For the capstone project in my Dimensions of Culture: Imagination class, I was able to journal my experience dating Columbia. Isn’t it funny how my guts from May 2016 felt 2019’s political climate coming!
Disclaimer: I mean no disrespect to the commander in chief, but am merely attempting to engage in political dialogue.
Note: An analysis of this project follows the images.
Pro-Tip: Click on an image to trigger a full screen slideshow, and use navigation cues to navigate!
darn… i was tryna hide. whatevs heres me typing in the bad english
The following analysis – which was written a few hours before it was due at 8:00 AM – is presented with minimal revisions for the reader’s entertainment. Therefore it will have several sentence/logic/structure-level errors and readability issues.
I might edit it into something else sometime in the future, if I feel like it. 🙂
Pro-Tip: In the following text, click on superscripts to see additional notes. Notes might appear at the end if you are on a mobile device. The numbers in square parentheses refer to the numbers in each image’s caption. For example, “[1]” refers to the image with the White House in the background. Finally, the (italicized and parenthesized) content refer to articles referred to in the References section at the bottom.
The images in this capstone project depict the tale of how I1the narrator, who turns out to be a US citizen, an individual who does not belong to America’s dominant Caucasian racial group, ‘dated’ the Columbia symbol from the painting American Progress. This painting could be considered a contextually-appropriate embodiment of Manifest Destiny, which was a widely-prevalent system of beliefs (i.e. a dominant ideology) that purported early American settlers to be the destined occupants of the entire continent – and this ideology was used to justify the settlers’ expansion to the West (Takaki 1). Meanwhile, Columbia is a historical and poetic name used for the USA, and is also one of the names of its female personifications (Wikipedia 1). Thus, in this project, I am telling the story of how I was struck by America’s magnificence2The American Dream, “a national ethos of the United States, the set of ideals (Democracy, Rights, Liberty, Opportunity, and Equality) in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility for the family and children, achieved through hard work in a society with few barriers” (Wikipedia), and then assimilated myself, suppressing my culturally-driven feelings of morality as I attempted to keep up with Columbia’s/America’s hegemony (i.e. beliefs/practices that are considered commonsensical – especially its stances on war, White Supremacy, and Westernization)
In other words, one aspect of this project illustrates the way the West reinforces its hegemony, either by: coopting other cultures, lessening their significance, or enticing/forcing them to adopt its values (Williams). Reinforcing the ideology of White Supremacy would allow American society’s dominant (‘White’) group relatively-more access to opportunity (especially economic) compared to minority groups. Since daily life has evolved to revolve around commercial pursuits (Harvey, Wilson), it is only likely that racial minorities will attempt to fit (i.e. assimilate3Commercialization is just one way through which assimilation could supposedly occur. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_assimilation.) into the dominant culture in order to reap benefits that the dominant group tends to receive more-readily. By structuring itself around the dominant, minority groups will improve their representation in society, often compelling the latter’s structure to feed this non-threatening representation (Omi & Winant). This results in a loss of cultural diversity. Diversity matters in US society because it comprises individuals belonging to different types of social categories from various cultures4Even President Kennedy called the US a Nation of Immigrants! http://archive.adl.org/immigrants/guide.html#.V0iIYY-cFuk.; and for everyone to live peacefully and get the most out of what America has to offer, everyone must know how to get along with each other.
This project also attempts to use historical context in its background images to attempt to relate the hegemony in American society today to that of the time when the ideology of Manifest Destiny was prevalent. The lines between distinct timeframes in each image could be thought of as being blurred by the sense of anachronism created by having me (from the present) and Columbia (from the past) interacting with each other (in addition to a few other anachronistically-placed items5Such as a Starbucks store [2], a cellist [3], Donald Trump and modern architecture/technology [7].). This, and the fact that their backdrops adopt a trend where they become more chaotic as the viewer goes back in time with each image may suggest the idea that Manifest Destiny persists today as a residual ideology, but with cultural de-signification/appropriation being the means through which it is practiced (in lieu of the dominant seizing land and exploiting minority groups for labor). For instance, the image in the Rüstem Pasha Mosque was manipulated to have a Starbucks (a commercial American brand) in it. This could mean to convey the common understanding of the West’s cooption of Islam law and religion (Brittanica). Commercialization, after all, could be considered a means through which a dominant culture coopts and de-signifies competing ones (W Fernando). More examples of Westernization in this project are the images of me (of Sri Lankan heritage) dancing a Western form of dance for Columbia, and the image of the cellist (Karim Wasfi) playing in the background of [3] (which in reality was taken while he was playing in the ruins of a bombing by ISIS) (CNN)6Interestingly, this fact (in addition to other minor details/manipulations in the photo series) could be thought of as exemplifications of the concepts of Master Narratives and Memory Wars (DOC 1) – and specifically on their dependence on documents/media/records. Image-editing, and other technologies that are prevalent today could lead to more-convincing, biased constructions/reconstructions of histories for people of future generations (compared to the past, where only papers/photographs/spoken-tales were used). That is, if such an extreme case was to occur, the dominant can more-effectively wipe out counter-narratives from all records, and create false accounts to keep its reputation strong (c.f. claims of the US attempting to forget the Vietnam war).. The key point is that several nations that are/were considered rich in their own culture/heritage are replacing their own with Western forms of art – and it is likely that the greater commercial opportunity that ensues is what drives this form of assimilation. This may or may not be undesirable, but the underlying implication is the resulting loss of diversity.
According to the story told by this project, my relationship with Columbia started severing when I started resisting her (war) agenda without moving along as a silent observer. Initially, I accepted the consequences of her ways without resisting just because I felt lucky to be in a relationship with someone so precious and coveted by many [3]. This could be considered a representation of how minority groups suppressed their cultural morals/beliefs just to please the hegemony. For instance, male Chinese immigrants contained their embarrassment7due to cultural gendered roles that assigned this apparently low-level profession to women of having to resort to the laundry industry when the US restricted its labor market to deny them employment after the transatlantic railroad was completed in the late 19th century – yet most of them remained in the US despite this because they could earn more money there, compared to working back home (Takaki 2). When I did attempt to side with my morals/feelings and speak out in [4], I ended up distancing myself from her, and she from me. Parallels could be drawn from this to the US’s treatment of minority groups who attempted to expose contradictions between what the dominant promised and the realities everyone lived [racial discrimination in enacting the GI Bill (Katznelson)]; or of whose who started deviating from American hegemony after initially living it [dismissal of student activism as childishness by university directors (Twohig)]. Both are cases of the hegemony pushing back to reinforce itself in society’s power structures to maximize opportunity for itself. In both cases, and when I was ‘dumped’ in [7], the key ideas were that none of us aligned well with the dominant group’s motives; or that we started threatening its place in society.
Additionally, the tale of a failing romance depicted in this project could be considered symbolism for the US’s exploitation of other cultures. Parallels could be drawn from Columbia’s using me for pleasure only for as long as she needed, to American immigration policy in the past. For instance, the Bracero program functioned only when the US needed cheap labor; and when it was dismantled, little thought was given to its effect on otherwise-prospective Braceros’ economic opportunity. Similarly, the Burlingame Treaty could be thought of the period during which I courted Columbia,while the Chinese Exclusion Act that followed soon afterwards could be considered equivalent to my abandonment. In addition to the fact that I ignored my morals in [4], losing more of my clothing in each successive picture was meant to symbolize my loss of cultural identity (and assimilation to the US) and the state of ruin that other cultures/nations had/have to deal with as a result of exploitation from the US8Examples of these could be seen today in the economic instability that Vietnamese, Iraqi, Mexican (especially those towards the US-Mexican border), Puerto Rican, and Native Indian people have to deal with after the Americans left their land.. The idea that I allowed myself to be dehumanized in this manner parallels to those images set in war zones/ruins ([3], [4], [5], [6], [7]), and especially with Columbia’s de-signification of the prisoner of war in [4].
The result is that Columbia ‘dumped’ all minorities both in this project and in real life. Contradiction lies in the fact that she restricts access to the opportunity that she claims to distribute equally to all its people; either based on their alignment with her agenda9in which case, minority groups are the most expendable, or racial considerations – yet she keeps feeding the ideology of the American Dream. Race could be thought of as a social construction, and some racial projects10of the dominant attempting to redistribute resources/opportunity along racial lines are alluded to in the pictures along with the loss of non-dominant culture that follows as minority groups attempt to adopt the hegemony of the dominant with the hopes of better opportunity (Omi & Winant). Thus, one might consider how a real loss of diversity is perpetrated by virtually/physically non-existent constructions (of race). Regardless, what is interesting is that these racial projects may not occur so evidently today as they did in the past (when slavery and Jim Crow laws were legal, for instance). Instead, they could be thought of as being mediated through the cooption and demeaning of non-dominant cultures, so that society becomes more homogeneous and the dominant becomes more inclined to share opportunity with minority groups since they then appear to be part of the dominant. Again, a real consequence of this is a loss of diversity.
Finally, it should be noted that I chose the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as the figure who Columbia ‘dumps’ me for in [7] because I see his political agenda as aligning along well with her ideology of Manifest Destiny, and as creating an environment that will facilitate the loss of diversity even faster than modern Westernization alone. To me, the extreme endpoint of going down this path is that America will be isolated from the rest of the world, and that diversity will no longer be important since anyone who is not ‘American’ will not be allowed to share in its benefits anyway. I strongly feel that most Americans (even those who support Trump) would not like that happening, at least for the sake of making money off other countries. Thus, Trump’s agenda (albeit appealing to a significant number of conservatives), is not something that America really needs – it very likely will increase (racial) tensions. Surely enough, I have observed a worryingly large subset of his supporters use him as a medium to express (seemingly unjustifiable) racism and innate fears of xenophobia. The fact that I appeared to have lost almost everything (Columbia, clothing, and my cultural identity) as a result of Trump’s campaign is but one of my personal, and extreme fears.
References11We can all agree that this section is particularly horribly written!
The numbers in square parentheses refer to the numbers in each image’s caption. For example, “[1]” refers to the image with the White House in the background. [DOC 1, 2, 3] refer to courses that used the cited texts. I might improve this list at a later time. 😉
- Wikipedia 1 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_(name)
- Takaki 1, Ronald. “Toward ‘The Stony Mountains’” A Different Mirror. [DOC 1]
- Williams, Raymond. Marxism and Literature. [DOC 3]
- Wilson, Woodrow. “Excerpt from A Very Different Age”. [DOC 2]
- Harvey, David. “Excerpts from A Brief History of Neoliberalism”. [DOC 1]
- Omi & Winant. “Racial Formation”. [DOC 1]
- Brittanica – http://www.britannica.com/topic/Westernization
- CNN – http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/28/middleeast/iraq-musician-karim-wasfi/
- W Fernando, Tharindu. “Shut Up and Take My (Hege)Money!”. Unpublished manuscript. [DOC 3 Writing Assignment]
- Katznelson, Ira. “White Veterans Only”. [DOC 1]
- Twohig, Niall. “A Gesture in May: The 1970 Peace Memorial at UC San Diego”. [DOC 1]
- Takaki 2, Ronald. “Searching for Gold Mountain” A Different Mirror. [DOC 1]
- Wikipedia 2 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream