"Indo-Chic: Late Capitalist Orientalism and Imperial Culture" by Sunaina Maira and "My Thesis" by Edward Said

I spent the first couple pages of thus reading very confused. I have never really heard of orientalism and it seems to be this very abstract, yet powerful cultural influence on the ways that people think. To my understanding, orientalism is taking someone else's culture and using that culture for an entirely different reason. I have a hard time distinguishing this between appropriation, but I'm sure that itll be clearer in lecture.

Starting with Said's reading, it was geared towards people from the middle east. He claims that the ways in which the west depicts minorities, specially people from the middle east, makes them out to be below western civilization. The thing that immediately comes to mind is western news. Big news outlets are sometimes the only way that people get their news and thus, they have much power to bend, shape, misuse, or ignore stories so people hear what the news outlsets what them the know. This can be tied to Faucoult's ideas of truth and power, the news embedding a clouded truth among a giant population. Lots of coverage has been focused on Muslims, especially recently with Trump's Muslim ban. Parts of Europe have banned hijabs and burkas in public, barring Muslims from practicing their religion. Said claims that this is a the fault of western media and orientalism.

Professor Maira's reading also addressed orientalism, but in a less political-governance sense. The part of the reading that I will address in my presentation is about the Mehndi festival at Smith college. According to the professor, this festival is an Indian festival, but it takes advantage of diversity in order to make a profit. This directly correlates to Kendal Jenners Pepsi ad, glorifying a diverse community in order to make some monetary gain.

The second point I will address is the idea of authentic culture. One desi girl says that people should not participate in henna if they do not know the history behind it, but she does not even know the history!!! She says she is entitled since she has used it all her life and other people have not. I disagree. While we should definitely address the cultural background of practices, that does not mean we should be barred from participating in these practices!

For example, there is an annual Bunnkasai back home in Torrance and it is to raise money to send students to Japan. There are Japanese food stands, Japanese games, Japanese shops, and Japanese performances! There is nothing wrong with exposing the community to Japanese culture. To only let Japanese people in is pretty messed up too! Like, what! Who says someone cannot eat a dango if they don't know what it is? At least they are not shutting it out. Looking at Banzai trees is cool; why should someone be barred from looking at them if they have never tried it or been exposed to it?