Individual Medium Post #2

Throughout the quarter, we have looked at how many groups of people have been faced with a struggle for belonging. Whether they were forced into colonial rule by the location of their home, like the Okinawans that were absorbed by their neighbors on mainland Japan, or if they moved somewhere in hopes of laboring to build a better life, like the Chinese plantation workers in Jamaica, all of these groups have faced treatment as some sort of outsider. I believe “cultural productions” of these unbelonging groups encapsulate the features of their struggles — from the unexpected positives to the harsh pains they have endured.

The first cultural production we looked at in this class was the coproduction of Reggae and Jamaican soundscapes through collaboration of Black Jamaicans and Chinese Jamaicans. I think this conveys an important message about the way oppression can bring groups together. In this case, British colonial rule served as a unifying factor, putting Black Jamaicans and Chinese Jamaicans on common ground. Even so, there existed the possibility of conflict between these groups. As we read, many of the Chinese plantation workers finished their terms on the plantation and used whatever money they had saved in order to open up businesses, hoping to find stability and self-sufficiency. This placed many of them in a different rank than other Jamaicans, as they were now participating at a higher rank in the capitalist hierarchy that their colonial rulers had instilled. They controlled a part of the means of production, which in some cases, could put them into contention with the common people. The creation of Reggae truly speaks to the power of cultural productions namely through cultural intermingling. The very existence of the genre is proof that these two groups were able to rise out of the capitalist hierarchy they inhabited via the extra-colonial escape of music production.

Another cultural production that speaks to the history of an oppressed group is the essay by Ifa Fuyū, student at the Okinawa Normal Middle School at the time of the Sino-Japanese War, in which he writes, “No one can resist the trends of the times. Those who do not wish to die must obey.” This example of literature from the time that sums up the struggle of being Okinawan at the time of Japanese annexation. Though it was written by a child in middle school, it speaks to the harsh reality that was setting in on Okinawans — one that would continue through the end of WWII. The essay also serves as a cultural production in another way, in that it is a work directly aware of the erasure of Okinawan culture that these people were living through at the hands of their Japanese oppressors, with the ideology going so far as to make some Okinawan’s believe that erasing their Okinawan identity, their language, and their culture, would reveal a proper Japanese citizen that was always hiding underneath.

In all, cultural productions can offer a lot of information on what was happening to a given displaced or otherwise oppressed group at a given time. In my life, I have come to see cultural productions in a unifying light. For example, I remember the first time I listened to System of a Down. Specifically, it was their song “Hypnotize”. I remember digging through the lyrics and wondering what they were even talking about, especially the line that says “Why don’t you ask the kids at Tiananmen Square?” At 12 or 13 years old, I had not ever heard of Tiananmen Square or the tragedy that took place their. I hadn’t spent much time thinking about the world apart from where I lived in general, but the song prompted me to do a lot of reading. I wondered, “Why does this Armenian-American band care so much about something that happened so long ago and so far away?” Then, I was introduced to the Armenian Genocide, and it all made sense. These people, who had faced a great deal of violence, oppression, silencing, and general mistreatment at the hands of society and their governments were banding together to spread a message of keeping these sorts of things from ever happening again. I believe awareness of global issues is one of the key steps in reaching a safer world where people are protected from being made to feel like they don’t belong, and for me, System of a Down’s music was a key cultural production in adding this perspective to my worldview.