听现在

Amadeus Cho是亚裔美国人绿巨人

在我们的第二集节目中，我们邀请大四学生Jennifer Vo在播客上讨论她最喜欢的课程EN 177：亚裔美国文学简介

You can also find this episode on Apple 播客, Spotify, 谷歌播客, and 其他播客平台.

我们上的课程可以改变我们的观点，塑造我们的生活——我们认为这是值得庆祝的事情。 Our new podcast, 今天我明白了, is all about the classes at BU that have had a real effect on students in our community; 我们想知道所有关于课堂环境、教授、主题以及能给人留下深刻印象的事实。

在我们的第二集节目中，社会学专业的Jennifer Vo （CAS 23届）向我们讲述了她最喜欢的课程，这门课是由艺术与科学学院提供的，EN 177：亚裔美国文学概论。 Vo says she was inspired by the diverse forms of media included in the course’s syllabus and the engaging discussions on history and politics that Takeo里维拉, an assistant professor of English, facilitates in class. Vo说，这门课程的广泛性使它非常适合任何人，无论他们的背景如何，只要他们有好奇心，喜欢讲故事。 “If you’re Asian American, it resonates a lot more with you,” she says, “but people who aren’t Asian American have taken this class and they’ve loved it…. Even if you think you know everything, you’ll learn something.”

想成为我们的下一位客人吗？ Tell us about your favorite class 在这里. 欢迎本科生、新濠影汇线上赌场研究生和刚毕业的新濠影汇线上赌场研究生提交。

外卖

• 亚裔在美国的故事本质上是一部政治史，从加州淘金热（1848-1855）和1882年的《排华法案》（Chinese Exclusion Act）开始，一直延续到越南战争和20世纪六七十年代的亚裔草根运动。
• 认为文学只是指书？ 再想想。 教学大纲还包括诗歌、歌曲、漫画书，甚至视频游戏。
• Not every young Asian American girl has seen 木兰. 还有其他的故事。

成绩单

苏菲Yarin: Hello, everyone, and welcome to 今天我明白了, a 但是今天 podcast w在这里 we explore fun facts and ideas across a multitude of disciplines. We’re going to interview students about exciting things that they learned at their classes at BU. 从换专业到选择职业道路，学生们经常发现，一节课就能对他们的未来产生变革性的影响。 I’m your host, 苏菲Yarin, and I’m investigating how the things we learn in the classroom affect our lives. To do that, we’re going to be speaking directly to BU students, which is why we have Jennifer Vo joining us in the studio today. 珍妮佛，非常感谢你能来。

詹妮弗签证官: 谢谢你邀请我。

Yarin: So, Jennifer, you’re at CAS. 你在学什么？

签证官: I’m a sociology major. I’m in my final year. I’m also a deaf studies minor, which is something I think is very interesting.

Yarin: 哦,哇。 非常酷。 So, the class you’ve chosen to focus on is EN 177. And that’s Asian American literature. 那么，告诉我你今天为什么给我们带来这门课。

签证官: I thought this class was one of the more interesting classes that I’ve taken at BU so far, because I think it really delves into themes that we kind of miss in other classes. Asian Americans are such a large part of the population 在这里 at BU, but we don’t really have any classes that really delve into that. Like, we don’t have Asian American studies or anything. This is one of the very few classes that does that, and it’s very political, but it’s also rich in culture and it has so many different media types: it has poems, it has video games, it has plays, it has just standard books. 这是一个非常广泛的课程。

Yarin: 那么，在你列出的所有这些不同的媒介中，有哪些共同的主题是典型的亚裔美国文学？

签证官: 我认为最常见的主题是战争、抗议和自我认同，比如创造、反思和再创造。 战争和抗议一直是亚裔美国人身份的一部分。 It’s, well, you know, when I say Asian Americans, I do mean Asians in America, and it’s different—it’s very similar to Asians in Asia, like we share cultural connections, and we share an identity, and we share political connections, but it’s different to be a person in America. 所以，美国的亚裔美国人社区一直非常喜欢抗议——这一直是一种主题。 And, you know, we’re constantly protesting, trying to take back our identity and advocate for ourselves. 另一件事是身份创造； 我觉得亚裔美国人是最近才出现的。 Like, t在这里’s been a recent wave of immigrants from Asia. 所以，你知道，“亚裔美国人”是一种新的，以一种不同的方式发展。 We’ve been 在这里 for a long time—since the [California] Gold Rush. But it’s a different way of saying that identity is continually changing, and it’s evolving. So, that’s like part of the re-creation part of identity.

Yarin: 那么，这门课，是针对整个亚裔群体的吗，从整体上讲？ 比如南亚、东亚……

签证官: 我认为里维拉教授在收集亚洲不同地区的故事方面做得很好。 有来自东亚人的故事，比如华裔美国人和日裔美国人，但我们也读来自越南裔美国人、菲律宾裔美国人的故事。 我们也读南亚人的故事，比如印度裔美国人。 你知道，我们忽略了中亚人和其他民族的背景。

Yarin:Who are some of the authors that you’ve read?

签证官: We read Maxine Hong Kingston—she’s a legend—Frank Chin, who wrote in response to Maxine Hong Kingston. We also read poems by Eric Tran, Jhumpa Lahiri (GRS’93, UNI’95,’97), and John Okada—he’s a Japanese writer.

Yarin: Yeah, so in the submission that you sent us you had mentioned that Professor Rivera includes a lot of discussions on politics and history, and you’d mentioned that earlier, too. 那么，为什么这一点在文学讨论中很重要呢？

签证官: 我认为文学本质上是政治性的； 文学讨论社会和现在，它总是带来人们正在进行的主题和讨论。 So, that’s what literature is based in. 但我认为这对这门课来说尤其重要，因为它是关于亚裔美国文学的，而亚裔美国人一直都是政治性的，不管你喜欢与否。 During the Asian American movement, when we focused on creating ethnic studies departments, and also protested against the Vietnam War—also racial solidarity with the Black liberation movement—it’s always been in在这里ntly political. And I think a lot of times people get really focused on finding community with people that share a common identity and not really understanding your common history, and your common politics is really what’s bringing you together. Your identity isn’t really enough—you need to really engage with what it means to be who you are.

Yarin: Did you find that the stuff you were talking about resonated with your own family’s story?

签证官: What resonated with me, and also my family’s history, is reading about Vietnamese Americans and Vietnamese refugees, because part of my family did immigrate as refugees, but not my immediate family. So, my mom’s family—my mom and my dad came 在这里, not as refugees; 它们是90年代出现的，不是刚战后。 But reading about these refugee stories, I can see the similarities to my own life, because, yeah, my family didn’t come right after the war, but that doesn’t mean the effects of war aren’t still t在这里. 我觉得这让我大开眼界。 T在这里’s no way that years of violence didn’t trickle down and somehow impact the way that I grew up and the way I navigate who I am as a Vietnamese American.

Yarin: 那么，说到你的成长方式，你小时候听过哪些故事呢？ 它们如何对比或反映你在课堂上学到的知识？

签证官: When I grew up, I actually wasn’t really around a lot of Asian American stories. 在我成长的过程中，我偶尔会从新濠影汇网上赌场那里听到越南的故事，以及他们移民到这里的经历，但这些都不是虚构的故事。 我觉得最重要的可能是《花木兰》的故事，但我从来没有看过这部电影。

Yarin: 真的吗?

签证官: I still have never seen 木兰. 我的朋友讨厌我。 I’m not a 木兰 girlie—not because I hate 木兰, but I was just, like, I’m not into cartoons, so I didn’t really grow up with that. 后来，我开始阅读更多关于亚裔美国人的政治文章，但这是我自己引导的。 我从来没有真正把小说文学和我正在做的公共政治阅读结合起来，我认为这门课真的给了我这样做的机会。

Yarin: 你是不是真的很渴望有一个长得像你的女主角，而你却有点想念她？

签证官: I think that, you know, representation isn’t everything. I think it’s very fun and I think it’s so awesome to see people who look like you on screen and see stories that are about you, but I don’t think it’s, you know, going to free us. I don’t think it’s like the final form of protest. 但它真的很棒。

Yarin: 我想回到里维拉教授在教学大纲中提到的所有不同的流派和媒体。 这对你理解美国亚裔文学有什么帮助？

签证官: I think it really expanded my idea of what literature entails, because I’m thinking going in, I’m gonna read just like chapter books, and like fiction books, which is, like, fun, but, you know, it’s very limited. 但实际上他的教学大纲非常复杂； 它有很多不同类型的媒体：有诗歌，有歌曲，有戏剧，也有电子游戏。 我认为这些都让我大开眼界，扩大了我对文学的定义，但也让我思考亚裔美国人的身份可以用很多不同的方式来描绘。

Yarin: 好了。 所以，如果你要推荐这门课，首先，你会推荐给谁？ 其次，你会如何描述它？

签证官: 我会把它推荐给任何人。 我把这本书推荐给每一个我认为对政治感兴趣的人，无论以何种方式、形式或形式。 I do think, you know, if you’re Asian American, it resonates a lot more with you, but people who aren’t Asian American have taken this class and they’ve loved it. It’s very eye-opening. And, you know, it’s important for you to learn narratives that aren’t always your own. It’s important to learn other people’s narratives, as well. So, I think everyone should take the class—they’ll definitely learn something. Even if you think you know everything, you’ll learn something for sure. 我想说，这门课在各个方面都很广泛。 里维拉教授很好地将所有不同的亚裔美国人叙事结合到一个政治叙事中。 It’s always connected back to something political: he also had us read political texts, he had us read theory, as well, and he connected all these stories that, you know, are just fictional. You think that they’re just fictional stories about someone’s imagination, but actually he ties them all back into reality, because they’re all based on the history of the time, and also the political texts that we’re reading.

Yarin: 很酷，非常酷。 So, I am going to ask you to share with us a fun fact that you’ve learned in class.

签证官: The most fun fact that I learned was that t在这里’s actually an Asian American character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s the Hulk, and he’s actually Asian. His name is Amadeus Cho, and t在这里 are comics written about him and t在这里’s, you know, so much merchandise, but he’s very overlooked in the, you know, the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Yarin: 这是一个有趣的事实。 詹妮弗，非常感谢你参加我们的节目。

签证官: 非常感谢你们邀请我。 It’s been so fun.

Yarin: 和你谈话是我的荣幸。 And, folks, thanks for tuning into 今天我明白了, a 但是今天 podcast. 你觉得我们应该知道你最喜欢的课程吗？ 请填写我们描述中链接的表格，告诉我们有关它的一切。 今天我明白了 is produced and engineered by 安德鲁·哈洛克 and edited and hosted by 苏菲Yarin—that’s me. We’ll see you next time.