Week 11 - Reflection

Week 11
Fara Suiza
June 8, 2019
ASA141

I initially took this class because I needed the upper division units for graduation and, although I’m not an Asian American minor, I enjoy taking ASA classes. I was stuck between this class and another one (Filipino experience, I think). In the beginning, I was a bit scared and apprehensive about the class because I thought we would do a lot of analyzation of Asian fashion designs (kind of like Art History). The idea of sitting around and discussing patterns didn’t really seem fun and I didn’t really know much about patterns anyways. I was surprised to find that this class didn’t revolve so much about talking about designs and their cultural meanings to respective Asian cultures, but rather how fashion affects the environment, Asian countries, and Asian culture. For example, I was vaguely familiar with fast fashion and why places like Forever 21 were bad for the environment, but this class really showed other aspects to fast fashion, raising my overall awareness.

One of my favorite things in this class was how it challenged my view of things like cultural appropriation. I still firmly believe it all comes down to the whole concept of power imbalances, but I never really thought much about tattoo culture until it was touched upon in class or heavily questioned the question of “Is it cultural appropriation or appreciation?”.

Class discussions during the quarter were always engaging, sometimes changing my views, other times challenging it.

When we started the Green Challenge, I honestly thought it wouldn’t be a problem, but I soon realized that it’s actually difficult to break my own very materialistic habits. However, it definitely made me more aware of my purchases and helped reign my habits in to a degree.

Overall, despite the class being slightly more disorganized than my usual taste, I really appreciated how this class made me care about fashion through a different lens. The question “What is Asian American fashion” does not have a black and white answer. The answer ranges on a spectrum, but to me, it is about Asian American identity and how we choose to connect to our respective cultures through clothes, history, and the stories told through what we wear on our bodies.

Thank you for teaching this class!