{"id":1079,"date":"2022-11-17T18:24:19","date_gmt":"2022-11-17T23:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/?p=1079"},"modified":"2022-11-17T22:37:43","modified_gmt":"2022-11-18T03:37:43","slug":"ocean-vuong-vs-mei-in-the-legend-of-auntie-poe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/2022\/11\/17\/ocean-vuong-vs-mei-in-the-legend-of-auntie-poe\/","title":{"rendered":"“I’m going to have my very own story now”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although I’ve only read about half of it, Ocean Vuong\u2019s \u201cOn Earth We\u2019re Briefly Gorgeous\u201d is a poetic memoir about his queer, Asian experience from his childhood and onward.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Legend of Auntie Poe reminded me of this narrative. When Mei says, \u201cThis is Bee\u2019s story. Bee will go to university, and marry a man\u201d (Khor 37), the author not only addresses Mei\u2019s queer experience, but also, the distance that comes with one minority identity layered upon another. Mei is conscious of how being a Chinese American places her in a marginalized position, and at the beginning of the book, she views herself as a sidebar to Bee\u2019s story. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, as Mei builds the myth and the role model of Auntie Poe, her perspective on her own life shifts. Role models, like Auntie Poe for Mei, and like Vuong\u2019s mother in his memoir, are key pieces of childhood and support for these queer characters.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In Ocean Vuong’s memoir, his Vietnamese identity and relationship with his mother is at the core of the book. Vuong structures his book as a letter to his mother, who can\u2019t read. He intermixes retellings of his childhood with wishes about seeing queer representation around him and contemplating his queerness in relation to his Asian culture. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This parallels Mei\u2019s position at the end of the novel where she is confidently able to say, \u201cI\u2019m going to have my very own story now\u201d (Khor 282), meaning that, Mei sees herself as a main character in her own story. Although Mei needed Auntie Poe as a catalyst to take initiative, at the end Auntie Poe leaves because Mei now has the power to create her own myths. In a similar vein, the driving force of Vuong\u2019s memoir is providing a narrative to represent untold stories.<\/span> Vuong looks to similar figures that Mei does, independent women like his mother that have shaped his identity. With these figures Vuong and Khor’s characters are able to harness power and make myths their own. <\/span><\/p>\n

T<\/span>exts like Khor\u2019s and Vuong\u2019s are essential to understanding the multiplicity that lies in queer people of color\u2019s identities. Just like Mei\u2019s story proves, queer people should not and cannot be reduced to just their romantic relationships, because there is so much more context surrounding their lives. To be a queer person of color is to exist on multiple planes simultaneously. Without representation like this, queer media risks falls flat which can be detrimental to the understanding of queer representation. Both texts demonstrate how race and class intermingle with queerness, and when these themes can be shown to children through the form of graphic novels like Auntie Poe, children can find the pride and representation that they may lack in their lives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here’s a link to an article where Ocean Vuong talks about his novel<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although I’ve only read about half of it, Ocean Vuong\u2019s \u201cOn Earth We\u2019re Briefly Gorgeous\u201d is a poetic memoir about his queer, Asian experience from his childhood and onward.\u00a0\u00a0 The Legend of Auntie Poe reminded me of this narrative. When Mei says, \u201cThis is Bee\u2019s story. Bee will go to university, and marry a man\u201d … Continue reading “I’m going to have my very own story now”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5014,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344620],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5014"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}