2. Agenda
Terms
Lecture: Sui Sin Far
Discussion: Far: QHQ
In-class writing: How and why does Far
resist? What are the social implications
of her doing so?
Discussion/Writing: Essay #4
3. Terms
Transsexuals: People who indicate that they are of one gender
trapped in the body of the other gender. A person who has
altered or intends to alter her/hir/his anatomy, either through
surgery, hormones, or other means, to better match her/hir/his
chosen gender identity. This group of people is often divided into
pre-op (operative), post-op, or non-op transsexuals. Due to
cost, not all transsexuals can have genital surgery. Others do not
feel that surgery is necessary, but still remain a transsexual
identity.
a. Non-operative: People who do not intend to change their primary sex
characteristics, either because of a lack of a desire or the inability to do
so. They may or may not alter their secondary sex characteristics
through the use of hormones.
b. Pre-operative: People who have started the procedure to reassign
their primary sex characteristics, but have not yet had the surgery. This
covers both those people who have just begun the procedure and those
who are very close to the actual surgery.
c. Post-operative: People who have had the actual genital surgery
4. Transphobia:
The fear or hatred of transgender and
transsexual people. Like biphobia, this term
was created to call attention to the ways
prejudice against trans people differs from
prejudice against other queer people. There is
often transphobia in lesbian, gay and bisexual
communities, as well as heterosexual or
straight communities.
5. Persona: a character in drama or fiction or the part
any one sustains in the world or in a book. Persona
also denotes the “I” who speaks in a poem or novel.
Plot: a plan or scheme to accomplish a purpose. In
6. • Point of view: a specified position or method of consideration
and appraisal. It may also be an attitude, judgment, or opinion.
In literature, physical point of view has to do with the position in
time and space from which a writer approaches, views, and
describes his or her material. Mental point of view involves an
author’s feeling and attitude toward his or her subject.
Personal point of view concerns the relation through which a
writer narrates or discusses a subject, whether first, second, or
third person.
• Prose : the ordinary form of spoken and written language
whose unit is the sentence, rather than the line as it is in
poetry. The term applies to all expressions in language that do
not have a regular rhythmic pattern.
8. Sui Sin Far, born Edith Maude Eaton, was
the first writer of Asian descent published in
North America
She was born in England, in 1865 to a Chinese mother and an
English (white) father. Eaton's mother was apparently schooled in
England although she returned to China after her education was
completed. Eaton's father was a merchant who did trading in China; it
was on one of his business trips that he met and fell in love with his
future wife. According to Eaton scholars, Amy Ling and Annette
White-Parks, "interracial marriage was taboo in both cultures[; thus,]
theirs was an unusual union." At age seven, Eaton and her family left
England and immigrated to Hudson City, New York, and in the early
1870s, settled in a Montreal suburb. She went to school until age
eleven and then continued her education at home. As the second
child and oldest daughter of fourteen children, Edith Eaton spent
much of her childhood helping her mother care for her siblings as
well as selling her father's artwork in the city.
9. Eaton started her career at Hugh Graham's Montreal
Daily Star newspaper as a typesetter at age eighteen.
Her first short stories were published in the Dominion Illustrated
in 1888; she also maintained her administrative duties as well
as submitted newspaper articles. It was in her journalistic
writing that Eaton openly identified herself as a Chinese
American and explained her biracial heritage to her readers.
She wrote under the pseudonym Sui Sin Far, a childhood
nickname that means "water lily" in Chinese. Her
sister, Winnifred Eaton, also a writer, used Onoto Watanna as
her penname.
10. Yi Bu Wang Hua
In the mid 1890s, Eaton moved briefly to Jamaica, where she contracted
malaria, from which she never quite recovered. During the next ten
years, until 1909, she lived in Seattle and San Francisco. She wrote more
articles and short stories and gained a literary reputation. Chinese
American women were at the center of much of Eaton's writing, and she
worked to break down cultural stereotypes. In 1909, Eaton moved to
Boston where she compiled a full-length selection of short stories, Mrs.
Spring Fragrance, which was published in Chicago in 1912. In
1913, Eaton, stricken by horrible rheumatism and bad health, returned to
Montreal. She died on April 7, 1914 and is buried in the Protestant
Cemetery there. In gratitude for her work on their behalf, the Chinese
community erected a special headstone on her tomb inscribed with the
characters "Yi bu wang hua" ("The righteous one does not forget China").
11. A Spiritual Foremother
Known as "spiritual foremother of contemporary Eurasian
authors," Eaton has been the subject of two
dissertations, a literary biography, and numerous articles.
Notable Sui Sin Far scholars include S. E. Solberg, Amy
Ling, James Doyle, and Annette White-Parks.
Amy Ling writes, "If we set Sui Sin Far into the context of
her time and place, in late nineteenth-century sinophobic
and imperialistic Euro-American nations, then we admit
that for her, a Eurasian woman who could pass as white, to
choose to champion the Chinese and working-class
women and to identify herself as such, publicly and in
print, an act of great determination and courage."
12. The Reception of Chinese by
White Americans
To appreciate the work of Edith Eaton fully, we must discuss its historical and
social context, namely the reception of Chinese by white Americans before
and during her period. Though the Chinese were never enslaved in this
country, as were Africans, they were brought here in large numbers as
indentured laborers. The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) was only repealed in
1943 and naturalized citizenship for Asians was permitted in 1954, long after
African-Americans and American Indians were recognized as American
citizens. Initially attracted to California by the discovery of gold in the mid-
nineteenth century, by the l860s thousands of Chinese laborers were enticed
here to construct the mountainous western section of the transcontinental
railroad. Almost from the beginning, prejudice against them was strong. They
were regarded as an alien race with peculiar customs and habits that made
them inassimilable in a nation that wanted to remain white; their hard-
working, frugal ways and their willingness to work for lower wages than
whites rendered them an economic threat and thus targets of racial violence.
14. Passing and Sui Sin Far
“Ah, indeed!” he exclaims. “Who would have thought it at first
glance? Yet now I see the difference between her and other
children. What a peculiar coloring! Her mother’s eyes and hair and
her father’s features, I presume. Very interesting little creature!”
I had been called from play for the purpose of inspection. I do not
return to it. For the rest of the evening I hide myself behind a hall
door and refuse to show myself until it is time to go home.
Why does Far hide after this experience?
How does this moment contribute to her identity development?
15. “Look!” says Charlie. “Those men in there are Chinese!” Eagerly I gaze into the
long low room. With the exception of my mother, who is English bred with
English ways and manner of dress, I have never seen a Chinese person. The
two men within the store are uncouth specimens of their race, drest in working
blouses and pantaloons with queues hanging down their backs. I recoil with a
sense of shock.
“Oh, Charlie,” I cry. “Are we like that?”
“Well, we’re Chinese, and they’re Chinese, too, so we must be!” returns my
seven year old brother.
“Of course you are,” puts in a boy who has followed us down the street, and
who lives near us and has seen my mother: “Chinky, Chinky, Chinaman, yellow-
face, pig-tail, rat-eater.” A number of other boys and several little girls join in
with him.
“Better than you,” shouts my brother, facing the crowd. He is younger and
smaller than any there, and I am even more insignificant than he; but my spirit
revives.
“I’d rather be Chinese than anything else in the world,” I scream.
Why does Far fight after this experience?
How does this moment contribute to her identity development?
16. The greatest temptation was in the thought of getting far away from where I was
known, to where no mocking cries of “Chinese!” “Chinese!” could reach.
Here Sui seems to want to disappear. Given her desire to escape prejudice, why does
she become a champion of the Chinese instead of “passing” as we know so many
others do during this time? In other words, which of her life experiences compel her to
refuse to pass as white? How does she become the woman who speaks the lines
below?
With a great effort I raise my eyes from my plate. “Mr. K.,” I say, addressing my
employer, “the Chinese people may have no souls, no expression on their faces, be
altogether beyond the pale of civilization, but whatever they are, I want you to
understand that I am—I am a Chinese.”
18. QHQ: “Leaves from the Mental
Portfolio of an Eurasian
In what ways in Sui Sin challenged with racial hatred?
How does Sui Sin deal with all the ridicule?
Why does Sui Sin feel as though they won the battle even
though [she] and her brother were hurt?
In the story it says that Sui Sin’s sister becomes great
friends with someone [. . .] even after they make a racist
comment. She goes on to say that Sui Sin herself had
“many such experiences”; why do they choose to ignore
[racism]?
Why does Sui not take more offense to the way she was
treated?
What was so different about her brother and sister that
made her different even in her family?
19. Why did Sui Sin admit to Mr. K that she is Chinese?
Why is it that Sui Sin’s has the strength to be herself
and not pass?
Why was it wise that Sui Sin’s father was blind and
deaf to many things?
Why does Sui want to finish her life in China?
Did Sui Sin go to China and live there?
20. In-class writing: How and why
does Far resist passing?
• Far refuses to pass as white. Why? What
convinces her to consciously and intentionally
reveal her racial identity?
• Consider how Far resists passing. Which
behaviors can you specifically identify?
22. Homework
Studying: Vocab/Terms
Writing: Work on Essay #4
Blog Shot: What are the advantages to
resisting passing? What are the long-term
social effects?
