Homogenization

Ever since I've been taking Asian American Studies courses, I've gotten to love the play on words or terms such as 'homogenization', 'heterogeneity', and 'hypenated American'. The coinage of new terms gets me wanting to dive deeper into its origins and history of how it came to be. To be honest it makes me feel like I'm giving my brain a bit of a work out trying to analyze their meanings and take a stance about whether I agree with it or not. I love debating.

It's a wonderful field and I wish there was more recognition for the humanities classes at UC Irvine. I've learned to love the writings of Maxine Hong Kingston, Lisa Lowe, and Yen Espiritu. Wonderful authors of different concepts of Asian American identities, the issues and rising trends of globalization, and so much more. Thinking about it, if I had more time, I'd go back and try to double major as an AAS major. I feel just as strongly about it as psychology, sometimes more when someone in class gets me riled up.

Today for example, we went over the concept of vertical and horizontal communities by Lisa Lowe. Vertical communities are built from the belief system passed down from many generations. It's a traditional model. Horizontal communities are based on personal experiences and shaped by a more diverse community and made into a hybrid pool of beliefs and laws. Our professor asked us when it was appropiate to create a horizontal community or to even analyze details of a vertical community. Someone raised their hand today and made a comment about how "We shouldn't allow people to study each other in a cultural context, such as ethnographies, because it might take away what that group is trying to preserve."

I got really irritated at that comment. I know I'm supposed to respect other people's opinions, but after hearing that statement, it raised a bit of my cortisol levels a notch. If she were an anthropology major, she would know that not all ethnographies are based on observing people alone. Sometimes you are supposed to blend in to get a better feel for what one's culture and daily living is like. You learn the language and customs. And hopefully by the end of the day, you've walked at least 10 miles in someone else's shoes. Sure there are different interpretations, but no one said anything about conforming to one correct form of beliefs. It's counter-productive to society if we aren't even able to create subcultures! Where would the words 'diversity' or 'hybridity' fall in?

Without studying other cultures and making our own observations about it, we're never going to be able to build alliances with different groups. I'm taking a class on Asian American psychology and it was defeating to hear that efforts to learn about other groups of people was not encouraged. We've gotten this far in all types of fields and we're just starting to find new ways to branch out even further to help those that do not identify themselves under the mainstream radar. In the case of Asian Americans seeking psychological help, they are more likely to find a therapist that understands their culture or is even remotely aware that their ethnic background is different from the typical "White American apple pie and baseball" cutout.

How can you say we shouldn't learn about other people and try and find ways to analyze them in different angles. Not everything is going to be globalized and turned into bubble gum pop or cheap imports from Vietnam. To even come close to an opportunity of learning about other cultures mean that we want to respect spectrums that are different from ours and learn more about them. No one is going to put a 'westernized' stamp on it after we're done.

Maybe this is why people fear hybrids or subcultures, they're new and not traditional...