Etain, thanks for sending this.
In the video above, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie talks about what she calls “the danger of the single story” and how stereotypes can warp a culture’s perception of the people of another culture when there are not many stories told about that other culture. She talks about growing up in Africa reading the stories of Americans and British, and how she felt people like her could not “exist in literature.” She talks about how power comes into the equation, and how stories can make or break the dignity of a people. My favorite quote was this: “The problem with stereotypes is not that they’re untrue but that they’re incomplete.” (around 13 min.)
Check it out.
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I agree with everything you said. About #1…I think...
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I [obviously] loved what this woman said. She’s essentially talking about orientalism and the power of wielding knowledge and being able to represent. Because of how the world is configured, the body of knowledge that exists about it, or at least the body of knowledge that is best propagated, is that produced by the western world. Not only do westerners learn about “orientals” through this body of knowledge, but orientals learn about themselves through this body of knowledge. As Asian Americans, this means that not only do westerners view us through this single story lens, but oftentimes we view ourselves the same way.
What the author alludes to but does not address directly is how permanent this single story becomes. It’s almost impossible to eliminate the single story because anything not associated with it also becomes unassociated with what the single story represents. Like the author said, her college roommate was convinced that African authenticity meant one thing, and that anything inconsistent with that one thing was also not African. Same thing with Asians — if it’s not silk, martial arts, demure exotic women, oppressive yet asexual men, dragons and pandas, it’s also not Asian. As a result, we can’t touch orientalism/single stories because only things that prove their validity are allowed to touch it. This is the ultimate conclusion of orientalism — it creates a narrative that is self-selecting and, therefore, self-perpetuating.
Exactly. Thanks again for the video.
Not only does it become permanent, but it also creates a financial machine in which content creators must play by the Orientalist rules in order to stay employed and to stay in front of people. Pretty soon, mistruths and/or stereotypes become repeated so much that a person can’t get a word in without creating such a story.
Last week, one of the readers here and I were compiling a list of Asian American writers who were making living wages from their work. We don’t know for certain, of course, what people make (wasn’t sure about teachers like Chang-Rae Lee or Ha Jin), but I’m guessing we’re pretty accurate: Maxine Hong Kingston, David Henry Hwang, Amy Tan, Lisa See, Tess Gerritsen, and Jamie Ford. The first four are what most would consider Orientalists. Tess Gerritsen writes thrillers, usually with White characters (I’ve heard her stories are good, but they don’t have AA characters.). That leaves Jamie.
So the question is: how many people are there trying to break our single story?
Or maybe I should say: how many people have been elevated to positions of power where they can change our single story?
Great find etain.
A coruscating commentary on the way that cultures are often perceived by outsiders.
Maybe the best question is how exactly do you change the single story? Even if an Asian American author tries to change the single story, the story he/she introduces is automatically not considered an Asian American story. It’s just considered a story. The single story remains untouched and “outsiders’” perception of Asian Americans remains unchanged.
You have a great point about the financial machine. Even Adichie has to write stories about abusive Nigerian men in order to sell, despite giving this speech about the single story. We all know why. Western audiences want ethnic authors to write ethnic stories. However, western audiences also strictly define what comprises an ethnic story. Therefore, in order for ethnic authors to succeed, they have to pigeonhole themselves to those definitions, which are then strengthened by the author’s contributions. It’s a sick cycle.
Agreed, Etain. It’s not just one story by one author. It takes a village. Or a country. I know, it’s huge.
We definitely need to talk about this one, etain. Since you’re in the schools, you probably have a chance to make things happen, at least at the school level. In addition to my Miss Saigon post today, I think I have another post coming in the next couple of days that relates to this Orientalism topic.
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