R4 Excerpts and Response (Anna Moran)

Micah Martin:
“In setting Jenny apart as uniquely suited to leadership in a revolutionary environment for the color of her skin, and by alluding to a supposed ‘Third World Perspective’ afforded by her Japanese heritage, Juan betrays leanings just as racist and as ignorant as the townspeople who refer to Mr. Hata as a ‘good Charlie.’ … Both authors show clearly the idea of social complicity, though from opposite angles.  Where Lee presents Mr. Hata as a man working hard for legitimization in the eyes of his neighbors and fellow citizens and thus (possibly) complicit in his own marginalization, Choi gives us Juan and his blind insistence that brown skin confers legitimacy automatically and makes its possessor part of a kind of suffering elite.  While Mr. Hata is himself complicit, Jenny is a victim of (unwilling) complicity via Juan’s racist attitudes.  Both are, in some fashion, reduced to an exemplar of their race by this complicity.”

 Rachael Furman:
“Self-imposed assimilation and self-denial of one’s race, background, and past holds one boon over socially imposed racial othering.  Social compliance implies one’s choice to comply, with the key concept pushing towards this decisions being ‘choice.’  One’s personal decision to comply fosters an internal sense of power and control, even if this sense of balance is constructed in such a way as to marginalize and force self-denial upon Asian Americans regardless of terminology.  Susan Choi’s American Woman and Chang-rae Lee’s A Gesture Life both evaluate the differing effects that the ‘choice’ of social compliance has upon the character and narratives of each novel’s respective main characters.  As we examine the ways in which Jenny and Doc Hata both blend into society, we understand that this self-imposed denial of nation and self acts as a psychological mechanism of preservation, a means by which to hide from the greater and more damaging forces of forced assimilation or worse, ethnic marginalization.”

Alexa Ebert:
“It seems like both Sunny and Pauline had very complicated relationships with their parents, and their actions and mannerisms definitely took a substantial toll on them.  Pauline gave in so much to the PLA that she was lost and her hand is described as to have rolled off.  It is ironic that when she did not resist to the PLA, she says that she was released of old shame and nothing would be her fault.  Although Pauline did not necessarily choose to be a part of the PLA, her compliance made her become a part of this, and through it she began to further resist other things.  In a way, she resisted against her parents because they did not withhold the PLA’s beliefs whatsoever.”

Andrew Anderson:
“Jenny and Hata each find comfort in the extremes.  For Jenny, it is in the form of political resistance and radical activism, while for Hata it is expressed through his social complicity as he strives for complete assimilation and acceptance into American society.  Both approaches are shortsighted and destined to fail from the very beginning.  Hata’s attempts to make himself as unthreatening and amenable as possible may have afforded him to a certain amount of comfort, but it never earned him the kind of respect among the community that he so desperately yearned for.  In contrast, Jenny’s political radicalism gave her a level of power that she couldn’t have attained otherwise, but the very means of her resistance prevented her from ever being seen as anything but a radical outlier.”

Marlene McManus:
“Though one’s life is defined by social complicity and the other’s by political resistance, the protagonists of the novels A Gesture Life and American Woman share a conclusive realization of the futility of their actions at the novels’ endings.  Though Franklin Hata works tirelessly to adopt and maintain all the physical and social signifiers of the average American citizen, and Jenny Shimada endeavors to raise political and social awareness to improve the nation through radial activism, neither can escape the consequences and realities imposed upon them by history and their own selves… He [Doc Hata] realizes at the conclusion of the novel that such a life cannot be achieved through quiet complicity, for complicity engenders inaction, the consequence of which is a weighty cloud of guilt that cannot be escaped… Jenny Shimada’s actions are the antithesis of complicity, bombing buildings in her youth to protest government actions.  As opposed to Hata who wishes to recede into anonymity, Jenny’s ultimate desire is that her voice be heard.”

Response:

                For two stories that are based on completely different settings and deal with completely different political issues, the response papers for this week do a great job in discussing many comparable themes of both novels.  Although it seems as though the issues of social complicity and political resistance are obvious motives for some of the main characters (Jenny the anti-government radical seems to be the symbol of political resistance while Doc Hata, the model minority “good Charlie” is socially compliant), these excerpts show more in-depth analyses of these topics and bring new perspectives that were not even mentioned in our class discussions.  For instance, Rachael points out an interesting point that even though both Jenny and Doc Hata are socially compliant and falsely empowered by their “choices” to act the way they do, it is inevitably internally destructive for these characters and those they affect.  Marlene and Andrew both write about the failures and futility of both Doc Hata and Jenny’s actions.  Marlene says that both characters’ complicity fail to eradicate the history and guilt that encumbers them due to their political standings, actions, or even the widespread scrutinization they face as an Asian American.  Andrew, on the other hand, talks about the failures of these two characters to find short-term comfort in their attempts to prove themselves through social compliance (Doc Hata) and political resistance (Jenny).  They all agree that the tragedies of these two main characters are the repeated failures that define their developments as characters throughout the books.

                Excerpts from the response papers also introduce marginal characters who help emphasize the impacts of political resistance and social compliance.  Micah mentions Juan, whose ignorance and false claims further delegitimize the missions of the PLA; however, his dominance (and perhaps masculinity?) forces Jenny to be socially compliant to Juan’s racism and other factors that she initially fought to resist.  Alexa also mentions Pauline in a similar light, as she says while Pauline was a product of social compliance due to her wealth and socioeconomic standing, her submissiveness to the PLA compelled her to be politically resistant against all the perspectives that she was raised with.  Alexa also points out that Sunny’s resistance to Doc Hata lets him become aware of the hypocrisies of his actions.  While these novels depict two completely different but altogether beautiful stories, the themes that were highlighted in this week’s responses continue to exist in our society that still often deals with minority-based politics and controversies.