Final Reflection

In the course AAS 232: Introduction to Asian American Fiction and Film, I experienced a comprehensive survey to the wide variety of Asian American media available today, gaining great amounts of knowledge as to the writers, narrative forms, and big ideas behind some of our most necessary stories. During the first quarter of the semester, I enjoyed learning about the vicissitudes of which topics each creator found important to share with the world, rooted in Asian American history and resplendent diversity in ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and life experiences. Exploring the connections between capitalism and the Asian American experience helped me understand potential present-day links as well, in addition to highlighting the importance of examining my own and others' lives for significance. I drew many parallels with the people and cultural trends I know exist in real life, making each reading feel personal. For example, career stagnation and discrimination in Sui Sin Far's work, "Japanese Hamlet," The Hanging on Union Square, and No-No Boy echo similar conflicts in reality. For the next quarter of the semester, revisiting short stories from Maxine Hong Kingston and discovering new ones by Jhumpa Lahiri was impactful, with my first academic introduction to Asian American film in the movie Eat a Bowl of Tea. Though I had read The Woman Warrior in high school, the background knowledge provided in the online modules really clarified much of the information and elevated it in importance as the course focuses deeply on Asian American literature instead of only placing the novel as a one-time literary offering. Themes of immigration and cultural preservation really moved me at this point in the course, as the immersive amounts of detail in each short story resonated as authentic markers of cultural thinking and behavior, and I felt grateful that Kingston and Lahiri chose to humanize the Asian American experience to such a deep extent. Eat a Bowl of Tea presented to me a version of my heritage that has been lost to my knowledge upon immigrating to America, and through the passing of time, evoking deep emotions as I watched realistic characters interact in the setting of a post-WWII America and China, places and times I would never be able to access and feel if not for the existence of this media. In the third quarter of the course, Shortcomings and Tropic of Orange taught me that I wasn't alone in thinking about the importance of travel to the Asian American experience, as well as the importance of mining the present day and modern relationships for significance when we're tempted to think that all the important things have already been written about in past literary classics  The unique mediums that these two works are created in, the graphic and magical realist novels, gave me new ideas as to what I might write about in my personal work, from being bold and realistic in dialogue to the benefits of centering writing around a specific city and adding magical elements to the setting to enhance awe and emotion. Finally, I headed into the final quarter of the course with a sense of closure as we watched modern films such as Crazy Rich Asians and read twenty-first century fiction such as The Reluctant Fundamentalist, providing insights into a perspective apart from American patriotism and critiquing the values of the country as they result in racial discrimination. Ultimately, AAS 232 has been a wonderful introduction to the components of Asian American film and literature, and inspires me to continue consuming and thinking about new media today.