Response # 5: Hiro's Problematic Identity

In Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson creates new categories of ethnicities. One particular is the Military where

"[people's] skins were different colors. Black kids didn't talk like black kids. Asian kids didn't bust their asses to excel in school. White kids, by and large, didn't have any problem getting along with black and Asian kids" (58).

Through this description, Stephenson creates an ethnicity that is comprised of different races to institute Hiro as a transnational individual. It also suggests that transnationality is an ideal state (in mind, body, and metaphorically) that can be aspired to, and yet that is not without complications.

As a military brat (someone who was born and raised into a military family), Hiro Protagonist is aware of his diasporic identity. This identity is based on the fact that he and his family lived on different places on the globe: several states, Germany, Korea. These places were "all the same franchise ghettos, strip joints" where he ran into "school chums he'd known years before" (58). Through Hiro, Stephenson presents a community that is dispersed, timeless, and borderless. Yet through this diaspora, it becomes a community that is restless and always on the move. Likewise, Hiro does not have just one origin, or any origins based on race, residence, and point of departure. In essence, as a mixed person & military brat, he possesses a global identity that encompasses many different cultures, but he does not belong to any one of them. For example, Hiro is aware that his father is black and his mother is Korean, yet this knowledge does not dictate whom he affiliates with or how he identifies himself. He is comfortable in his hybridity by growing his hair in dreads (iconic of his "blackness") and looking out with his Asian eyes. In being comfortable of his hybridity, his character is reflective of Anzaldua's mestiza identity, by recognizing his status as an entity that is not bound by any borders. Furthermore, he complicates this status by taking on the name "Hiro" and by wielding a katana, which are emblematic of Japanese culture.

It seems to me so far that Hiro as a forefront character in Snow Crash suggests that a Hiro-esque consciousness is the ideal future and something to aspire to. However, an encompassing character such as him, has a homogenizing effect in its assumption that all cultures and races converge into one, such as the "military ethnicity." I feel that this suggestion is problematic because it begins to reduce the differences (as well as each of ethnicity's significance to society) into commodities that can be easily exchanged without any regard to its history and relevance to society.


Questions

1. What do new ethnic categories imply in regards to Hiro's, Y.T.'s, Uncle Enzo's backgrounds? Are they ideal in regards to the society they (and we) living in, and the time that we operate on?
2. What constitutes a "nation" according to Stephenson? Throughout the novel, there are various "nations:" Hong Kong, Mexicali, Nippon, Black Sun, Metaverse, etc. Who belongs and how does one belong to a nation or community?

response #4: Human Practices.

While watching BladeRunner, I had a small difficulty in distinguishing who is human and who is a replicant. If we can define "human" as someone who has the physical characteristics of a man/human, then replicants and humans are indistinguishable. If being "human" is to feel emotions and to have memories, then separating "humans" from replicants is pretty impossible. In fact, one difference between replicants and humans is the ability to reproduce and to recreate life from within one's body, without the aid of scientists conjuring up chemical life catalysts.... What I found interesting from this movie is the forefront of PRACTICES as a way to place markers (as well as complicate the concept) of humanity, as well as to distinguish matters of differences between humans and replicants. One, the figure of Rachel as a "passer" is based upon her ability to conjure up emotions, because possesses memories (although they are not hers, but the fact that she does should make her human). Apart from her beautiful human-like face, she should be considered human because she possesses these qualities that normally distinguish humans from machines--because machines are supposedly incapable of feeling emotions and memories that evoke feelings. She, as an entity, is capable of PRACTICING human-like interactions. Another practice is intimacy: 1) Rachel and Deckard; 2) Zora and Leon? While intimacy between two replicants might be possible because they are the same "kind," how is the intimacy possible between a man and a replicant? I think that by posing the concept of PRACTICES we are forced to think how different would our interpretation of the movie be, had we not known who is human and who is a replicant. At the beginning of the movie, we are introduced to the concept of humans & replicants in the introduction to set up the question of what it is to be human. By posing that introduction, the movie/director/creator is setting up these parameters in order for viewers to (try to) distinguish between humans and replicants, the way Deckard and the other humans in the movie are about to do. In this controlled setting, viewers are dared to figure it out. With this in mind, the creator tries to set up an experiment with his characters in order to question what "human" to "un-human" is. If we did not know who is human and who is a replicant, our guesses would reflect our own personal sets of parameters that come out through the practice of making distinctions.




Questions:

1. What are some distinctive markers of "humanity?" What makes someone human in BladeRunner?
2. If we are left to figure out who is human and who is a replicant, how would we do that? How does this relate to the concept of race as a set of parameters dictated by someone else?
   

introduction

"Hapaology" is Hapa (meaning 'half' in Hawaiian, and is often used to describe someone who is mixed race, and even more, someone who is white & asian) + ology (the study of)

In this blog, I will post responses to several of the class readings about Mixed Race Studies. While I will struggle to keep an academic eye in writing my responses, much of the content I will have here will be based on my personal experiences, opinions, and speculations about the concept & people of mixed race in general.

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My own personal take on "Mixed Race" stems from the fact that I come from a multicultural heritage--namely, for being Filipina who grew up in Hawai'i. Being Filipina is historically significant in itself because I come from a people that is tinged in a mixture of foreign and indigenous influence through colonization/globalization. In my own family, we can trace some Spanish roots.

Though, why is that important? Why is it even distinctive? Why do people even mention it?

1) I might speculate is internalized & often doubted self-hate; a dislike for "indigenous" as opposed to something that is cosmopolitan
2) To recognize that one's identity is a conglomeration of many complicated relationships & contradictions....

In any case, it's confusing. But through writing about it, I hope to explore & speculate ideas that will help me understand the world better.

yay.