Swan Kim: Teaching Asian American Studies in the Bronx: K-Pop and Cultural Appropriation

Swan Kim: Teaching Asian American Studies in the Bronx: K-Pop and Cultural Appropriation

Teaching Asian American Studies in the Bronx: K-Pop and Cultural Appropriation

Swan Kim, Bronx Community College (CUNY)

Keywords: Bronx, cultural appropriation

ENG 181, “Asian American Literature” has been approved as one of the new English electives to be taught at Bronx Community College in Spring 2017. I
designed the syllabus with the help from CUNY colleagues1 who have taught/are teaching Asian American literature courses. The course will be taught for the first time at Bronx Community College in Spring 2018.

My approach for teaching Asian American studies at Bronx Community College has been inspired by Kandice Chuh’s Imagine Otherwise: On Asian Americanist Critique (Duke UP 2003). Since black and Hispanic students are the majority at Bronx Community College — Asians and Asian Americans only consist of 4%, I had to assume that students would not be taking “Asian American Literature” to find and learn about one’s own cultural identity. Instead of appealing to demographics, I wanted to introduce Asian American Studies as a “subjectless discourse” that is alternative to the politics of identity and as a study defined not by its subjects and objects, but by its critique. Given that the course was originally thought as a revival of a course titled “Oriental Thought in Western Literature” that was taught in the 1960s, I wanted to properly update the course by including lessons on orientalism. To make Asian American studies more relatable to non-Asian students, I also wanted to introduce topics that encompass ethnic studies in general including post-identity politics, transnationalism, and diaspora.

While I never taught a course devoted to Asian American literature, I have been incorporating Asian American literature in various courses (from composition to literature electives) I taught at Bronx Community College. I tried to build the “Asian American Literature” course on what was already proven successful and update with new materials. I found that many of my students respond well to Asian American literary texts involving immigration and generational conflicts since a majority of the Bronx Community College students are immigrants. I remember how many students commented on how they have felt like the author in Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue.” I also found that students were intrigued with the question of what it means to be American, or who is American. In this context, I found Gish Jen’s “Who’s Irish?” to be very useful in bringing out conversations about stereotypes, nationalities, and culture. I also like to introduce the controversy between Frank Chin and Maxine Hong Kingston to have students discuss the politics of minority representation. Pairing Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” and David Henry Hwang’s “M. Butterfly” has worked very well in having discussions on contemporary orientalism and how it maps on to the gender dynamics. Students also relate well to stories growing up in NYC, such as Bushra Rehman’s Corona. Students appreciate the stark contrast in tone from the earlier generation of Asian American writings, where everything is imbued with seriousness reflecting the harsh immigrant realities. While not a literary text, students read selections from Eric Tang’s scholarly work on Cambodian refugees in Bronx titled Unsettled.

While most of the time anything Asian is almost non-existent at Bronx Community College, I was once struck by a black student in earphones singing along to K-pop idol lyrics on campus, which led me to consider the students who may be immersing themselves in Asian popular culture even if they are not Asian. This led me to consider incorporating K-pop into the syllabus to discuss racial politics in the global era. Black hip-hop culture has long been appropriated by K-pop artists. Most recently CL’s American debut single music video “Lifted” garnered mixed reactions and heated debates in the social networking sites for its cultural appropriation and authenticity on using black people and Bronx as “props” and perpetuating cultural stereotypes of thug and ghetto. The class can first have an in-depth discussion of cultural appropriation, examine how hip-hop has been used as countering traditional norms in Korea, and explore how these debates play out when accounting for cross-racial dynamics in the diasporic context.

Students can read Tamara Brown and Baruti Kopano’s “Preface” to Soul Thieves: The Appropriation and Misrepresentation of African American Popular Culture (Palgrave, 2015) and watch CL’s “Lifted” MV and Amandla Stenberg’s “Don’t Cash Crop my Cornrows: A Crash Discourse on Black Culture”. Before class, students will be asked to complete a brief pre-class writing prompt of summarizing what “they (Brown/Kopano & Stenberg) say” and responding what “I [would] say.” Sample posts from students will be showcased in class and students will be asked to elaborate on their posts while I ask follow-up questions to clarify or further consider issues. The discussion should most likely cover these questions: what are Brown and Kopano trying to say in their “preface”?; what is Stenberg’s argument in the video?; how are they defining cultural appropriation and what are their stances on the issue?; what examples of cultural appropriation do you know?; how do you think CL’s music video is related to Bronx?; how would you define the culture of Bronx?; how do you distinguish cultural appropriation and homage?; is a non-Korean K-pop band appropriating Korean culture?

The purpose of the discussion is to have students consider the matrices of culture, ownership, representation, and authenticity in a contemporary context. My goal is to have students think about class outside of class so that what they learn in the classroom becomes transferrable in their own lives. Discussing K-pop and cultural appropriation in class will empower students to articulate their ideas about popular culture and cultural ownership and make Asian American studies relevant in the Bronx.

1
Many thanks to Christa Baida, Jungah Kim, and Jennifer Hayashida.

Sample Readings

Some readings related to or that inspire this lesson:

Dr. Swan Kim
ENG 181: “Asian American Literature”
(Spring 2018, Bronx Community College, CUNY)

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