LuMing Mao. “Rhetorical Borderlands: Chinese American Rhetoric in the Making.”

LuMing Mao. “Rhetorical Borderlands: Chinese American Rhetoric in the Making.” College Composition and Communication 56.3 (2005): 426-469.
Abstract/Summary: “In this article I argue that the making of Chinese American rhetoric takes place in border zones and that it encodes both Chinese and European American rhetorical traditions. By focusing on the discursive category of “face” and “indirection”/ “directness,” I demonstrate that Chinese American rhetoric becomes viable and transformative not by securing a logical, unified, or unique order, but by participating in a process of becoming where meanings are in flux and where significations are contingent upon each and every particular experience” (426).
Area Cluster: 103–Theory
Methodology: Theorizing
Citation: Anzaldua, Bizell, Bhabha, Kingston, Lu, Mao, Pratt
Provocative Quotes:
“essentialized Chinese identity in a postcolonial nation-state, overlooks “the complex, historically determined relations of power” (13) in which Chinese American rhetoric has come to be constructed in relation to Chinese rhetorical tradition, on the one hand, and European American rhetorical tradition, on the other. These complex interrelationships are fraught with uncertainties, ambiguities, and contradictions- so much so that Chinese American rhetoric, I propose in this essay, can never be unique, not only because there is no internal coherence to speak about, but also because it is always in a state of adjusting and becoming both in relation to its “native” (Chinese) identity and in relation to its “adopted” (American) residency. And the process of adjusting and becoming is forever filled with its own tensions and struggles” (429).
“any stabilized “unique characteristics” could quickly become candidates for stereotyping and for easy reproduction” (429).
“In fact, we can go so far as to say that we all live in metaphorical if not literal borderlands if we consider this increasingly interconnected and interdependent world of ours (Ang 169). It is at these borderlands that Chinese American rhetoric, or any other ethnic rhetoric, has the potential to become most visible and viable” (431).

“Rhetorical borderlands are no exception: they are vague and undetermined, not only be- cause they are in transition, in movement, but also because there is always, for each discrete communicative act, an excess of meaning yet to be processed, yet to be fully grasped” (431).

“Chinese American rhetoric not only involves two different styles of communication that conflict with and complement each other, but it also becomes a metadiscourse-because it unpacks the history and ideology of each embodied tradition and because it reflects upon its own discursive tendencies, which are filled with tensions, ambivalences, and incommensurabilities” (434).

“Chinese indirection be-comes much more complex when viewed in its larger cultural context, and in fact it may not be necessarily viewed as just the opposite of directness-be it European American directness or that of any other community” (446).
“to characterize Chinese indirection simply as an example of a lack or, worse still, of “Chinese inscrutability,” is to miss the point altogether. And no less off the mark is the effort to feminize Chinese indirection, to compare it, however charitably, with European American women’s style of communication” (453).

“Chinese indirection does not have to be viewed as the undesirable opposite of European American directness; rather, it should become a necessary complement to the latter-since, after all, indirection and directness, like “yin” and “yang:’ are never not fluid and fluctuating, and the value of one is always parasitic upon that of the other, and vice versa” (454).

“when Chinese and European American rhetorical traditions come in contact face to face, and when we are engaged in nurturing “togetherness-in-difference:’ both illocution and perlocution are a must. That is, our experiences at rhetorical borderlands will inevitably call for changes in our behavior, in our views about ourselves and the other, and in our visions for the future” (461).

“Therefore, unless I take the time, as I have done in this essay, to open up Chinese fortune cookies, they will most likely remain a “harmonious” constituent of a Chinese meal on this side of the Pacific. By contrast, unless I get to the bottom of things, and unless I call a spade a spade, the making of Chinese American rhetoric will probably be seen as incoherent, as unnatural, or as un- specific” (462).

Keating, Anna Louise. “Making New Connections” : Transformational Multiculturalism in the Classroom. Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture 4 (2004): 93-117.

Summary: Introducing the concept of transformational multiculturalism, Keating proposes pedagogy for “radical, liberatory change—on both individual and collective
levels.” She however maintains that these changes are context-specific and open to negotiation. She claims that students and teachers can be changed through exploration of multicultural issues and themes in the classroom, however, also cautions that “although multiculturalism has this potential to bring about change, it cannot do so unless scholars incorporate a more sustained analysis of the underlying dominant-cultural
framework and connect our theorizing more closely to our teaching practices” (94). She draws on her own teaching experiences to offer concrete suggestions for ways to enact transformational multiculturalism in the classroom and suggests one component of transformational multiculturalism that she thinks is highly effective: relational teaching tactics that begin with commonalities.

Area Cluster: 103–Theory
Methodology: Theory appication
Citation: Anzaldua, Giroux, Freire, Deloria, Hall,

Provocative Quotes:
“transformational multicultural teaching…can explode…stereotypes and expose the
“white” supremacist narrative from which they emerge and on which they rely” (93-4).

—Melting-pot Multiculturalism…
“differences are verbally and visually valorized yet in many ways dehistoricized and erased. Commonality—defined simplistically as sameness—replaces difference, as racism, sexism, and othersocial justice issues are subsumed under facile celebrations of “diversity” that fit well with contemporary U.S. consumer culture and thus reaffirm the status quo (Prashad 2001: 63)” (95).

Separatist Approach to Multiculturalism:

“At other times, multiculturalism indicates the existence of discrete
ethnic/racial/cultural traditions and groups, or what Trinh Minh-ha (1991:
232) describes as “the juxtaposition of several cultures whose frontiers remain
intact.” Like melting-pot multiculturalism, this separatist approach reinforces
the dominant-cultural worldview. More specifically, by referring to the existence
of a number of distinct “races,” separatist multiculturalists employ a
rhetoric of authenticity that supports the “commonsense” belief that selfcontained
ethnic identities are permanent, unchanging categories of meaning
based on biology, family, history, and tradition” (96).

“separatist multiculturalists reduce multiculturalism to a series of self-enclosed
binary configurations, where each ethnic/racial-specific canon is
examined primarily, if not exclusively, in opposition to “mainstream” (Eurocentric)
….This oppositional approach inadvertently reinscribes inflexible boundaries that foreclose possible common ground in the discussion of works by different racialized groups. While scholars often arrive at profound observations, the literary boundaries they construct prevent us from applying insights acquired in one cultural tradition to others” (96).

“In its most vicious manifestations, readers, scholars, and writers become isolationist and
gravitate only toward works corresponding to their own self-perceived identities” (96).

Resistant/Revolutionary/critical Multiculturalism:

“Less frequently, multiculturalism takes a turn toward the “resistant,”
the “revolutionary,” or the “critical,” and investigates underlying relations of
power…critical multiculturalism intervenes in the dominant-cultural framework and thus
represents an important development in multicultural theorizing. Critical
multiculturalists reject the commonsense belief that cultural identities are
preexisting, organic discoveries. While acknowledging that cultural meaning
often relies on what seem to be unitary notions of an authentic past and an
essential, self-contained set of unique traits, critical multiculturalists challenge
this rhetoric of authenticity. They demonstrate that cultural identities
are created, not discovered” (97).

“critical multiculturalism exposes the hidden biases (the Eurocentrism, the racism, and other forms of domination) that have shaped existing literary standards. Insisting that it’s not enough simply to expose and critique this oppressive framework, critical multiculturalists also seek new forms of criticism, new interpretative methodologies, and new definitions that more accurately reflect the complex realities of U.S. literature
and life” (97).

“I describe the multiculturalism I envision and attempt to enact as transformational (rather than “critical” or even “revolutionary”) to underscore its potential to effect change in the classroom. As I use the term, transformational multiculturalism entails nonbinary oppositional epistemological and pedagogical methods that work in the service of social
justice. Building on critical multiculturalism’s insights concerning the relational nature of all cultural identities, transformational multiculturalism eschews simple binaries—whether between “self ” and “Other,” “us” and “them,” or “oppressor” and “oppressed.” This nonbinary approach opens space for individual and collective agency that makes change possible (although not inevitable). Because we are all mutually implicated—albeit in differently power-inflected ways—in the “white” supremacist masculinist framework
that normalizes the unjust status quo, we can (indeed, we must) destabilize
and attempt to transform it” (97-8).

“Through self-reflection students can recognize
the ways their values, perspectives, and beliefs have been influenced by
the “imperatives of culture.” This recognition denaturalizes the dominant cultural
framework and enables students to recognize the roles they (can) play
in challenging and/or reinforcing an unjust status quo” (98).

“transformational multiculturalism begins with the premise that U.S. American culture and literature have always been multicultural and explores the reciprocal, uneven movements by which peoples, cultures, and texts are altered through their interactions with each other” (98).

“Relational teaching begins with commonalities. I define commonalities …as complex points of connection that enable us to negotiate among sameness, similarity, and difference” (103).

“I invite them (students) to investigate their own previously unexamined worldviews and the dominant-cultural framework that supports them” (105).

“I heighten their sense of agency and hold them more accountable
for the choices they make” (110).

“Relational teaching is situation-specific and can take many forms.
These forms, in turn, will be shaped by the courses we teach; by our own
identities, interests, experiences, and concerns, and those of our students; as
well as by other variables” (111).

“The recognition of our profound interconnectedness offers a vital key to long-term individual/collective change, a crucial point of departure in my work for social justice: if we’re all interconnected, then the events and belief systems impacting my sisters and brothers in New York City or Kabul or Baghdad or Jerusalem have a concrete effect on me” (112).

“design situation-specific, relational teaching tactics that acknowledge the ways we are mutually implicated in historical and contemporary events. This, at least, is my hope and one of my goals as an educator” (112).

Keating, Ana Louise. “Making New Connections”: TransformationalMulticulturalism in the Classroom.

 

Summary: Introducing the concept of transformational multiculturalism, Keating proposes pedagogy for “radical, liberatory change—on both individual and collective
levels.” She however maintains that these changes are context-specific and open to negotiation. She claims that students and teachers can be changed through exploration of multicultural issues and themes in the classroom, however, also cautions that “although multiculturalism has this potential to bring about change, it cannot do so unless scholars incorporate a more sustained analysis of the underlying dominant-cultural
framework and connect our theorizing more closely to our teaching practices” (94). She draws on her own teaching experiences to offer concrete suggestions for ways to enact transformational multiculturalism in the classroom and suggests one component of transformational multiculturalism that she thinks is highly effective: relational teaching tactics that begin with commonalities.

Area Cluster: 103–Theory
Methodology: Theory appication
Citation: Anzaldua, Giroux, Freire, Deloria, Hall,

Provocative Quotes:
“transformational multicultural teaching…can explode…stereotypes and expose the
“white” supremacist narrative from which they emerge and on which they rely” (93-4).

—Melting-pot Multiculturalism…
“differences are verbally and visually valorized yet in many ways dehistoricized and erased. Commonality—defined simplistically as sameness—replaces difference, as racism, sexism, and othersocial justice issues are subsumed under facile celebrations of “diversity” that fit well with contemporary U.S. consumer culture and thus reaffirm the status quo (Prashad 2001: 63)” (95).

Separatist Approach to Multiculturalism:

“At other times, multiculturalism indicates the existence of discrete
ethnic/racial/cultural traditions and groups, or what Trinh Minh-ha (1991:
232) describes as “the juxtaposition of several cultures whose frontiers remain
intact.” Like melting-pot multiculturalism, this separatist approach reinforces
the dominant-cultural worldview. More specifically, by referring to the existence
of a number of distinct “races,” separatist multiculturalists employ a
rhetoric of authenticity that supports the “commonsense” belief that selfcontained
ethnic identities are permanent, unchanging categories of meaning
based on biology, family, history, and tradition” (96).

“separatist multiculturalists reduce multiculturalism to a series of self-enclosed
binary configurations, where each ethnic/racial-specific canon is
examined primarily, if not exclusively, in opposition to “mainstream” (Eurocentric)
….This oppositional approach inadvertently reinscribes inflexible boundaries that foreclose possible common ground in the discussion of works by different racialized groups. While scholars often arrive at profound observations, the literary boundaries they construct prevent us from applying insights acquired in one cultural tradition to others” (96).

“In its most vicious manifestations, readers, scholars, and writers become isolationist and
gravitate only toward works corresponding to their own self-perceived identities” (96).

Resistant/Revolutionary/critical Multiculturalism:

“Less frequently, multiculturalism takes a turn toward the “resistant,”
the “revolutionary,” or the “critical,” and investigates underlying relations of
power…critical multiculturalism intervenes in the dominant-cultural framework and thus
represents an important development in multicultural theorizing. Critical
multiculturalists reject the commonsense belief that cultural identities are
preexisting, organic discoveries. While acknowledging that cultural meaning
often relies on what seem to be unitary notions of an authentic past and an
essential, self-contained set of unique traits, critical multiculturalists challenge
this rhetoric of authenticity. They demonstrate that cultural identities
are created, not discovered” (97).

“critical multiculturalism exposes the hidden biases (the Eurocentrism, the racism, and other forms of domination) that have shaped existing literary standards. Insisting that it’s not enough simply to expose and critique this oppressive framework, critical multiculturalists also seek new forms of criticism, new interpretative methodologies, and new definitions that more accurately reflect the complex realities of U.S. literature
and life” (97).

“I describe the multiculturalism I envision and attempt to enact as transformational (rather than “critical” or even “revolutionary”) to underscore its potential to effect change in the classroom. As I use the term, transformational multiculturalism entails nonbinary oppositional epistemological and pedagogical methods that work in the service of social
justice. Building on critical multiculturalism’s insights concerning the relational nature of all cultural identities, transformational multiculturalism eschews simple binaries—whether between “self ” and “Other,” “us” and “them,” or “oppressor” and “oppressed.” This nonbinary approach opens space for individual and collective agency that makes change possible (although not inevitable). Because we are all mutually implicated—albeit in differently power-inflected ways—in the “white” supremacist masculinist framework
that normalizes the unjust status quo, we can (indeed, we must) destabilize
and attempt to transform it” (97-8).

“Through self-reflection students can recognize
the ways their values, perspectives, and beliefs have been influenced by
the “imperatives of culture.” This recognition denaturalizes the dominant cultural
framework and enables students to recognize the roles they (can) play
in challenging and/or reinforcing an unjust status quo” (98).

“transformational multiculturalism begins with the premise that U.S. American culture and literature have always been multicultural and explores the reciprocal, uneven movements by which peoples, cultures, and texts are altered through their interactions with each other” (98).

“Relational teaching begins with commonalities. I define commonalities …as complex points of connection that enable us to negotiate among sameness, similarity, and difference” (103).

“I invite them (students) to investigate their own previously unexamined worldviews and the dominant-cultural framework that supports them” (105).

“I heighten their sense of agency and hold them more accountable
for the choices they make” (110).

“Relational teaching is situation-specific and can take many forms.
These forms, in turn, will be shaped by the courses we teach; by our own
identities, interests, experiences, and concerns, and those of our students; as
well as by other variables” (111).

“The recognition of our profound interconnectedness offers a vital key to long-term individual/collective change, a crucial point of departure in my work for social justice: if we’re all interconnected, then the events and belief systems impacting my sisters and brothers in New York City or Kabul or Baghdad or Jerusalem have a concrete effect on me” (112).

“design situation-specific, relational teaching tactics that acknowledge the ways we are mutually implicated in historical and contemporary events. This, at least, is my hope and one of my goals as an educator” (112).

Flower, Linda. “Talking across Difference: Intercultural Rhetoric and the Search for Situated Knowledge

Flower, Linda. “Talking across Difference: Intercultural Rhetoric and the Search for
Situated Knowledge.” College Composition and Communication 55(2003): 38-68.

Summary: Intercultural rhetoric, like the project of empowerment, is the site of competing agendas for not only how to talk across difference but to what end. The practice of community-based intercultural inquiry proposed here goes beyond a willingness to embrace conflicting voices to an active search for the silent resources of situated knowledge in an effort to build a collaboratively transformed understanding.

Methodology: Defining, theorizing

Citation: Pough, Anzaldua, Cushman, Royster

Provocative Quotes:

“As an approach to talking across difference, intercultural inquiry is both an attitude and a scaffold created by literate practices…An intercultural rhetoric based on inquiry is, then, a deliberate meaning-making activity in which difference is not read as a problem but sought out as a resource for constructing more grounded and actionable understandings” (40).

“Given the secretive habits of situated knowledge, the working hypothesis of intercultural rhetoric is that this silent knowledge could be transformed into a generous interpretative resource if people could reveal more of the richly contextualized stories behind the story at work in their own meaning making” (42).

“intercultural rhetoric operates, by definition and by choice, in a space where discourse practices and complex networks of situated knowledge are known to differ” (43).

“Intercultural rhetoric welcomes differences …in order to empower underrepresented, less authoritative, and traditionally marginalized ways of speaking” (44).

“The problem is not that this situated knowledge (rooted in each person’s cultural, social, and material history) guides interpretation of a topic such as curfew but that both this mode of knowing and the interpretation it constructs remain tacit, uncommunicated” (55).

“In a community conversation, cross talk among individuals is not about resolving their personal differences, much less winning a debate on positions. It is about the opportunity for each of the participants in the room (speaking or silent) to transform their own understanding in response to compelling and diversely situated rivals–giving what they can and taking what they need from this cross talk to build a more reflectively negotiated meaning for themselves, for their situation” (58).

“The melded genres, the shifting linguistic registers, the play with and against multiple conventions bring the expertise of youth and the situated knowledge of urban residents into intimate and authoritative contact with adult and mainstream structures of power.” (62).

“Intercultural rhetoric operates in a force field of contradictory agendas and conflicting voices… literate practice that tries to elicit real differences without polarizing people and to negotiate conflict without silencing it…talking across difference depends on an ability to listen, to question, and to stand “ready to pursue” the complexities of other people’s reading of the world” (63).

Connal, Louise Rodriguez. “Transcultural Rhetorics for Cultural Survival.” Language Ideologies: Critical Perspectives on the Official English Movement. Ed. Roseann Duenas Gonzalez. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2000. 318-332.

Summary: Connal proposes a pedagogy of transcultural rhetoric to address the need of increasingly diverse body of students in U.S. classroom. “One of the many questions this situation raises is how the students who carry the cultural and linguistic marks of diversity can flourish in the classroom and benefit from knowing—two or more languages and rhetorical styles. What follows is an attempt to respond to this question using my experience as a Puerto Rican woman and a writing teacher, as well as insights from postcolonial theory and feminist writing” (318).

Methodology: critical analysis, literature review,

Cited: Anzaldua, Bhabha, Spivak, Pratt, Trimbur, Said

Provocative quotes:

“English as the sole prerequisite of success in U.S. society is a rationalization that informs public policy much too often…Therefore many minorities within the United States feel coerced into assimilation by the prevailing practices of our educational system” (319-320).

“The transcultural rhetoric I use in my teaching can loosely be defined as a rhetoric that crosses and includes multiple languages, genres, and styles. Transcultural rhetoric expresses the sensibilities of people whose cultures are hybridized—people who affiliate with two or more cultures, languages, or dialects. Transcultural rhetoric is the argument for using and appreciating the different critical and cultural awareness that hybrid people can contribute to our society and knowledge base” (321-2).

“…transcultural rhetoric, of necessity, requires a willingness to cross into another person’s style, point of view, and so forth” (322).
“The challenge to the notion of cultural and linguistic purity or concepts such as English Only makes hybridity a useful alternative in cultural and linguistic education” (323).

“The idea of English Only seeks to eradicate differences that exist as a consequence of enslavement, immigration, and colonization of other nations. Yet these differences exist, and the pedagogy and language we use should address them” (325).

“The existence of hybridized student populations in our classes, indeed throughout the world, call for teaching that crosses barriers. As teachers owe should practice the “pedagogical arts of the contact zone” (Pratt 1991, 40). In other words, difference and diversity should not be interpreted as signs of crisis, Instead they should be embraced and celebrated in both our rhetoric and our pedagogy “ (326).

“The concept of transcultural rhetoric is important because it reveals the creative practice that is in fact already a part of the composing processes we teach in our composition classrooms” (330).