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[vnwomensforum] - Mesg from Mimi Nguyen
I've been wondering what you might think about the plans to apparently recreate Little Saigon as a tourist attraction. My grandmother (who lives off Bolsa) isn't exactly pleased, but I'd be interested in finding out what others think. xo Mimi [vnwomensforum] - Mesg from Ly-Huong Nguyen Hadn't heard of the Little Saigon development plans, but allow me to indulge in my rant against the commodification of our culture and the sins of tourism. [brackets are my personal reactions which are unexpurgated and angry. if you can't deal with'em you can skip'em. I'm a writer and I can't bring myself to snip out my lovely bitter words.] My cynical point of view is that whenever an "ethnic enclave" becomes a tourist attraction, said enclave --especially Asian ones-- becomes more exotiic chinky/Orientalist kitchsy consumeristic (will get back to this point later), more expensive and the food goes downhill. on individual level, it's so much more work for us locals to navigate the tourists and the tourist prices and find the hole in the wall "authentic" places that you hope the tourists have not discovered yet (for example Chinatown in SF, Chinatown in LA, Chinatown in Oakland) And nothing irritates me more than some tourist gawking at the live seafood/roast pork, staring and giggling at ma'y ba` gi`a like they are circus freaks, and asking me to explain/translate, objectifying me and my culture while I'm trying to get my grocery shopping done. [These are my evil thuggish thoughts: "Do I look like a damn tourist guide mofo, get outta my face before I punk you." My edited public version is more like "(aggravated sigh) I don't work here" give them the i-kill-you eye and leave.] Further more, this tourist commodification manifests in a particular forms given popular American imaginations of exotic Asia. It is the exoticization, what I dub "Chinkiness", that tourists crave, the exotic oh-so-foreign Oriental sundries like china doll shirts [why-oh-why do they always wear this with some black liquid eyeliner that goes out to the hairline?!? and the inevitable chopstick in the bun. hey, chopsticks are for food not for your hair. i should go around Walmart oohing and aahing with a fork in my fair], incense [which is for dead people, not to scent your toilet!], slippers, umbrellas, slanty eyes and buck teeth [no joke, Urban Outfitters tried to sell the chinamen mask]. This reinforces the othering of Asians, the idea that Asians are exotic and alien, i.e. not fully-human, certainly not citizens nor entitled to basic human rights (remember Prop 187?). [Can I just go aggro about the numbers of times that I have been approached by some curious American with some oozingly obsequiously Orientalist, chinky, carefully and loudly enunciated remark about my ao' da`i, my groceries, myself or who bows to me hands in "prayer" position in some pseudo-imitation of respect that isn't even a part of my culture and by the way you speak english very well. Weo, you speak english ok too, pilgrim.] Think about what happens when your favorite nha` ha`ng pho*? gets written up in the local papers. Suddenly it gets trendy and the food becomes bland/fusionized, and a bowl of ph*o? costs $8 (and just think about the restaurants that will never be your favorite Vietnamese homecookin cause they serve the American tastebud: Le Petit Cheval in Oakland, the Slanted Door in SF, the Crustaceans aberrations in SF and Beverly Hills...) But to give it an intellectual/political spin, it is the commodification and exoticization of our culture. A process that has been in place for several hundred years with regards to Asian cultures, and in the case of Viet Nam and Vietnamese people, since the 1960's. [I swear if I meet another person who read Fitzgerald and Jamieson and thinks I am some small docile, peaceable ao' da`i girl, I will teach them the history lesson of Hai Ba` Tru*ng and stomp'em even in my ao' da`i.] I believe that if we reduce our culture--even as hybrid and diasporically displaced as ours is--to commodities, exotic knick knacks, and performances to be consumed by tourists we will have lost authenticity, vibrancy, dynamism and the soul of our culture. We can fruitfully compare this to other processes of tourism internationally... Tourism and exploitation go hand in hand. Not in anyway to denigrate the Hawai'ian peoples of my birthplace, but the tourist economy has devastated the local culture & ecology of Hawai'i (well that and the process of disenfranchisement and impoverization of native Hawai'ians), creating an economy based on serving tourism rather than building a sustaining, self-sufficient economy that can feed its own people (cf. Dr. Haunani Kay Trask) [and yes that means if you tourist Hawai'i you should feel very guilty b/c the native Hawai'ians have called for a boycott of tourism and removal of the nuclear warhead underneath Honolulu Int'l Airport. Something to think about when the flying tonnage hits the tarmac]. Hawai'ian culture is reduced to hula dances and luaus for tourist consumption not only in the "popular imagination" but for young Hawai'ians today as well. What results is a cariacature of a culture. Tourism is also intrinsically linked to prostitution, the commodification of native women's bodies. We see this devastating process of commodification and prostituting the culture and women in every popular tourist destination: the Bahamas, Bali, Thailand, Viet Nam.... (see C. Enloe, Bananas, beaches & bases) [Nha Trang has all these hotels and prostitutes and sections of beach that are reserved for ngu*o*`i Ta^y only.] To bring this back to a local/domestic level, while tourism may bring in more revenue for the merchants in the area, it would involve a downgrade in quality of life for the residents. Nobody wants to live in a commercial, disneyland-esque area with high traffic, littering, no parking, crowded, tourist-catering (therefore locals get poorer service since they are not there to spend tourist bucks), price rise, cheap quality goods etc. This has could have two responses if we look towards other tourist attraction Chinatowns/Asia-towns. one, all the folks who can afford it move to suburbs, e.g. LA Chinatown/Monterey Park, Little Tokyo LA/Gardena, SF Chinatown/every where else in the Bay Area, NY Chinatown/Jersey, leaving the poorer and more recently immigrated to live in a deteriorating area. Of course those examples are from much older established chinatowns. What we see in newer chinatowns such as Oakland Chinatown, that have been created hand in hand with commercial interests is that there is increased policing to maintain the shininess (which means more harassment of youth), increased rents, greater visibility of big capital (from HK & Taiwan), poor residents & merchants with less capital are being pushed to poorer "ghetto" areas (In East Lake area the income for Southeast Asians is $10,000 per household; whereas with Blacks it is $10,000+ per capita. For Latinos, it is around $10,000 or less per capita). So what this could mean for Little Saigon, is the increased revenues for some merchants that cater to tourists, higher prices, lower quality chinky goods, downgrade of quality of life for residents, increased policing (and OC cops already harrass, profile, beat, arrest Vietnamese youth), neglect of the poor & of small merchants, the commodification, objectification, exoticization of our culture. Indirectly this leads to the further sterotyping of Vietnamese and Asians as a group as foreign exotic imports, second-class citizens, alien... Tourism of Little Saigon would also be firmly linked to tourism of Viet Nam with the accompanying exploitation and prostitution mentioned above. ok, that's it for me... ly-huong as angry as i wanna be… [vnwomensforum] - Mesg from Tam B. Tran Dear Ly-Huong and VWF list members, In reading your comments about revamping Little Saigon to attract more tourists, I felt the twinges of discomfort from similar experiences that I have had. - A Caucasian tourist in San Francisco once stopped me and asked very slooooowllllyy if I spoke English. I responded that I had graduated Phi Beta Kappa in English from Harvard University and then walked away. (This was a lie.) - When I was in teacher training school, I ffelt that some of my classmates (who were mostly Caucasian) believed that eating eggrolls was sufficient for global education or multi-cultural education. Sort of an "Asia's done. Let's do Africa next" attitude. I was uncomfortable with these incidents not only because of the other people involved but also because of my own reactions. My bad attitude, frustration, whatever you want to call it probably only contributes to any walls that have been erected by our perceived differences. Right now, I live in a lower-income neighborhood in Oakland and am frequently approached by non-English speakers for directions. I reply as slow as I can because it might help them understand what I am saying. There is no mockery or contempt on my part. As for my classmates, I know of at least three have developed great curriculums on other cultures (e.g. African-American, Guatemalan, and the Yanomamo people that live in the Brazilian rainforest) that are still being taught today. I realize now that the people in the two incidents I wrote about above were just seeking information and working with what they had. How different is this from _me_ paying to go trekking in the mountains of Thailand or being part of an anthropology class that barged in on a Hungarian-Romanian wedding in Transylvania? To bring this back to the original intent of my message: I present these anecdotes because I wanted to show you that I relate to some of the things that you had been written about. However, I do not necessarily agree with many of your comments. We should start collecting information first about the Little Saigon development plans before we can make generalizations, accusations, or judgment calls. It is good to bring in our personal experiences, but the specifics of the subject at hand need to be spelled out to determine if our experiences are relevant in the first place. I cannot comment about the plans to convert Little Saigon until there is more information provided, and I question others who do. Who is behind this idea? Is it the City of Westminster? If yes, exactly who? What city council members? Are any of them Vietnamese? Has there been a committee formed to develop, implement, and monitor these plans? If yes, are there community representatives on this committee? Who are they? I would also like to know what the merchants in Little Saigon think of this idea. Are they against it and why? (Traffic congestion, increased maintenance costs, etc.) Do they support it and why? (More money for their businesses, tax breaks from the city that goes directly to them, etc.) I don’t need to become an expert on this subject, but I am not willing to put out an ill-informed opinion. Tam Tran [vnwomensforum] - Mesg from Minh Tram some rambling reflections....if you are patient enough to read through and make sense of my thoughts, you have done well. << We should start collecting information first about the Little Saigon development plans before we can make generalizations, accusations, or judgment calls. It is good to bring in our personal experiences, but the specifics of the subject at hand need to be spelled out to determine if our experiences are relevant in the first place.>> while i think that a waiting to get all the facts is always a good idea, i think that in this case it did not weaken the main points i gathered from ly-houng's "rants": that cultural appropriation and cultural imperialism are results of the domininant group's option to "be ethnic", often at the cost of disrespectful intrusion (innocent or not) into the few spaces in which communities of color have carved out. true sharing and exchange implies EQUAL access to means of production, consumption, and distribution of community goods. and ly-huong's writings already clearly lays out the many ways this is not the case. i'd just like to add the example of boston chinatown, where chinatown has become such an critical tourist attraction for the city that it approved for developers to build a multiplex movie theatre, apt hi rise, state of the art gyms, etc right on chinatown parcel of land that chinatown residents desperately needed (and organized around) to alleviate the overcrowding in the most densely populated part of town. so families either must leave town or pack into tiny apts because they can no longer afford to live in chinatown. ironic, given that the city's own urban planning redlining policies once didn't allow for chinese immigrants to live anywhere BUT chinatown. but now that the generations of chinatown residents have made it into a place deemed desirable by the dominant group, up goes property values and out goes the residents. and as long as enough residents stay in chinatown to keep it thriving, that is. in addition, white privilege allows dominant group members to come into an ethnic enclave and takes for granted the differential service that is accorded to them. better service is provided to them over so many others, and only part of this is because they are perceived to have more money to spend. it's also because some vietnamese merchants have said that they know that white people will more likely sue them if you don't give them what they want. somewhere along the line, immigrant merchants do pick up on who has the insitutional power. and on top of all that, the internalized racism and internalized colonialism that our community carry (from our relationships with first the french and later the americans ) establishes a different service standard for european americans than they do for our own or for other people of color. as a result, whose opinions, wishes, time, are given more value and worth? << Who is behind this idea? Is it the City of Westminster? If yes, exactly who? What city council members? Are any of them Vietnamese? Has there been a committee formed to develop, implement, and monitor these plans? If yes, are there community representatives on this committee? Who are they?... I would also like to know what the merchants in Little Saigon think of this idea. Are they against it and why? (Traffic congestion, increased maintenance costs, etc.) Do they support it and why? (More money for their businesses, tax breaks from the city that goes directly to them, etc.) >> the answers to the questions asked above will not address the fundamental question of the commodification, objectification, and exoticization of our culture and other minority culture. these things happen when at the fundamental level, minority people and their cultures are "othered" out of fear, disrespect, and/or fascination. but when groups of people are "othered" , the complexities of their lives/choices get flattened down to bits so that the dominant group can easily take in, critique, or dismiss. it is important to note that in our thirst to be given a nod by white america, that so many of the elders in our community don't position ourselves with a healthy critical stance. so many people in our community believe that america can do no wrong [i.e. how the community fell over itself when john mccain held a rally in our community, so willing to overlook his use of the loaded and offensive word "gook"]. vietnamase people consider it an honor when we get mainstream press time for the accomplishments of our sons and daughters, or when the republican party or john birch society sends a recruitment letter inviting you to join their party. it is also likely that many would also feel proud to have little saigon to be recognized as an official tourist attraction. i wouldn't even be surprised to learn if vietnamese community leaders were to spearhead or be well represented in the decision-making process. planning for tourist essentially means planning for white tourists because the economic means required for tourism are usually linked with race stratification in the us. this is not an isolated argument; it is part of a known process of what happens to US minority cultures as they become more mainstream. so unless these reps know the patterns in us urban development of ethnic enclaves, i doubt if their presence will address the concerns i have. -minh-tram [vnwomensforum] - Mesg from Mariam Beevi I was wondering if Mimi had any more details on these plans to "develop" Little Saigon into a tourist attraction? I agree with all of Ly huong's comments, but on some level (and having grown up here), I feel like this is only a change in degree, since Little Saigon has been touristic for quite some time now. So, I was thinking if we knew what was actually going on at the city council or mayorial camps, we might know better how to go about dealing with this campaign. Just like the city's decision to build the war commemoration monument recently, they usually have very specific reasons for doing things at this particular moment in time. Any ideas? Mariam [vnwomensforum] - Mesg from Indigo Williams Hi there, My name's Indigo and I'm actually an adopted Vietnamese so I'm kind of lost between my appearance and heritage and the white society that surrounded me up to the age of 21 with a mix of older feminists and SE Asian 'aunty' figures. Anyway - in Sydney, Australia where I am from we haave a few places the media likes to call enclaves where Vietnamese are basically depicted as heroin pushing, social services draining exotics etc...However, the community services and infrastructure out in the 'little saigons' are desperate. My friends have needed to 'camp' at my house regularly because there are no late night services back to their neighbourhood for example. They come into town because there's not much to do in their local area. I guess this is where there are some strange considerations. The kids basically want movie theatres, more buses to city, better image for employment in disneyland (white suburbs & business districts) but on the other hand, the families & shopkeepers aren't looking forward to high rents, land rates etc that would indeed, move many businesses further out again. However, for the non-english speaking family who works in factories etc. and has affordable resources in their local neighbourhoods, the impact of 'gentrification' would most probably lead to relocation of many families eventually. The benefits are still there but at the sicker end of society perhaps? You see if you say you are Korean or Japanese, you get better jobs, innercity landlords will give you the flat etc. because those neighbourhoods are situated, but not quite assimilated in the safe white middle to upperclass suburbia. If you say you are Chinese, then you're still on safe ground because the establishment in power thinks either Hong Kong/Shanghai new business class or quaint chinatown which is a tourist destination in Sydney as in most western places. The more familiar the establishment is with our neighbourhood, the less it becomes seen as the enclave and more doors open to where the jobs are (within the establishment). Hmm, I'm not sure how this all sounds because often I'm not considered Vietnamese as far as culture goes, but certainly as far as prejudices go - I'm as yellow as the next exotica they want to objectify etc. Now within Chinatown itself, it's predominantly Chinese with SE Asian following in terms of shops/residents but that itself is in danger often from being bought out by establishment yuppies. This is being battled for many reasons, as in it's now considered prime real estate - and voting wise (voting being compulsory here) there are some nasty politicians who would gladly get rid of an asian electorate for one that would bring them the vote. It's true there are a lot of funny types who turn up with chopsticks in hair doing the suzy wong thing and journalists on 'safari' going in deep to the jungles of asian shops to discover oh so wild menus etc. On the other hand, the business friendships that have begun in Chinatown between the Asians and the establishment (you realise this is my euphenism) does bring in far more social services by way of donations and good will deals that ensures a lot of translation and community services for Asians that doesn't happen further out into the enclaves becaues the trendy middle class lefties and good will business types are too scared of being pushed heroin (I'm joking a bit here). Well, it's all stuff I wonder about where the benefits are if gentrification and tourism become inevitable for such areas of Vietnamese communities in the west. Now not being from America - is it only white people who do the tourist thing? The society seemed awfully segregated. It's such a big population you have it's easier to understand how the tension becomes a lot more, well tense. Hmm, sorry - my rant over. I'm interested that this kiind of thing has been discussed so extensively here - it's important to know what Asian America is thinking and up too. Indigo [VWF] Response to comments about LS as tourist attraction [vnwomensforum] - Mesg from Xuan Sutter Just want to add my experience with the local government wanting to turn an area in Atlanta into the International Village. For the last fifteen years, a poor suburb of Atlanta (Chamblee) has been home for many refugees and immigrants. About five years ago, the city of Chamblee and developers got consultants to come and draw a plan to turn the four blocks neighborhood into the International Village with a big welcoming gate (like the Mc Donald golden arch) and turning poor run down apartment buildings and oriental food shops into art galleries and tourist attraction stores. Their plan off course would include the colorful people (us) walking around in our national clothes during the day. I called it the new Epcot Center of Atlanta. I ran a program assisting refugees in that area and had an office in one of the run down apartment building. I was invited to be on the community advisory committee. Off course, in every meeting, I kept on asking where will the people live? They will not be able to afford the rent of the art galleries and which gallery owner would want to rent their upper level to a family of poor refugees? I was polite but persistant on the effects on the "colorful" people they want in these streets during the day. After a while, they thanked me and called the end of the first phase. When the second phase started, the advisory committee is replaced with businesspeople with interests in this touristic place. I was pretty sure I lost the battle and went home accepting the fact. Fortunately, at that time, there was a local filmmaker doing a documentary on the New Immigrants in the South. He interviewed the consultants and big shots in the city of this plan and me. I said in the film what I had been saying all along. When the documentary premiered in Atlanta, I got myself plenty of enemies. The end of the story is that the whole idea of the International Village was dropped and Chamblee is now a thriving neighborhood with lots of immigrants and refugees and a few tourists but no organized tour bus to come and stare at us. I know the plan will be brought back one of these days. We are buying time now by sitting at the table (as long as we can) and keeping on advocating for the interests of the local population until the day the local people can do the development themselves at their own terms. Xuan Sutter [vnwomensforum] - Mesg from Binh
The last time Little Saigon was debated, I was too busy to give my two
cents. But here it is now.
Binh |