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JH: Please tell me a little about yourself Professor
Balce.
NB:
I was born and raised in the Philippines and I attended a
private Catholic university, De La Salle University in
Manila. It is actually the same alma mater of Professor
Sunita Mukhi (now director of the Wang Center). She also
taught there briefly and I was her student. I was there for
undergraduate and graduate school and so I have a Masters in
Philippine Studies. In the early nineties in Manila, Asian
American literature was still unheard of and I wanted to
study in Asian American literature written by Filipino
Americans. So I applied to a couple of universities and I
got accepted into Berkeley. That’s where I got my
doctorate degree. I have a Ph.D. in comparative ethnic
studies. I was trained by a Filipino scholar (Oscar
Campomanes), a Chicano scholar (Jose Saldivar), as well as a
postcolonial studies scholar (Abdul JanMohamed). So Asian
American, Chicano, and African American literature are some
of the things I love to teach.
I also became interested in Asian American cinema while I
was in graduate school. I was interested in American
independent cinema done by filmmakers of color. So I plan to
offer courses on race and cinema in the future.
I am currently working on two projects. A book I’m trying
to finish now is a book on American imperial modernity as a
visual language. I look at American popular culture and
literature at the turn of the 20th century, from the 1890s
to the present. A second project is on the political work
and the function of humor in contemporary ethnic American
communities. I’m interested in humor as it is used by
writers of color. As a scholar and as a teacher, I am
interested in the question of racial violence and its
representation in popular culture or literature.
JH: There is a common misconception that Asian
American studies is a field that is only relevant in the
West coast. What do you think is the relevance of Asian
American studies here in New York?
NB: This is a question
I’ve thought about especially here at Stony Brook where
there is a large Asian American community. Apart from
California, large Asian American populations are found in
New York, New Jersey and Chicago. My department, Asian and
Asian American Studies is new at Stony Brook. We have
scholars who teach courses on Asian American culture as well
as on the Asian diaspora.
Asian American studies still has to be defined by the
professors who teach it here at Stony Brook. But if you look
at the history of Asian American studies, there has always
been an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist history that
informs the field. The first Asian American activists were
against the Vietnam War. The ethnic consciousness movements
of the late sixties and early seventies dealt with local and
international issues. For the early Asian American student
activists, the international issue was the US military
involvement in Vietnam. The activists were young men and
women who wanted to bring attention to the escalating
violence in Vietnam. The local or national struggle focused
on creating a progressive education that reflected the
culture and histories of all Asian American communities. At
the time, you had Black student groups asking for more
courses on African American culture. Chicano and Latino
students asked for courses that reflected their own
communities. So in the late sixties and early seventies,
black, brown and yellow power movements were very active in
campuses around the country.
Now that we are in the early 21st century, what is Asian
American studies about? I think an important reality and
trend in contemporary Asian American studies is
transnationalism. I’ll use myself as an example. In the
summer, I have to be in Manila because my in-laws, relatives
and friends are there. During Christmas, I have to be in
Vancouver because my family is there and my siblings are
there. During the rest of the year, I am here in New York
because I teach.
I don’t think my life is unique. My Asian American
students have similar transnational backgrounds. You have
transnational families and individuals who are here because
they are forced to migrate due to political or economic
instabilities in their countries. And for some immigrants,
they may not have a lot of affection for the US and its
policies. This explains why some Asian immigrants don’t
like using the word “Asian American.” As an Asian
Americanist, or a scholar of Asian American studies, I want
to offer courses that reflect the complexities of Asian
America — the ambivalence, reluctance and desire for
claiming the United States as “home.”
I don’t always assume that when I
meet an Asian student in my course, that she or he knows the
history of Asian immigrants in the United States. This
history is more than two centuries old and is still being
written. So I always want students to begin with history.
This has been said of the digital age generation — that it
is impossible for your generation to have any historical
memory because it’s the easiest thing to erase in the
digital age. My goal as a teacher is to offer courses that
are historical and cultural. I also want my courses to be
political, to remain true to the origins and the goals of
Asian American studies.
Close to half a century ago, Asian American studies
was a project by young people who said no to war, no to
military intervention and no to racism. These are what guide
me as a teacher. I hope to introduce new histories and ideas
about Asian America to students at Stony Brook.
JH: Why is the history of Asian
Americans important?
NB: History is a useful tool to understand the
present. I think the present only makes sense when you think
of the past. For example, there are Asian immigrant parents
who discourage their American-born child from learning the
old country’s language, that they adopt an American
accent, and accept their racial and class biases. To be able
to understand the mindset of your parents, you have to learn
to learn what they went through. If not, at least know
history — what the word “Chinese” or “Filipino”
meant in the 19th century, or the history of ethnic
categories and racial slurs. There are always racial
meanings in words that we use for our identities, and I want
students to be aware of these meanings. Understanding race
and how it works in contemporary American society is
necessary for the formation of a critical citizenry.
JH: You mentioned “racial slurs.” Why do you
think the term “gook” is back in usage?
NB: I think it has resurfaced because there are more
hate crimes against Asians and people of color, and there is
economic anxiety fueled by the fear that foreigners are
taking jobs away from Americans. You see xenophobia and
racism at work in the popular film Gran Torino. The
protagonist played by Clint Eastwood is a screwed up racist
veteran who tries to turn a new leaf and reject his old
racist ways. The film is well-intentioned but relies on so
many racist clichés: the white man saving the brown savages
(in this case the Hmong community), the white man educating
an emasculated Asian male, the white man saving the brown
woman from brown savage men, etc. There are so many colonial
clichés in this film that it unintentionally becomes a
multicultural racist comedy. So we have not seen the end of the term
“gook.” It’s still around and there still needs to be
a serious discussion about race and Asian America.
JH: Last fall, some of the Asian clubs
on campus had a workshop titled “Who Killed Vincent Chin?”
For those reading this interview, what can you tell them
about this case?
NB: The Vincent Chin case was a very important event
that solidified Asian American activists around the country.
People were shocked by the brutality of the case — an
unemployed white American and his stepson beat Vincent Chin,
a Chinese American engineer, with a baseball bat until he
bled to death. Both father and son were eventually cleared
of any charges. This happened in the mid 80s, at the height
of economic uncertainties with the car companies in Detroit,
Michigan. The father and son were both unemployed workers of
GM. American car companies were affected by what we now know
as globalization. The racial violence that was seen in the
Vincent Chin case was an example of the new world order but
it was also an important moment that brought Asian
immigrants and Asian Americans together with people of
color. The Justice for Vincent Chin campaign was a
multi-ethnic, multi-racial campaign. Jessie Jackson was very
much involved in the Vincent Chin case.
So going back to that wonderful question, aside from
teaching about the history or the experiences of Asian
immigrants, I hope that my students come away with a sense
of social justice. And this returns to the origins of Asian
American studies and the early generation that were against
the Vietnam War. I want instill social justice and ethnic
consciousness while studying and appreciating Asian American
culture. I’m not interested in teaching about how great
Asians are, or promote some kind of ethnic pride. I want
students to have a political understanding of what it means
to be Asian American by reading a novel or watching a
documentary film.
JH: My father criticizes me all the time that I am
more American than I am Chinese. I know I am Chinese
American and I am Asian American. Do you feel Asian
Americans have lost sense of whom they are?
NB: No, I don’t believe that one generation is more
“authentic” or more “Asian” than the other. What
does that mean anyway? Identity has nothing to do with
authenticity. Identity is the narrative you create for
yourself based on what you’ve learned from your past which
your share with your “community.” And here, I want to
have a wide interpretation for “community” so that your
identity could be formed not just by blood relatives but
perhaps by individuals who have touched your life in
meaningful ways — a mentor, a teacher, an activist you
read about, college friends, your co-workers, etc. This
question of authenticity will always haunt the American-born
children of all immigrants, whether they are Asian,
European, Chicano, Latino, African, etc.
I think there is an anxiety that Asian parents have — they
are afraid that their American children are nothing like
them and that’s a frightening realization. You have Asian
immigrant professionals who went through hell dealing with
racism and foreigner discrimination in the work place just
so that they can fulfill their American Dream. Their
American born children face other struggles: the
difficulties of fitting in, social isolation,
discrimination, the expectations from their parents to be
academically successful. Sometimes the cost of this
assimilation into U.S. culture comes with the denial or the
rejection of one’s immigrant past so you have a lot of
Asian American writers and artists who explore the theme of
self-hatred or internalized racism. As someone who has
sympathy for both the parent and for the American born
child, I see both sides of misrecognition. There is a
refusal to recognize each other’s history and personal
struggles, and this intergenerational conflict is what makes
the discussions in my courses very lively and interesting.
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