From the Oscar-winning “Everything Everywhere All at Once,'' the Disney+ series “Ms. Marvel'' features a Pakistani superhero. But are inclusion and commercial success alone enough? How do these cultural expressions address themes such as identity, immigration, and other sociopolitical issues? How do artists utilize different media for aesthetic and political goals?
A new class this fall in Harvard University's Ethnicity, Immigration, and Rights curriculum, “Contemporary Asian American Popular Culture,” led by Leslie Fernandez, explores these issues by studying representations in film, television, music, and food. I'm considering it.
“Being Asian in America often involves negotiating how America thinks about Asians not only at home and within the United States, but also abroad, and how these contexts influence each other.” It's a process of thinking,” Fernandez said. “That's one of the things I wanted to do. [with this class]. The texts are all Asian American, but we're also thinking about how they intersect with global ideas around race and transnational contexts around race. ”
students Summer Shen and Joyce Chen; Instructor Leslie Fernandez.
Photo by Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard University Staff Photographer
Padma Lakshmi's “Taste the Nation” episode about ube, a purple sweet potato widely used in Filipino cuisine, sparked a class discussion about food and authenticity last month. Students have just read cultural anthropologist Martin F. Manalansan's essay “Beyond Authenticity,” which introduces American friends to Filipino food in New York City and how food can represent “diaspora return.” It was written about. With this in mind, foods such as ramen, Boba (Tapioca tea with tapioca), Kalbi [Korean barbecue]has been adopted or welcomed into American society.
The topic resonated with Zoha Ibrahim, 26, a social studies concentrator who worked throughout high school in her parents' catering business in India.
“I realized that my parents often felt the need to prove their food was 'authentic' in a way that other cuisines couldn't,” she said. “There was often this idea that we had to sell only Indian food to be exotic and appealing, but it never felt alienating.”
At the beginning of the semester, students watched “Mississippi Masala” (1991), a commercially successful film about interracial love between a black American and an Indian American in rural Mississippi, and “Crazy Rich Rich”. I watched and analyzed “Asians” (2018). Despite the latter blockbuster's huge success, students criticized its marketing and premise as a romance film, and evaluated its importance in Asian American representation in Hollywood.
Summer Shen ’25 wondered what the film sacrificed by appealing to a wider audience. “Do we want Asian American pop culture, especially movies, to be commercially successful?” she asked. “Is that what defines representation and success? Or do you want to focus on content?”
Before taking Fernandez's course, he had focused on economics and felt that he was overly critical of Asian American pop culture, especially since it has historically been very limited in its expressiveness. She said that's how she felt when she was a child.
“This class really validated some of my frustrations. There's pressure because there's representation on the screen. [to be like] “Oh, that's really nice. I should really appreciate it,” she said. “But I learned from this class that it's okay to criticize.”
For Fernandez, it is important to give students the opportunity to truly understand the importance and relevance that Asian American popular culture has to politics and social reproduction.
“What it means to be Asian American often emerges from these spaces,” the instructor said.
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