The Money Dance film showed Asian Americans from Cambodia expressing cultural resistance. They participated in sports that were not expected from their culture. I can relate to this because in my high school, I was in the sport fencing - a white dominated sport. My high school was one of the few schools that had a majority of Asian Americans in that sport. The cultural resistance presented in the film was against hegemonic notions of Asian masculinity. Another example shown in the film was one Asian American was very social and enjoys social interaction. Normally Asian people are expected to not go out and also had high expectations to do well in school. Their participation of Cambodian dancing shows a resistance against United States assimilation. Cambodian went through a lot cultural holocausts, so the revival and maintenance of these cultures was very important to them. They also recreated the monkey dance by adding break dancing into it. There was also a lot of pressure put on them, and relatives of one girl was expected to fail because her sister went to jail. However, she is working hard to prove them wrong by participating in her culture, going to school, and having a job.
In The Politics of Race, one part that intrigued me was when Shah mentioned the environmental justice during a leak of hydrogen sulfide where “the Laotian community in west Contra Costa County has no full-time television or radio station that could have served as a source of information” (55). As a result, many in the Laotian community suffered the side effects of exposure to the sulfuric gases. A form of communication to a community in terms of news and emergencies is very important, and this lack of communication present in the Laotian community is very dangerous. It creates a sense of alienation toward the community because the health departments can’t reach out of diverse populations.
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