CLASS 19EWRT 1B

Agenda

Terms Lecture: Sui Sin Far Discussion: Far: QHQ In-class writing: How and why does Far

resist? What are the social implications of her doing so?

Discussion/Writing: Essay #4

Terms Transsexuals: People who indicate that they are of one gender

trapped in the body of the other gender. A person who has altered or intends to alter her/hir/his anatomy, either through surgery, hormones, or other means, to better match her/hir/his chosen gender identity. This group of people is often divided into pre-op (operative), post-op, or non-op transsexuals. Due to cost, not all transsexuals can have genital surgery. Others do not feel that surgery is necessary, but still remain a transsexual identity. a. Non-operative: People who do not intend to change their primary sex

characteristics, either because of a lack of a desire or the inability to do so. They may or may not alter their secondary sex characteristics through the use of hormones.

b. Pre-operative: People who have started the procedure to reassign their primary sex characteristics, but have not yet had the surgery. This covers both those people who have just begun the procedure and those who are very close to the actual surgery.

c. Post-operative: People who have had the actual genital surgery done. These people may identify as a man, woman, an FTM transsexual or an MTF transsexual.

Transphobia: The fear or hatred of transgender and

transsexual people. Like biphobia, this term was created to call attention to the ways prejudice against trans people differs from prejudice against other queer people. There is often transphobia in lesbian, gay and bisexual communities, as well as heterosexual or straight communities.

Persona: a character in drama or fiction or the part any one sustains in the world or in a book. Persona also denotes the “I” who speaks in a poem or novel.

Plot: a plan or scheme to accomplish a purpose. In literature, this is the arrangement of events to achieve an intended effect consisting of a series of carefully devised and interrelated actions that progresses through a struggle of opposing forces, called conflict, to a climax and a denouement (final resolution). This is different from story or story line, which is the order of events as they occur.

• Point of view: a specified position or method of consideration and appraisal. It may also be an attitude, judgment, or opinion. In literature, physical point of view has to do with the position in time and space from which a writer approaches, views, and describes his or her material. Mental point of view involves an author’s feeling and attitude toward his or her subject. Personal point of view concerns the relation through which a writer narrates or discusses a subject, whether first, second, or third person.

• Prose : the ordinary form of spoken and written language whose unit is the sentence, rather than the line as it is in poetry. The term applies to all expressions in language that do not have a regular rhythmic pattern.

Sui Sin Far

Edith Maud Eaton

1865-1914

She was born in England, in 1865 to a Chinese mother and an English (white) father. Eaton's mother was apparently schooled in England although she returned to China after her education was completed. Eaton's father was a merchant who did trading in China; it was on one of his business trips that he met and fell in love with his future wife. According to Eaton scholars, Amy Ling and Annette White-Parks, "interracial marriage was taboo in both cultures[; thus,] theirs was an unusual union." At age seven, Eaton and her family left England and immigrated to Hudson City, New York, and in the early 1870s, settled in a Montreal suburb. She went to school until age eleven and then continued her education at home. As the second child and oldest daughter of fourteen children, Edith Eaton spent much of her childhood helping her mother care for her siblings as well as selling her father's artwork in the city.

Sui Sin Far, born Edith Maude Eaton, was the first writer of Asian descent published in North America

Eaton started her career at Hugh Graham's Montreal Daily Star newspaper as a typesetter at age eighteen.

Her first short stories were published in the Dominion Illustrated in 1888; she also maintained her administrative duties as well as submitted newspaper articles. It was in her journalistic writing that Eaton openly identified herself as a Chinese American and explained her biracial heritage to her readers. She wrote under the pseudonym Sui Sin Far, a childhood nickname that means "water lily" in Chinese. Her sister, Winnifred Eaton, also a writer, used Onoto Watanna as her penname.

Yi Bu Wang HuaIn the mid 1890s, Eaton moved briefly to Jamaica, where she contracted malaria, from which she never quite recovered. During the next ten years, until 1909, she lived in Seattle and San Francisco. She wrote more articles and short stories and gained a literary reputation. Chinese American women were at the center of much of Eaton's writing, and she worked to break down cultural stereotypes. In 1909, Eaton moved to Boston where she compiled a full-length selection of short stories, Mrs. Spring Fragrance, which was published in Chicago in 1912. In 1913, Eaton, stricken by horrible rheumatism and bad health, returned to Montreal. She died on April 7, 1914 and is buried in the Protestant Cemetery there. In gratitude for her work on their behalf, the Chinese community erected a special headstone on her tomb inscribed with the characters "Yi bu wang hua" ("The righteous one does not forget China").

A Spiritual ForemotherKnown as "spiritual foremother of contemporary Eurasian authors," Eaton has been the subject of two dissertations, a literary biography, and numerous articles. Notable Sui Sin Far scholars include S. E. Solberg, Amy Ling, James Doyle, and Annette White-Parks.

Amy Ling writes, "If we set Sui Sin Far into the context of her time and place, in late nineteenth-century sinophobic and imperialistic Euro-American nations, then we admit that for her, a Eurasian woman who could pass as white, to choose to champion the Chinese and working-class women and to identify herself as such, publicly and in print, an act of great determination and courage."

The Reception of Chinese by White Americans

To appreciate the work of Edith Eaton fully, we must discuss its historical and social context, namely the reception of Chinese by white Americans before and during her period. Though the Chinese were never enslaved in this country, as were Africans, they were brought here in large numbers as indentured laborers. The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) was only repealed in 1943 and naturalized citizenship for Asians was permitted in 1954, long after African-Americans and American Indians were recognized as American citizens. Initially attracted to California by the discovery of gold in the mid-nineteenth century, by the l860s thousands of Chinese laborers were enticed here to construct the mountainous western section of the transcontinental railroad. Almost from the beginning, prejudice against them was strong. They were regarded as an alien race with peculiar customs and habits that made them inassimilable in a nation that wanted to remain white; their hard-working, frugal ways and their willingness to work for lower wages than whites rendered them an economic threat and thus targets of racial violence.

Spring Fragrance and Other WritingsBy Sui Sin Far

This text includes “Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian”

Passing and Sui Sin Far

“Ah, indeed!” he exclaims. “Who would have thought it at first glance? Yet now I see the difference between her and other children. What a peculiar coloring! Her mother’s eyes and hair and her father’s features, I presume. Very interesting little creature!”

I had been called from play for the purpose of inspection. I do not return to it. For the rest of the evening I hide myself behind a hall door and refuse to show myself until it is time to go home.

Why does Far hide after this experience?How does this moment contribute to her identity development?

“Look!” says Charlie. “Those men in there are Chinese!” Eagerly I gaze into the long low room. With the exception of my mother, who is English bred with English ways and manner of dress, I have never seen a Chinese person. The two men within the store are uncouth specimens of their race, drest in working blouses and pantaloons with queues hanging down their backs. I recoil with a sense of shock.“Oh, Charlie,” I cry. “Are we like that?”“Well, we’re Chinese, and they’re Chinese, too, so we must be!” returns my seven year old brother.“Of course you are,” puts in a boy who has followed us down the street, and who lives near us and has seen my mother: “Chinky, Chinky, Chinaman, yellow-face, pig-tail, rat-eater.” A number of other boys and several little girls join in with him.“Better than you,” shouts my brother, facing the crowd. He is younger and smaller than any there, and I am even more insignificant than he; but my spirit revives.“I’d rather be Chinese than anything else in the world,” I scream.

Why does Far fight after this experience?How does this moment contribute to her identity development?

The greatest temptation was in the thought of getting far away from where I was known, to where no mocking cries of “Chinese!” “Chinese!” could reach.

Here Sui seems to want to disappear. Given her desire to escape prejudice, why does she become a champion of the Chinese instead of “passing” as we know so many others do during this time? In other words, which of her life experiences compel her to refuse to pass as white? How does she become the woman who speaks the lines below?

With a great effort I raise my eyes from my plate. “Mr. K.,” I say, addressing my employer, “the Chinese people may have no souls, no expression on their faces, be altogether beyond the pale of civilization, but whatever they are, I want you to understand that I am—I am a Chinese.”

YOUR INSIGHTS, QUESTIONS, AND

COMMENTS

Sui Sin Far

QHQ: “Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian

In what ways in Sui Sin challenged with racial hatred? How does Sui Sin deal with all the ridicule? Why does Sui Sin feel as though they won the battle even

though [she] and her brother were hurt? In the story it says that Sui Sin’s sister becomes great

friends with someone [. . .] even after they make a racist comment. She goes on to say that Sui Sin herself had “many such experiences”; why do they choose to ignore [racism]?

Why does Sui not take more offense to the way she was treated?

What was so different about her brother and sister that made her different even in her family?

Why did Sui Sin admit to Mr. K that she is Chinese?

Why is it that Sui Sin’s has the strength to be herself and not pass?

Why was it wise that Sui Sin’s father was blind and deaf to many things?

Why does Sui want to finish her life in China?

Did Sui Sin go to China and live there?

In-class writing: How and why does Far resist passing?

• Far refuses to pass as white. Why? What convinces her to consciously and intentionally reveal her racial identity?

• Consider how Far resists passing. Which behaviors can you specifically identify?

Questions about Essay #4?

Speak now because we are almost out of time!

Homework

Studying: Vocab/Terms Writing: Work on Essay #4 Blog Shot: What are the advantages to

resisting passing? What are the long-term social effects?