Carina Lei
Writing 101: Asian American Narratives
Instructor: Susan Thananopavarn
Ticket
Biography
“American Studies” was the required literature course for juniors at my high school. I vividly remember reading and discussing at length the nuances of racial politics throughout the Revolutionary War and the subsequent two and a half centuries through our readings, but specifically only within the scope of white, black, and Native American race relations. It was a wonderful, in-depth, and thoughtful class, but not once was there any mention of Asian American history within the curriculum.
Senior year, I registered for a course called “Asian Studies” to fill the last open literature class slot in my schedule. In this class, I read excerpts from Confucius’ Analects, wrote about Buddhism and Hinduism, painted traditional brush paintings for my final project – but again, in a class about Ancient Asian civilizations that existed far before the formation of the United States, I learned nothing about Asian American history. It seemed, then, that there was no space for this subject in any of the curricula at my high school. It felt like an arbitrary binary to me – I could be taught about either Asia or America, but nothing in between.
When I saw that Duke was offering a Writing 101 course called Asian American Narratives, I signed up immediately. The Asian America that I learned about in Dr. Thananopavarn’s class was one that I had never been exposed to in any educational environment before – entire histories, stories, and cultural legacies left out from all my schooling thus far. We read newspaper articles, diary entries, and memoirs exploring different aspects of Asian American history previously unknown to me. This was concerning to realize, to put it lightly – equally concerning was the fact that the things I was learning were directly applicable to me, and that being so blindsided to my own history has left me blind to the historical context and key influencing factors of my current position as an Asian American living in the U.S. in the 21st century.
Our final project for the class, entitled “History through Narrative,” charged us to produce our own narrative about an aspect of Asian American history after reading and learning about so many examples in class. We were told to be intentional when choosing what narrative to explore – to consider whether or not the histories we were exploring were seldom acknowledged, and what we can learn from knowing these histories exist. I thought this apt, considering the impact the class had had on my conceptualization of my own Asian American identity after learning the histories behind it.
To those ends, I chose to do my final project on the history of Chinese laundries; we hadn’t had a chance to cover them in class and as a Chinese American myself, I thought it important to know more about the history of my own community. Inspired by the symbolically rich imagery in Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do and the raw depictions of emotion and dialogue in Mira Jacob’s Good Talk (both are graphic novels and were class readings!), I decided to create a graphic novel to tell the story of Carl Fong, the son of two Chinese laundry business owners in the mid-twentieth century (drawing has always come easier to me than writing has, anyway). Quick interjection to say that the next part of this bio will probably only make sense after reading the graphic novel and artist’s statement!
My decision to tell this story in a graphic novel format and to use paper as a main motif is self-referential. The red and pink of the metaphorical ‘paper’ of the novel itself continues to follow the theme of papers allowing upward social mobility, even outside of Carl Fong’s story. This coloring is instead intended to acknowledge my ability to tell such a story by being able to learn from resources during the present day about the cultural and historical legacy of my own marginalized community, as well as highlight the parallels between the lives of two different people, both children of Chinese immigrants – Carl Fong and myself.
When making Ticket, I drew from my Asian American Narratives class readings, read books and articles from Duke libraries, and used drawing software available through a free Duke student subscription. Even when only considering the scope of this one class project, juxtaposing my own position as a Chinese American living in the U.S. with the actual histories and oral narratives of Chinese immigrants a century ago made it difficult not to become hyperaware of the immense privilege that I as the author had while making Ticket. This was something that stayed in my mind during the reading, writing, and drawing processes. While recognizing the themes of upward mobility in Carl Fong’s story, I started to draw parallels to the same themes in my own life, and thought it only appropriate that I incorporate this thought into my art through the red pages.
I want to thank Dr. T for introducing me to these histories through thoughtful and intentional discussions, and for making the class such an enjoyable one! Thank you so much!! I also would like to thank the Deliberations board, and Dr. Sheryl Welte Emch especially, for their thoughtful comments and their dedication to helping me during the editing process. Last but not least – thank you to my parents for their continued support of my interest in learning about Asian American history and culture along with their enthusiasm for my art and writing, to Jenny Green for her very thorough spell-check, and to Nichole Zhang for her many helpful comments (and unhelpful jokes) as well.