Runaway Train: Ex Machina and the Rebel Girls

Courtship is a fertile setting for culturally defined strategies. A common form of competition is criticizing the other group for being inadequate mates. Stories about romance between human beings and non-human participants allow such criticism. Movies about men finding mechanical partners are common. Non-human females are seen as more satisfactory than women, especially when women are transforming their roles to be less subservient.     

Disassembling the Model Minority: Asian Pacific Islander Identities and Their Schooling Experiences

When I was in kindergarten, I was always in trouble. During recess I either sat on the benches or stood up against the wall. I had few friends; I always seemed to get into arguments with my classmates no matter if they were Filipino American like me, or European American, or African American, or Latinos. I always caused problems for my teacher. Mrs. H. always tried to silence me when I would try and engage in a discussion as to why I was in trouble. Once I got punished for not doing my class work correctly. We were to watch a movie when we all finished coloring our pictures. I hurried to finish my picture so I could join my classmates on the round carpet. I was so proud of my work I ran up to show Mrs. H. I was halted in mid stride by Mrs. M., the aide, and told to return to my seat. Mrs. H. examined my picture and proceeded to show the class how wrong my picture was. My picture was not done correctly because I colored outside of the lines of the lion's mane. As punishment I had to sit in the corner and color another lion picture as the class got to watch the movie. Every so often I would lean back in my chair and get a glimpse of the movie. I would be redirected to my work when Mrs. H. would yell at me to return to my seat and remind me I wasn't part of the group. All I wanted to do was be with everyone else. Was I really wrong to color outside the lines or did I have fine motor issues that needed to be addressed?     

Mrs. Miniver's Girls: Plucky Girls in Hidden Figures,The Zookeeper's Wife,Their Finest,and Colossal

Four recent movies, Hidden Figures, The Zookeeper's Wife, Their Finest, and Colossal exemplify a new cultural version of the movie heroine. This version combines feminism with commitment to solving an overwhelming problem. These heroines, thus, display the character virtues of Wonder Woman and Mrs. Miniver. This new version reflects changing concerns about the cultural understanding of women and a new direction for women moviemakers.     

Femininity Perceptions of Cross-ethnic Forenames: A Comparative Analysis of Latina and European American Women

ABSTRACT

Research shows a tendency to ascribe high importance to the gender associations of a forename. To examine community-specific conceptions of gender as well as how groups position themselves in relation to others, this study analyzed the gender-marked perceptions of women’s forenames, with rater ethnicity and name ethnicity as independent variables. Bilingual Latina American and monolingual European American women assigned femininity ratings to a series of Hispanic, Anglo, and ethnolinguistically neutral forenames. The names also varied by the sub-attributes of translatability, letter ending, gender specificity, and semantic class, among others. Rater ethnicity significantly correlated with perceptual patterns, as both groups attributed more femininity to same-ethnicity names. However, neutral names received the highest ratings overall. Some ratings appeared to be highly dependent on experience, suggesting limited intergroup contact. The data also suggest a greater general sensitivity to gendered naming on the part of Latinas. The implications of perceptual differences for intergroup relations are discussed.     

Reading Chen Yingzhen: why and how

ABSTRACT

Since 2009, there has been a renewed trend in Taiwan's intellectual circles to explore Chen Yingzhen. In this lies a strong and unprecedented inclination to explore in Chen Yingzhen's literary works the enormous resources he provides as a thinker. As one of the researchers who has undertaken such an approach, I intend to address three issues in this article: first, his relation with people of my generation and the reason to re-read him at this moment; second, how I, as an amateur in terms of literary works or literary criticism, read literary texts. I address this issue in terms of methodology and theory, and propose a reading method consisting of a triple intersecting process among the text, the author and the history. Thirdly, and perhaps the most importantly, I address the issue of “why do we have to read Chen Yingzhen now” from three levels: history, thinking and literature in order to explore the particular situation his literary works have in contemporary literature, as well as its intellectual meaning in the contemporary world.     

Ethnic and Urban Intersections in the Classroom: Latino Students,Hybrid Identities,and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

Drawing from data collected through classroom observations and in-depth interviews, this article describes and analyzes practices identified as culturally responsive by Latinos students in an urban, multiethnic/racial context. The findings suggest that culturally responsive pedagogy must be more broadly conceptualized to address the cultural identities of students who have complex identities because of their experiences with peers of many varied identities, those whose urban roots have resulted in hybrid identities, and those who are multiethnic/multiracial. Based on these findings, the article forwards the concept of “cultural connectedness” as a framework for practicing a non-essentializing, dynamic approach to culturally responsive pedagogy that acknowledges the hybrid nature of culture and identity.     

The Engagement of Transnationals in Mexican University Classrooms: Points of Entry Toward Recognition Among Future English Teachers

For better or worse, English continues to expand as the commonly shared lingua franca throughout the world. With an increasing movement of transnational students—armed with English and flowing across borders—three university professors discuss their pedagogies and ways of knowing as they engage transnational students inside Mexican university classrooms for future teachers of English. Situated at an interior Mexican public university, each of them explores their unique positioning and the ways they taught transnational students. One is a transnational Mexican-American instructor; another is a researcher of transnationalism historically based in the U.S., and the other co-author is a Mexican national who learned English as a second language and has witnessed the rapidly changing population of students in the interior of Mexico. Toward the aim of improving the way transnationals access and experience formal education, they provide recommendations for improving pedagogy and expanding research.     

Identities for Sale: How the Tobacco Industry Construed Asians,Asian Americans,and Pacific Islanders

Previous research has substantiated the targeting of various demographic subgroups by the tobacco industry through marketing practices. However, relatively little research has examined targeting of Asians and Pacific Islanders. Based on prior tobacco document research citing the use of identity-based marketing strategies, a content analytic scheme was developed to assess if these strategies were applied to the Asian and AAPI populations. The study was grounded in social identity theory and optimal distinctiveness theory paradigms in order to develop a coherent analytic framework. Keyword searches of documents were conducted and a random sample of the documents of interest was drawn. These data suggest that the tobacco industry targeted Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States and abroad via interpersonal and commercial communication tactics. These strategies were carefully orchestrated and employed as a result of sophisticated analyses of the social identities and value systems of the source culture populations. Barriers to reaching this culturally and linguistically heterogeneous market were overcome via the construct of collectivism. At the same time, more Westernized Asians were targeted via advertisements that blended a hybrid Western style identity. For both source and immigrant cultures, the industry attempted to facilitate identity construction and maintenance through smoking.