Diaspora and Negritude
Micahel S. Harper's "American History" poem blew my mind, and "Persimmons" by Li Young Lee has always been one of my favorite poems. The poetry of the Diaspora that we studied together was especially interesting because we were sitting in a hybrid classroom in an exchange experience with students in China. Hearing the experiences of these students as part of the learning process helped me understand more deeply that diaspora poetry as a movement works to bring in voices that were formerly marginalized and moves them into the mainstream. When I thought about Diaspora and reflected on the Negritude movement, I felt keenly my own lack of identity and "home." As a "white girl" growing up in Hawai'i, I was a "haole" -- an outsider -- a "white devil." But I learned to be a "local girl," and started to fit in, but then my family moved to San Francisco. Sunny beaches to cold fog. And there I was living in one of the most cosmopolitan cities, walking through chinatown and through the Haight/Ashbury and speaking pidgin like a local girl. All cultures diverging. Pretty soon the "valley girl" took over. Then I started moving every summer to live with my father in Louisiana. My own sense of identity has been greatly informed by the many regions I lived in as a kid and a teenager. As I was thinking about these issues, I was also thinking about the election and the Trump-era and the divisiveness in our country. Reading the poets of the negritude movement, I was saddened that so little has changed. I thought about how our bodies inhabit our worlds and I wanted to create a sort of "self portrait" piece of my own using book arts. This was partly inspired by "Self-Portrait" by A.K. Ramanujan, and also by the "danger of a single story." But I also wanted to give a sense of hope and possibility after reading these poems, while also representing myself.
Micahel S. Harper's "American History" poem blew my mind, and "Persimmons" by Li Young Lee has always been one of my favorite poems. The poetry of the Diaspora that we studied together was especially interesting because we were sitting in a hybrid classroom in an exchange experience with students in China. Hearing the experiences of these students as part of the learning process helped me understand more deeply that diaspora poetry as a movement works to bring in voices that were formerly marginalized and moves them into the mainstream. When I thought about Diaspora and reflected on the Negritude movement, I felt keenly my own lack of identity and "home." As a "white girl" growing up in Hawai'i, I was a "haole" -- an outsider -- a "white devil." But I learned to be a "local girl," and started to fit in, but then my family moved to San Francisco. Sunny beaches to cold fog. And there I was living in one of the most cosmopolitan cities, walking through chinatown and through the Haight/Ashbury and speaking pidgin like a local girl. All cultures diverging. Pretty soon the "valley girl" took over. Then I started moving every summer to live with my father in Louisiana. My own sense of identity has been greatly informed by the many regions I lived in as a kid and a teenager. As I was thinking about these issues, I was also thinking about the election and the Trump-era and the divisiveness in our country. Reading the poets of the negritude movement, I was saddened that so little has changed. I thought about how our bodies inhabit our worlds and I wanted to create a sort of "self portrait" piece of my own using book arts. This was partly inspired by "Self-Portrait" by A.K. Ramanujan, and also by the "danger of a single story." But I also wanted to give a sense of hope and possibility after reading these poems, while also representing myself.
