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English 50

August 27, 2006

Philip Kan Gotanda’s The Wash

August 27th 2006 Posted to UCSB Courses, English 50, Asian American, Film

the-wash.jpgPhilip Kan Gotanda’s play The Wash tells the story of a newly-separated Nisei couple, Nobu and Masi, and their individual and collective struggles with their traditional past. While Masi is able to move on and begins dating the widower Sadao, Nobu is forced to confront his traumatic memories of the internment camps. The Wash was first performed as a play in 1985. Gotanda then wrote the screenplay for the 1988 independent film version.

In teaching this text as part of a course on Asian American literature, it is useful to present both versions and ask the students to consider the differences and benefits of each version. The following discussion questions were designed to follow a two-part assignment in which students were asked to read the play and view the film. (Read the article)

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August 26, 2006

Between the Lines Documentary

August 26th 2006 Posted to UCSB Courses, English 50, Asian American, Film

between.jpgBetween the Lines is a 60-minute documentary film featuring interviews with over fifteen Asian-Pacific-American women Poets. This 2001 film by Yunah Hong is organized around topics such as Immigration, Language, Memory, Family, Spirituality, Reaching Out, and What it Means to Write. Each segment contains poetry readings as well as candid testimonials from the poets on subjects such as gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, and aesthetics. The documentary combines archival images with artistic cinematography to lend a cohesive visual interpretation to each poet’s words. Poets featured in the film include (among others) Shirley Lim, Marilyn Chin, Cathy Song, Mitsuye Yamada, Myung Kim, Lois-Ann Yamanaka, Meena Alexander, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Barbara-Michelle Tran, Patricia Ikeda, Lori Tsang, and Kimiko Hahn. The film was screened at the Chicago Asian American Film Festival, the Toronto International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Not Hollywood: A Feminist Film Festival, Vermont Women’s Film Festival, and Seoul Women’s Film Festival. It won the CINE Golden Eagle Award in Non-Broadcast. For more information on this film and its distribution, visit Women Make Movies. (Read the article)

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August 18, 2006

Angel Island Web Resources

August 18th 2006 Posted to Teaching Immigration Issues, English 104A, English 50, External Resources for Teachers, Asian American

KQED Education Initiatives Organization Website
This multimedia site includes lesson plans, a movie about the island, sound clips of poems and photos.

Angel Island Organization
This site, which is associated with the California Department of Parks and Recreation, includes a history of the island, photos and an Angel Island Webcam.

Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation (AIISF)
This site includes historical background, phots and information about how to get involved with the foundation.

Oral History Site by Lydia Lum
This site, created by Lydia Lum, is an ongoing oral history project collected from former Angel Island detainees. It includes photos and interviews.

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Lesson Plan: Angel Island Poems

August 18th 2006 Posted to Teaching Immigration Issues, Lesson Plans, English 104A, English 50, Asian American

angel-island-detainees-web.jpgThe following are some questions about the Angel Island poems that an instructor or TA could use to prompt class discussion. One approach I recommend is to have students form small groups and come up with answers which they then share with the class. Alternatively, you could focus one whole class around one of these questions. For example, I ran a 45 minute class discussion on the “Line between graffiti and art” question by bringing in photocopies of images from the graffiti websites and getting students to debate whether or not they thought those images were art. (Read the article)

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August 11, 2006

Angel Island Poems

August 11th 2006 Posted to English 104A, English 50, Asian American, Literature, Film

Historical Background
The Angel Island Poems are a group of more than 135 poems written by ChiMens Barracks, Immigration Station.jpgnese immigrants detained between the years of 1910 and 1930 at the immigration detention center on Angel Island, located in the San Francisco bay (Lai 8). The poems were discovered in 1970 by park ranger Alexander Weiss who noticed the calligraphy on the walls of the abandoned detention center. Through Weiss’s efforts along with those of Paul Chow and the Angel Island Immigration Station Historical Advisory Committee (AIISHAC), the dilapidated barracks was saved from demolition and special legislation was passed granting $250,000 to preserve and restore the barracks (“Immigration Station”). Written mostly by Cantonese villagers trying to immigrate to the United States, these poems express the hope, despair and frustration of detainees awaiting the outcomes of medical examinations and immigration paperwork. (Read the article)

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August 28, 2005

Defining Race and Pedagogy

August 28th 2005 Posted to Teaching Immigration Issues, UCSB Courses, Lesson Plans, Syllabi, English 104A, Writing 2, English 197, English 10AC, English 165HR, English 50, English 103A, External Resources for Teachers, Specific U.S. Racial Groups, African American, Asian American, Latino / Latina American, Native American, Type of Resource, Literature, Film, Photographs, Visual Art / Posters, Music Recordings, Maps, Recordings of Speeches, Legal Documents, Panels and Lectures, Biography, Other

Although these terms are often used as though they signified clear and well-bounded meanings, both words have complex histories and implications that are frequently only discernable once one considers the contexts in which they are used. For the purposes of this site, we offer the following definitions: (Read the article)

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