Leaving and links

“Not home but… Home” – Bourdain on his No Reservations trip in VN

I’m taking off for a month to Vietnam and am feeling more and more ambivalent. It scares me that French American Anthony Bourdain can articulate my feelings about returning home. I realized whatever reasons I made up for needing to go to Vietnam were just that— pretend. I wanted to fit in there as if the word immigration never existed. But the image of myself as a clumsy, arrogant outsider (a Westerner, in particular) makes that impossible. I would be lying to act as if that was my life. I am frustrated at my own audacity of calling that snake-shaped country home. And further frustrated that I must be frustrated… I am scared that I might simply have to make peace with my difference, my disconnect from relatives. Blood thicker than water? It may not be thicker than the salt water that parts us. Maybe I will finally accept that my ragged American-ness tangles with tradition, causes too many arguments, leaves behind people... Maybe this will be good.


Be back in a month. Until then, some links and ideas that I did not have time to write posts about:

Koreatown Label Irks Some Residents
A tricky line to walk: Oakland needs business revenue but people need to be respected and acknowledged in that endeavor. These developments scare me. I don’t think riots will start over it, but I think if the label of Koreatown stays and more Asian businesses move in, black flight from Oakland will only increase. When will “development” include all poor people of color?


Obama and "Africa Speech":
Most problematic line for me: "But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants." (emphasis mine)

Victor Goode defends Obama’s “Tough Love” and boils it down to holding policy accountable:

The point is will the Obama administration change the neo-liberal economic policies of the Clinton years? Or is his promise to support development that “enriches people’s lives” and partners with Africa in “new ways” going to be a new direction for American policy? As with so many of the lofty promises of this new administration, the answers remain to be seen.

While Goode presents a significant point, I want to highlight Aisha Brown’s take. Brown reminds us of the existence of neo-colonialism in Africa by writing, “President Obama's speech to Africa, although imbued with hope, still reflected the same arrogance, blame shifting, and paternalism Western leaders have shown since the continent's independent nations began to emerge.” If we are pushing for a “new direction,” we need to understand the role the U.S., IMF, World Bank, and specifically Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) have played in the (under)development of Third World countries.


Obama’s NAACP speech
I am more satisfied with this one. He implicitly counters post-racial claims by publicizing economic, health, and education disparities between blacks and whites. His ideals are still solidly resting on problematic American ideas of meritocracy, but at least he doesn't outright lie about history like in his Ghana speech. So bravo big O on the balancing act. “Yes, government must be a force for opportunity. Yes, government must be a force for equality. But ultimately, if we are to be true to our past, then we also have to seize our own future, each and every day.”

O, thee with privilege (or how shall you light the world?)

Terras irradient
“Let them give light to the world.”
- Amherst College motto

I feel better this past month about the issues I'm going to raise below. But I wrote this because for the last year, I have been returning to a personal debate of what I should be doing and what I should be thinking of doing. Some of you know that I chose to not do Teach For America because I do not want to support the organization. I believe one voice makes a difference in challenging America to truly educate its citizens. So here I am taking out a loan for just my credential program and unsure if I even want to complete my masters in education because I do not know how long I want to teach. To complete the masters program is expensive and not necessarily sought after by the Oakland Unified School District.

Then I think about professorship. One day, I can’t imagine anything better to do. Worse, I get excited thinking about how I want to push and expand how the world understands history, culture, and race. Then the next day, I picture my soul being suffocated in a isolated ivory tower office. The lingering question in my mind is how much of my interest is about prestige? Is that the driving force of my desire to pursue more education? If I am such a big believer of working with the people, then why am I leaving them?

And why do I want to leave? Some days, I feel like I am gasping for air in Oakland. This will always be my (second) home, but I want more. The world has shrunken and I have lengthy arms that could work toward change in faraway places if I chose. This is the privilege of having the opportunities that I’ve had. Is it right to follow the path I believe I need, for now? What about the long view?

What do I owe?

It's a question I will ask, always. I’ve rationalized over this plenty, of course. For now, I am thinking that while one person makes a difference, I am a human being (which is saying a lot but not much) amidst the workings of a much larger and deeper imperfect set-up. I am no martyr. People of color, working class peoples, and other people from disadvantaged backgrounds cannot be to only ones working to change this oppressive structure. So while I am a person who feels the responsibility of improving the lives of the disadvantaged, I refuse to existentially restrict myself to that load. I want to inspire and educate others to become Subjects of history. At the end of the day, I KNOW this. But some days, I don’t FEEL this. I feel guilt and uncertainty; the dual and reciprocating burden and freedom of my experiences.


“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.” –Ellison in Invisible Man

Street Art 1: the town to the sco

I love street art. I decided I’m going to try to post at least once a month photos that I take of Bay Area street art, guerilla art, graffiti, stencils, whatchamacallits. From huge bombs to small whimsical posters, it’s all fair game.

Why street art? On an aesthetic level, graffiti is a branch of hip-hop. Graffiti is beautiful! I’m just calling it street art because of the methods, legality, and acceptance that has evolved over time.

On a personal level, I grew up in a city that is famous in its own rights for graffiti. An odd thing to brag about, no? Also, for many many reasons, I love discovering, exposing and learning about subjects that are untold and marginalized.

So on an academic level… street art is a forum for people to claim their space by altering that space, particularly people who lack other means to do so. That’s one of why graffiti often involves trespassing. If we don’t own property, we can’t paint on our own property. So instead, we’ll paint on yours and make you recognize that we exist. Noticing street art is like having my finger on the pulse of marginalized popular opinion.



Consider the first two photos I’m sharing this month:

1) This was written on a Fruitvale BART bench a few days after Oscar Grant was killed by BART police, at this same station.



I just noticed today the inverted exclamation marks. The exclamation marks suggest that either the tagger was Latino, a Spanish speaker and/or supporting black and Latino solidarity. I love it! It demonstrates how this medium represents human change and cultural evolution. (It may help to understand that the Fruitvale district houses Oakland’s largest Latino population and readers should keep in mind historical black and Latino conflict as well.)



2) I took this today, a piece done by the corner of Kearney and Post in SF. This exemplifies the theme of making noise where one is not wanted. In the opposite corner stands a Ralph Lauren, down the street is Burberry, DeBeers, Cartier… Need I say more?




I should also mention that street art relies on context. If you are not from the area, some aspect of the piece will be hidden to you, whether it be the locale, the image, the letters, the artist, or current events. It harks again to the issue of access and ownership. Artists select their audiences by referencing restricted themes and locations. Of course this is not a strictly controlled method of selection, but the element of choice is there.


Some other pics from the day:

I ate this today, imported to SF from one of Oakland’s taco truck. My first this summer...




Learned a lot about myself, America, and Robert Frank through the SFMoma’s exhibit on the photographer.



The curators wrote that the fourth section in his book The Americans presented a critique that implied

that the American political system drowns out the voices of it average citizens; that Americans worship false idols, such as cowboys and movie stars; that their work is restrictive and unsatisfactory; and that their rich are arrogant, their poor are meek, and their middle class are lulled into quiet submission by a consumer culture.

It was a free museum day. Lots of people of diverse class, age, and race that you don’t see often in museums. Good stuff.




Then I found Waldo.




Does that count as street art?