in the library. They were putting people's lives in serious danger." I think these tactics were neccessary because otherwise, the demands of the students would not be taken seriously. Students are trying to fight more budget cuts at SFSU now, and they have been doing so since last year. These were nonviolent protests and gatherings, but I don't think many people are taking it seriously. The students today do not go out of their way to join the strikes or informational meetings that have been set up. I've particiated in a few strikes against the budget cut, and there were a lot of people participating, but not enough if you take into account there are more than 20,000 students enrolled. At a strike on campus, a lot of students weren't even paying attention to the strike, they just wanted to get to class. They might not be taking those classes if they don't strike out against the budget cuts!

Cultural invASIAN

For my Asian American Culture class, our midterm assignment was to commemorate the Third World Liberation Strike of 1968. Our class was split into four groups: fashion, poetry, skits, and visual and performing arts. My group, just so sick girls, combined with the Warriors and was in charge of the poetry section. We had a rough start, but in the end it all worked out. Our group decided to wake up early Thursday morning on October 30, 2008, and arrive on campus at 7am to “bomb” the school with poetry. We split into pairs and each pair was assigned to a building where they would write a poem or a quote from the 1968 Strike on the chalk board/white boards. To be honest, I wasn’t too excited about waking up early to write on boards but, as we went from classroom to classroom it turned out to be pretty fun. The sky was still dark and the classrooms were pitched black, it felt like we were breaking and entering. The anxiety of getting caught made this assignment exciting. I paired up with Sharon and we were in charge of the Business building. We hit up all the classrooms on the first floor and most of the classrooms on the second floor. On each board we wrote

Remember the strike!

Testament For My Students
"They're no different then the administration of this college,
which want to keep education for the select few."

- Kay Boyle

(student panel)
AAS: 40 Years of Struggle & Survival @ GYM 114 12PM Friday October 31st.

TWLF '68

Before heading back to class, we went back to one of the classrooms to try to get a video recorded reaction of someone who read our writing. We encountered one guy who read it, but he didn’t give us much of a response. We asked him what he thought of it and his response was “it was … interesting.”

I can read about the Third World Liberation Strike of 1968 over and over again. I can watch the video “On Strike” over and over again. I can listen to people talking about the 1968 strike over and over again, but honestly, I’m not the best at paying attention to these issues unless I am involved in it. I found this midterm to be very powerful. We all heard the saying “actions speak louder than words” which is completely true. Like I said I could read, watch, and listen to people talk about the strike over and over again, but nothing speaks louder to me than being apart of it. It may have not been the real strike but commemorating the strike of 68 by reenacting it, or taking excerpts from writings and sharing them helped me grasp an idea of what when down during the strike. Every little action we took whether it be from the skits group, the visual group, the fashion group, or the poetry group, helped the audience remember that because of the strike we now have ethnic study classes. We now have a College of Ethnic Studies, in fact, we are the only University to have a College of Ethnic Studies and it is all because of the people we stood up and fought. So now… in the year 2008… IT’S OUR TURN TO FIGHT!