Some time ago, a friend of mine announced she’d be releasing a short film, titled Cut Fruit. There was no need to explain at length what this means— the gesture of parents serving their children bowls of sliced, peeled, and prepared fruit has long been understood by members of the Asian diaspora as a symbol of unspoken love. I’m a supportive friend, so my initial reaction was delight and anticipation. But I couldn’t help but be irked by the title Cut Fruit, one of many pervasive metaphors in diasporic media.
Diasporic media refers to the genre of work created by individuals who have dispersed out of their country of origin, and subsequently explores their unique experiences. In practice, I find that it often relies on exotic foods, vivid jungle imagery, and italicized words from foreign languages to get this point across. While these motifs are rooted in real lives and experiences, I find it irritating when authors default to them despite a myriad of other experiences to examine. Take for example this poem from the breakthrough poet Rupi Kaur:
“leaving her country
was not easy for my mother
i still catch her searching for it
in foreign films
and the international food aisle”
— the sun and her flowers, 2018
It’s annoying how shallow yet self-satisfied this snippet is, and further upsetting how many people find it to be the pinnacle of representation— one review I found said that it gave her “a better sense of what it really means to be an immigrant than an entire chapter in any other book I’ve read”. This poem, and the popularization of so many like it, effectively turns culture into a commodity, insinuating that KKBQ and bubble tea is a decent substitute for a country. Relying so heavily on the material object ends up reducing cultures into caricatures. Moreover, these tropes often play into colonial and orientalist narratives. For example, while many members of the Indian diaspora do reconnect with their culture through food, it is worth remembering the violent history of India’s exports when romanticizing mangoes as a symbol for a homeland. Oppressors see these countries as an exotic land to mine for resources, it is imperative we do not do the same.
Oppressors see these countries as an exotic land to mine for resources, it is imperative we do not do the same.
At the same time, we see that the media landscape often favors stories that involve suffering. American Dirt, for example, is known as a harrowing story of a Mexican family as they flee to the United States; it is also known for being written entirely by a white woman. As novelist Porochista Khakpour tells Vox: “Certain narratives that flirt with poverty porn make liberal white people feel good about their opinions. They feel like they learn something, like by reading these accounts they are somehow participating in helping the world they usually feel so helpless about.” And because these are good, hardworking immigrants, they will overcome their obstacles to bring the audience a happy ending. This writing is intimate, uplifting, and ultimately popular—encouraging future authors to exploit their own trauma to create a successful immigrant story.
I do understand why these metaphors prevail. It is extremely comforting to be seen and understood; to find a group of people who have gone through the same experiences and feel the same emotions as you. In this sense, the point of diasporic media is not to explore unique experiences, but to echo common ones in the hopes of finding community. However, the resulting narratives are often repetitive, exploitative, and fail to challenge the audience.
This writing is intimate, uplifting, and ultimately popular—encouraging future authors to exploit their own trauma to create a successful immigrant story.
On the contrary, I’d say that Ocean Vuong’s debut novel serves as an example for what challenging literature could be. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a semi-autobiographical letter from a Vietnamese American boy known to the audience only as Little Dog. The typical diaspora motifs are powerful on their own, but where many stop, Vuong creates room for deeper exploration. When Little Dog looks at his grandmother’s aged face, it is not just a broad reminder of sacrifice, but the remnant of a body that turned to prostitution for survival, and gave birth to the daughters of American soldiers. When the boys on his school bus yell at Little Dog to speak English, it carries the weight of not just the racist white boys, but also the bombs that rained down on his mother’s school and cut her education short. Although the war is long gone, it saturates the protagonist’s upbringing in Hartford Connecticut, adding a layer of systemic violence that colors his childhood and brings context to readers.
The story isn’t entirely constituted by sorrow either, it is purposefully underscored with moments of joy and freedom. My favourite part actually happens early on, when Little Dog and his mother dress up to spend a Saturday at the mall, buying nothing except for a couple fancy chocolates. I found this extremely relatable as I’m also very sentimental for my own childhood mall trips, but I was never able to attribute it to my own immigrant experience until someone else brought it up. It is possible to find other accounts of this “childhood mall” phenomenon but only after deep and extensive research, making it hard to come across these shared experiences in the first place.
If the goal of diasporic works is to bond through common experiences, I think we have a lot more in common than what is currently expressed
If the goal of diasporic works is to bond through common experiences, I think we have a lot more in common than what is currently expressed; consider the legal difficulty of becoming a citizen itself, feeling pride for one’s identity rather than shame, and the issue of intersectionality— amplifying different perspectives will shed light on more issues, and build a stronger diasporic community.
Cut Fruit actually ended up being a great short film. In it, two recently orphaned sisters get into an argument about finances. The eponymous fruit slices are given as a peace offering after the sisters realize they have both stepped up to take care of each other. Although it relies on a very popular theme, I find it to be a really thoughtful twist on family dynamics and healing. There definitely is still room for mangoes and monsoons in our body of diasporic literature, so long as it does more than reduce our lives into tiny, digestible pieces— much like cut fruit.
***
Graphic by Annette Archaeni
