Critical Response #2

I began this week’s reading with Duncan’s “History of Disease” and I felt an instantaneous connection. Duncan’s story is moving because you can see how disease affects not only the person with it but the people around that person as well. Knowing that you’re diseased changes who you are, how you go about your day, your life begins to center around it, hoping to change it. Duncan’s mother struggles with her disease, combating it by doing things such as practicing emotions or facial expressions a night but that won’t make it go away forever. I relate it to how homosexuality and transgenderism were both seen as diseases by the professional and civil world. Like the Drag Queens from the movie “Screaming Queens”, being labeled transgender, which at the time was seen as a problem that needed to be solved, changed their outlooks and how they experienced things. Albeit, the two situations aren't exactly alike as they then fought to have Transgenderism be seen in a new light, it still shows how disease can overtake a life. Even after this disease had taken over her mother’s existence, and almost hers for that matter, Duncan still likes to look to fond memories from the past, of the happier times when she wore her traditional Korean gown to be like her mother. Those memories are almost like ghost stories that Powell brings up in “Listening to Ghosts”, although they may be lost to time it is still vastly important that they are told in the present to reclaim what may have been lost. In Duncan’s case it’s the happier times, in Powell’s it’s her heritage.

My Grandma was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and since then I haven’t been able to be around her without thinking of how this disease is going to consume her. It’s why I felt such a connection with Duncan’s story because it’s something I may have to go through in the future and it terrifies me. My Grandma will no longer be identified by her fun stories, her amazing charm or perfect swing of a golf club, instead it will be the disease which she’ll be known by. Having our own self-identity is what makes us human, finally figuring out who I was gave me an immense push to come out my shell, it really impacted how I lived my life and sadly this disease is going to start to deconstruct who my Grandma truly is. No matter what though I will always be by her side, just as Duncan remained by her mother’s side.

One of my favorite lines from all the readings was “It is by small acts and insights that changes occurs, through a process of critical remembering” (Duncan, 164). It relates to a lot of things in my life as well as a lot of things from the readings as well. Such as what Cherrie Moraga was going through when first discovering who she was, she had to make changes to her life as her own family was holding her back from discovering her true worth. She realized how she once had to pander to her catholic family for approval and it wasn’t until she slowly severed ties and became more connected with LGBT communities that she fully thrived as a person. I believe her poem “Heading East” relates to this, it speaks of these two people in a car, feeling like they have conquered but they have conquered in someone else’s movie, they’re heading east and they hope that they make it. It symbolizes her moving away from her family, slowly detaching herself and driving away from the role she has been forced to play in their movie. Duncan’s quote also can relate to Powell’s idea of adding alternative discourse to the primary academic discourse. She wants the world to remember who the Native Americans are, not some people who were wiped out by colonists but a robust and deep culture filled with different languages, rituals and practices that help define that culture. By sharing her stories and ideas moment by moment, it slowly creates change that will lead to a bigger shift in academic discourse. Just as homosexuals share their stories, the hope is that those stories will change the minds of the few, which gradually leads to society changing as a whole.