Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 18:38:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Lisa McNee <lm23-AT-qsilver.queensu.ca>
Subject: Re: Is the US PostColonial? Who is us and who is them?


I find this discussion thread interesting for many reasons, but I'm
wondering whether it isn't becoming counter-productive and overly
personal. Do we need to discuss our ideological and/or biological
credentials in order to sustain intellectual debate? I hesitated before
sending this, as I have not shared much in the past. However, I am
concerned that the "us" and "them" argument will cause the group to
implode in some way, just as it has caused other groups to implode. 

Lisa McNee
French Studies
Queen's University

On Sun, 5 Apr 1998, Keith Alan Sprouse wrote:

> At 09:27 PM 4/4/98 -0500, you wrote:
> >On Sat, 4 Apr 1998, JOSHI wrote:
> > 
> >Who's calling the US, Australia et al postcolonial? Second generation
> >colonists refusing to send money home to Mom and Dad does not >Independence
> make.
> 
> Terry wrote:
> >
> >Whenever someone wishes to attack me and my kind (something like an 8th
> >generation colonist) we are seen as either American or European. Sorry, I
> >ain't. 
> 
> I'm not sure that this makes any sense to me. If you are saying that
> somebody in your family tree (or are you saying that everyone in that rather
> large number of people?) came here 8 generations ago, which is what I
> uderstand by this, then how could you not be an American/North American? If
> you are saying that you personally were not born and raised in North
> America, then I am not following the part about your "kind" being here for 8
> generations. 
> 
> >I've been to Ireland--my family left there before the famine. I've
> >been to Ellis Island. I didn't put my name in because no one in any part
> >of my family to my knowledge has ever been an American. 
> 
> Once again, this seems less than clear. When you say "before the famine,"
> when  do you mean. If your family has been here for 8 generations, then you
> must have visited Ireland as a tourist, unless you moved back there at some
> point. In the meantime, if your family left Ireland 8 generations ago, are
> you making the arguement that they married only other people who were Irish
> or managed to maintain an Irish culture in North America? Most scholars at
> this point would have a hard time with the claim that after 8 generations of
> intermarriage that the culture in which one grew up, transplanted and
> influenced by the new cultural milieu, would remain the same. Perhaps I'm
> just not following what you wrote? 
> 
> >I may be white, with a good income, yada yada yada . . . 
> 
> I think the "yada, yada, yada" here is interesting. In fact, the moment when
> you were begininning to point out your implication within the uneven power
> relations is exactly when you decide to downplay it with the "yada, yada,
> yada." That speaks volumes.
> 
> >. . . and I would never claim to be indigenous, but I am something very
> like >Australians, like New Zealanders, and yea, even like Jamaicans. 
> 
> I'll pass on the Australians and the New Zealanders, as that's not my area
> of expertise. I would, however, be curious to know what you share with
> Jamaicans, I really would. Would that be your common history as a nation
> that grew out of a slave society, in which social, political, cultural
> structures developed within the plantation complex, for example?  
> 
> >Austin Clarke, a Canadian writer originally from Barbados, wrote a book
> called >Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack.
> >Sounded like home to me.   
> 
> I'm assuming you mean the "Union Jack" part of that title? If so, how would
> you see the "Under the Union Jack" experience you had as being like that of
> the Jamaican or Trinidadian experience, to name a couple? I think some
> historical and cultural specificity might not be a bad things here.
> 
> Keith
> 
> ____________________________________________________
> 
> Keith Alan Sprouse		e-mail:  kas3f-AT-virginia.edu
> New World Studies		office: 804.924.4626 
> Department of French	fax:  804.924.7157
> University of Virginia		home:  804.243.4306
> Charlottesville, VA 22903	http://www.people.virginia.edu/~kas3f
> 
> 
> 
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