How does capitalism influence the careers and lives of Asian Americans? As we finished reading The Hanging on Union Square this week, I found fascinating connections between H.T. Tsiang's self-published novel and previous readings such as the short story "Japanese Hamlet" by Toshio Mori. The concept of money is a central theme in The Hanging on Union Square, as it opens with a description of the power of money and its ability to influence people and their relationships. It appears to be a monologue by Mr. Nut, the main narrator of the novel, who is later shown to be unemployed as we follow him around Depression-era New York City, meeting discontented Communist workers, exploited women, and other characters. The narrator tells us quotes like these:
"It is the same girl. Today she has money. She is a Honey Darling.
Tomorrow she has no money. She is the Daughter of a Bitch.
It is the same fellow. Today he has money. He is a Honey Darling.
Tomorrow he has no money. He is a Son of...
He is radical; he has no money.
He is conservative; he has money.
He is wishy-washy; he has a wishy-washy amount of money."
The absurdist voice continues throughout the novel, and highlights the crazy-making influence of capitalism on the characters in the novel, to a point where money is seen as crucial to a person's worth, later turning Mr. Nut into a radical who goes against this system of capitalistic worth. The pervasive imagery of money throughout the story as a concept with enormous power over people becomes especially dramatic, as when it causes death and destruction: "The eviction on Fourteenth Street, just this morning, killed her. How could a sick woman stand cold and excitement at the same time?" The woman is the mother of Miss Stubborn, an organizer for the Communist party, and her father is also fatally impacted by her death. While The Hanging on Union Square dramatizes capitalism's negative impacts, it also struck a familiar chord as many immigrants and Asian Americans have grown up with the idea of pursuing a stable career, the key notion of "stable" being "profitable," particularly new arrivals without an established support system in the United States. This novel lets us ask the question, are there any negative effects when the pursuit of wealth is prioritized above everything else when determining careers and, in essence, entire lives? How do these negative symptoms of capitalism manifest today?
Toshio Mori's "Japanese Hamlet" was especially touching as it serves as a staunch reminder of the perils of pursuing unconventional paths while facing various levels of resistance from both those of Asian descent and members of other races. The main character Tom is who we might call a "bum" today, a thirty-one-year-old schoolboy in a Piedmont home, disowned by his parents and fending off relatives who call him a "good-for-nothing loafer" for studying at his age. He is obsessed with reciting Shakespeare, particularly Hamlet, with a dream of becoming a great Shakespearean actor, and seeks out the narrator to practice. However, as time goes on, the narrator becomes increasingly convinced that Tom is wasting his life and that he is helping Tom do so. He gives Tom a variety of suggestions, such as working for someone in the daytime, contacting the stage workers, reciting the sonnets instead of Hamlet, hoping to see him well off in a job or business, but Tom turns down all of these options. Ultimately, their relationship is severed once the narrator desperately suggests that Tom give this up for a while because "that book is destroying you." Years later, they see each other and Tom politely greets him, but he is still reading Shakespeare and continues to be a schoolboy.
This story allows us to understand the paralysis caused by a racially oppressive society, with Tom choosing to preserve his dream of becoming a Shakespearean actor rather than even attempt to face rejection from an America that printed the story "Japanese Hamlet" next to columns such as "Two-Thirds of the U.S. Citizens Believe False Reports of Espionage by U.S. Japanese" in 1946 in the Pacific Citizen, the leading paper of the Pacific Asian American community. Despite being a grown man, "Tom stayed at the Piedmont home as a schoolboy. He accepted his five dollars a week just as he had done years ago when he was a freshman at Piedmont High. This fact did not bother Tom at all when I mentioned it to him. “What are you worrying for?” he said. “I know I am taking chances. I went into this with my eyes open, so don’t worry.”
The narrator worries about Tom because of the pressures of a capitalistic society, and its focus on money as the definition of a human being's worth, but Tom is mired in the same dream he had as a schoolboy and refuses to define his life by the conventional, money-making route. This decision has its benefits and downfalls, but the story "Japanese Hamlet" asks us to understand why a "bum" like Tom Fukunaga might exist in American society. His refusal to contact the stage players or make progress toward becoming a Shakespearean actor beyond the options that would have been available to him as a schoolboy begins to make sense when one considers the racial oppression faced by Japanese Americans during and after World War II, with Mori himself imprisoned in the Topaz internment camp during the war years, and publishing this story in a Pacific Asian American paper. Tsiang was only able to self-publish The Hanging on Union Square after it was rejected multiple times by publishers. One thinks, given the potential impossibility of becoming a renowned, history-making actor for Tom in this time period, is it possible to "self-publish" becoming a Shakespearean actor? Real life overlapped with fiction in this case, with the chronology published at the beginning of The Hanging on Union Square mentioning that Tsiang performed a one-man, one-act performance of Hamlet at the Rainbow Theatre in Hollywood, every Friday night for a dozen years.
Whether it is internalized oppression or societal oppression, rather than try too hard, and fail due to potentially unavoidable racism, or willingly give up on a dream by working in a different field, Tom continues his life as a high school student studying Shakespeare in "Japanese Hamlet," which may ring familiar to anyone who found a haven during school days that was insulated from the realities of adult life outside classroom doors. Personally, I have many memories of the pleasure of reading literature without the responsibility wrought by capitalism to decide on a profitable career path or making high grades for future success, and how peaceful it felt to spend those days as a young woman in shaded classrooms, nestled in quietude and calm conversation. Additionally, with an uncle who pursued acting and a grandfather who translated Charles Dickens into Chinese, I witnessed the dynamics of these choices to immerse oneself into the humanities through overheard conversations. Though much of them were lost on me as a kid, they were only rarely denigrated but not exactly held up as examples to follow, primarily because of the capitalistic notion of personal worth being money made.
What causes talent to drop out from fields, and what elements of capitalist society makes different types of behavior look like insanity? The racism of American society becomes a huge factor in impeding career paths and motivation, stunting the growth of individuals. It reminded me of the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Defecting from a capitalistic existence means attracting ire from members of society, but faced with the pain of forsaking a cherished dream, even if that dream is unrealistic or with predicted barriers such as racism, people do have the freedom to live in unusual ways that keep the dream intact. As Tsiang repeats several times at the beginnings of chapters in The Hanging on Union Square,
"Heaven is above,
Hell below.
Nothing in pocket,
Where to go?"
With money ceasing to be a motivator, through intentionally living outside of a capitalist society, where exactly can someone go? The result starts to look like insanity, to people who lack the understanding of someone's psyche through lack of exposure to stories and poems like these. "Japanese Hamlet" also reminded me of Margaret Holloway, or the Shakespeare Lady, who the Taiwanese-American writer Esme Weijun Wang wrote about in The Collected Schizophrenias, contrasting their mental breakdowns after leaving highly selective universities. While Wang attempts to keep up the impression of a high-functioning intellectual while suffering from physical and mental maladies, Holloway does not, and becomes known for roaming the streets of New Haven on Yale's campus, reciting Shakespeare for spare change. We don't know why or how the Shakespeare Lady or Esme Weijun Wang contracted these odd behaviors and beliefs that make up mental illness, but we can harbor a guess by looking at narratives like "Japanese Hamlet" and The Hanging on Union Square, where a racially oppressive society, the tight constraints of capitalism on individual destiny, or simply a series of strange events can lead to a person forever changed.
While researching potential connections between Asian Americans and Shakespeare a while ago as part of a self-determined attempt to bridge any gap between my identity and academic interests, I discovered the National Asian American Theatre Company, based in New York City, a nonprofit organization founded in 1991 that presents Shakespeare as well as other European and American classics with all Asian American casts, along with providing a space for new plays and the development of Asian American playwrights.
The image is from the 2018 adaption of Henry VI, Parts 1-3. The company describes its intentions:
The superimposition of our Asian faces on a non-Asian repertory, interpreted by artists using diverse and truly universal references to serve the text very faithfully, reflects and emphasizes the kinship among disparate cultures. We do not say we are all the same, we say that we have quite large areas of understanding. We also say that affirmations of timeless values and new insights about old works can come from unexpected faces.
If an organization like this had existed during the time of Mori and Tsiang's writings, their characters might have been less enigmatic, once the pressures of racism and capitalism impeding creative paths were lessened with an example of an Asian American nonprofit (or outside of capitalism) community succeeding at performing the Shakespeare they enjoy. Characters like Tom and Mr. Nut may have found a supportive community instead of becoming accustomed to withdrawing from and rejecting conventional society - Tsiang could have gone beyond a one-man, one-act Hamlet, and Mori could have found a greater audience for "Japanese Hamlet." But these stories are about what it takes to save a dream during hard times, and if that means creating an insular haven within oneself, how can any of us judge what someone is willing to do to survive the life bestowed upon them?
Links to this week's readings:
"Japanese Hamlet," Toshio Mori
America is in the Heart selection, Carlos Bulosan
"The Woman Who Makes Swell Doughnuts," Toshio Mori
Sources:
https://loa-shared.s3.amazonaws.com/static/pdf/Mori_Japanese_Hamlet.pdf
https://thesewaneereview.com/articles/yale-will-not-save-you
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