Here follows a series of pictures of the things I'm looking forward to about living in Paris and in France.  Towards the end of the semester, I plan to do another to see what has changed/if anything has changed as I learn more about the location, more about the history, more about my project, and more in general.  A lot of these things probably strike me as closer to a tourist's goals and aspirations for going to Paris, which there's nothing inherently wrong with.  But I would like to see what are some of the first things that come to mind later on in the semester.

L'art (in general)

Boating at Argenteuil - Monet @ Musee d'Orsay

Cinema (ou Jean Dujardin...)

The Views

Notre Dame

The bread

Versailles

The Seine

La Fete Nationale

The Museums (Musee d'Orsay)

(Musee du Louvre)

Walking in Paris

Creativity, Conversation, Innovation, Inspiration

Proposal: Statement of Intent

A. Statement of Intent

            Little care is often taken with American culture by Americans—or anyone else for that matter—but as an American Studies major, I find American culture essential to understanding those who come to the United States, the United States’ place in the world, and the changes that take place routinely within the country itself.  However, there are facets of American culture which are or have been very influential and yet are either rarely studied, or rarely given credence to as a significant part of a whole.  African-American culture is one such part which has altered the United States in astounding ways and yet is rarely given credit within American culture as a whole.

In 2011 I took an American Novels course which gave me a taste for black-American literature, which resonated with me further than the other American literature.  In this class I realized I was beginning to love a culture that was not only in part being lost, but was not being recognized as playing a larger role within main-stream American culture.  The fact that we need an African-American Studies field to augment American Studies is understandable but disappointing to me—American Studies itself should indicate in its every study the presence of black Americans, Latino Americans, Chinese Americans . . . the list could go on.  Separating the races is not a true study of American culture, because America is what it is because of the collision and/or melding of the races.

In 2010 I began studying French, and soon decided I wanted to go to France before I began a Graduate degree.  I wasn’t interested in being with a group of other Americans, since I wanted to be able to practice my language-speaking, but I would have gone any way I could have when I discovered Field Studies and realized it allowed me the opportunity to study my French, but more importantly, meld that interest with my study of American culture.  I fell upon an idea and decided I wanted to study something no one had talked about in my history courses or American Study classes: the African-American expatriates in Paris and how their presence in Paris can or has influenced our understanding of American culture.

I want to live in France for three months so I might be immersed in French culture, much like these American expatriates were, and so I might better understand what elements of French culture made Paris appealing for these Americans.  I do not feel I can understand the black American-Parisian culture until I understand the elements of French culture that brought musicians, writers, painters, and intellectuals out to Paris after the Great War.

            The men and women who I am interested in studying have been written about before, which is why my anticipated results are not a series of autobiographical sketches, so much as a creative linking of these cultures through the people to better understand African-American-Parisian influence on American culture at the time and it’s holdover in contemporary American culture.  I am not interested in new information but rather a new outlook, one that is particularly of the American Studies field and of an American Studies telling.

Japanese childhood.

Monday, 23 January 2012 is Chinese New Year.  In celebration, Kate and I went to Four Seasons in Provo and ordered some dumplings and steamed buns.  When we returned home to eat our delicious stash of perfect food, we promptly finished it and realized we had not ordered nearly enough.  In the car again, straight out into the snow, we returned to downtown Provo to Chao's.

While there, I remembered a partially forgotten childhood in which Keiko Tapp, a Japanese woman, raised me in part on all sorts of food one could never find in the Playstead house.  I don't even know the names of these snacks and foods, but as I wandered the Chinese grocery store (for the express purpose of getting more steamed buns) I saw and remembered eating rice cakes, and cookies, and seaweed, Pocky sticks and Hello Panda's.  I could taste them on my tongue again--an odd idea.  And she probably didn't even think twice about sharing them with me, but I remember them.  And it became part of my culture.

It makes this job of a Field Study far too big for me, for not everything can be taken into account, which is always the case in life.  I think about how every time someone dies millions of pieces of information die with them: elements of who they were that no one knew, cared to ask about, or could even know to wonder.  We can't even figure out ourselves, let alone others.

People are not to be studied, or figured out.  They're to be enjoyed, cared about, talked to, shared with.  I'm really not interested in studying anything.  I'm interested in a good conversation.

What will I be doing, really?  What do I really want to know?  What is the point of this?  And why a Field Study?  Why not just go to France on my own?  What's the point of going through BYU on my own?

In defense of American culture.

He who knows others is learned;

He who knows himself is wise.

-          Loa-tzu, Tao te Ching

If I write this, I’ll be able to write anything after it.  In defense of American culture.

Last Thanksgiving, I spoke to my cousin who is half Filipino about his mission, which he had just returned from.  I told him about Field Studies, and I told him that he should consider doing one—maybe Tonga?  Maybe Fiji?  “What about South America?” he asked.  I said, “There, too.”  We talked a little longer, and I told him why I liked the idea of Field Studies—it was the chance to be immersed in a culture different from your own and I mentioned that doing that sometimes helped us realize there were things about other cultures we might like better than our own—that might be better than our own.  To which he smiled and replied, “Yeah, everything.”

I’m not in the habit of letting people get away with telling me my culture is no good, so I said, “Well, I’m an American Studies major, so I don’t quite believe that.”  And what I meant was that my whole life I’ve been studying American culture.  And I’ve loved every minute of it.  Studying a culture doesn’t inherently mean that you think it’s better.  And true to that statement, I don’t believe American culture is better than other cultures, but I do think it’s fascinating, and I also think we don’t give it enough credit for being just as interesting and complex as any other.  I am past grateful that there was something I’ve enjoyed doing all these years that they had a major for.  How lucky is that?  And all my life people have been telling me that my love for American history and American literature and American government and American leadership and American “proverbs,” American values, American music, American geography, American economics, American—you get the idea—is boring.  But it’s not boring at all!  And I’ve learned that best through my study of other cultures.

I don’t know if I believe in the melting pot theory, but I know that without the search for a passage to the Indies, America wouldn’t be the same.  Without the turmoil of the Tudor household, America might not be the same.  Without the French Enlightenment philosophers, America would not be the same.  Without wars and slavery in Africa and the people who brought slavery to the Americas, America would not be the same.  Without trouble in the Balkans, America would not be the same.  Without a shattered Germany, America would not be the same.  Without Coca-Cola, America would not be the same.  Without communism in the Far East, America would not be the same.  Etc. etc.  This might be sounding a bit vague, or perhaps you’ve begun to cringe, so I’ll stop there.  The point is, I’m not saying that these things made America better, or that America was right about its stance concerning some of these issues, but that America does not stand alone or apart from other world cultures.  We are the Irish, and the Mexicans, and the Italians and the Chinese, and the Armenians, and the English, and the Nigerians, and the El Salvadorians, and the Tongans and the Turks, and the Ghanaians, and the Chileans, and the Vietnamese, and the Russians.  All of that is here in our history, and in our culture and who we are is very dependent on who we’ve been.

I love American culture, not because I think it’s better, not because I think it’s exceptional in comparison to another culture, but just the opposite—because I think American people and American history and WORLD history says a heck of a lot about who Americans are and what we value.  We are not the tabula rasa.  We are not the blank slate on which others take away or add values, insert traditions, alter and shift customs or speak alternate languages and thereby make a culture different from ours.  Aha!  Samoans! Thinking that way is like thinking that Western Americans are the ones without an accent when in fact we did not come first, and so ours is not the absence of accent, but just a different accent.  Furthermore, a Chinese housekeeper might tell us we have the most interesting accent on the planet.  We are a culture all our own.  We are a culture which has taken some languages, added some customs, adopted some traditions, retained some values and in doing so have created this bizarre culture that most don’t even try to figure out.  But for a long time, trying to piece together what makes us who we are is all that has interested me and I’m not about to throw that away because someone else has decided quite erroneously that we are a blank, and therefore boring, slate.

Worries & Preparations

The worries keep stacking up.  The initial worry was whether or not I'd be able to speak this language.  People are people.  That's a good thing.  But I think through every word I use when I'm speaking in English, let alone having to think through/figure out what I want to say in a French.


Ce pourquoi, j'ai decidé que je vais écouter un podcast par semaine en français sur l'histoire ou la culture.  Aussi, je vais faire une heure de travaille par jour en français--faire les devoirs, écouter les podcasts, lire les lectures, pratiquer d'écriture ou parler à les autres.


More about that another time, because I can force myself to believe that I'll be better at this language in four months.  My new worry I don't want to overlook this culture simply because it's "Western."  As preliminary reading, I've purchased Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong.  It had the best reviews on French culture for English reading that I could find, and I really don't have the stamina to read a book about French culture in french.  A project for another day.  I hope that this reading will give me an idea of where to go next about French culture.


Parce que je sais que la culture de  nourriture en français est importante, je vais essayer cuisiner une repas française chaque mois, et lire au sujet de la nourriture en « Around My French Table ».


Hopefully these few decisions will help me not only with the language, but with my steps into understanding the culture I'll be entering.  Although my field study 'question' will be important, and I'll want to be aware of a plethora of cultures evident in Paris, I don't want to overlook the main one simply because I'll be in a large city where culture can sometimes seem lost.

Project Questions

How do the melding of French and American cultures and the freedoms found in France versus those found in America alter our perceptions of American values which go by the same name but which are communicated in different, and sometimes contradictory ways?

What have been the experiences of African-american expatriates in Paris?  How does their particular history in the United States in conjunction with their integration into French culture inform the lifestyle expectations, experiences and choices of African-American expatriates who lived or worked in Paris after the Great War?

How can the experiences of African-American expatriates in Paris inform our understanding of the American experience? (Especially to those who study in the field of American Studies.)


edit 20 February 2012:
What was the influence of French culture on African-American expatriate musicians (who went to Paris after the Great War)?

vingt-cinq questons.

1.)       How do I effectively meld a French FS with an American Studies major? No clue.

2.)       How France influenced America? Post WW1

3.)       How America influenced France? Coca-Cola and Foreign Relations.

4.)       What are current affairs of French-American relations?

5.)       What do the French—Parisians think of us? Boring.

6.)       What about Post WWI is interesting?  Expatriates.

7.)       American Expatriates—Writers. Artists.

8.)       What about French?

9.)       How the French influenced these writers and artists?

10.)   How the writers and artists subsequently influenced Americans?

11.)   Americans in Paris, though? Overdone.

12.)   What about Post WW1 African-American servicemen?

13.)   Influence in the States?  Jazz.  What about writers?

14.)   So What about African-Americans in Paris?

15.)   What about them?

16.)   Why did they leave the States?  Obvious.

17.)   More pointedly, why did they come to Paris/France in general?

18.)   What kind of freedoms did they find?

19.)   In what ways did French culture influence them?

20.)   What were some of their writings?

21.)   How do their writings/music/art influence the American scene?

22.)   If they don’t, how could their existence influence American Studies in retrospect?

23.)   What about these African-Americans is American?

24.)   What about them is now ‘French?’

25.)   What do the melding of these two cultures, and the freedoms found in France versus those found in America alter our perceptions of American values which go by the same name, but which are communicated in different, sometimes contradictory ways?

A Letter of Marque

Lettres de marque were given to french corsairs--also known as privateers or pirates--by the state to give them permission to act in the name of the crown.  Corsair is french for the italian coruso, or--in English--course.  I'll decide what metaphoric significance the pirate implication has later.  At the moment, it's the 'course' that really interests me.

It may mean little that I'm an American Studies major later in life, but right now it means quite a lot.  The fact that I want to study in France seems a little off the chart for someone who has spent four years studying America, especially when our readings so far have been somewhat clear that the typical "American" viewpoint of the outside world is destructive and ineffective.  But that's what I love about Field Studies--not only was it the only conceivable way to academically tie together a thousand interests that I just couldn't reconcile any other way, it's focus is on teaching us how to leave behind our natural tendencies when entering a new culture and instead enter a new culture ready to experience.

I like this because the truth is, I don't want to find a niche too quickly.  I want to know everything, but I don't want to know everything right now, I want to take my time learning it.  I like finding connections, and I like making them work as I put the world together.  I love paradigm shifts, having the way I think of the world and of people drastically altered.  It's an upheaval that I've always searched for.  As someone who likes to be comfortable, paradigm shifts is where I have always allowed myself to revel in discomfort.

The course I have in mind really will rely on the water and the wind but I have a general destination in mind.  I want to bridge the gap between my interests in American Studies, French, and writing.  Among the many considerations I've given to this project, what I've been most interested in for a couple of months now is a study of African-American expatriates in Paris.  Given the amount of attention given to "the Lost Generation" of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Stein, Elliot, etc. I became interested in the story of those African Americans who served in the same Great War as many other young Americans and yet were not treated as heroes upon their return.  These African-Americans saw France during the war too, and they fell in love with it.  Many of them returned to enjoy some of the freedoms they were denied at home.  It's not that I know who all these people were, or what they did with their lives, or when and if they ever returned to the United States but that I intend to follow the course of their lives, how America shaped it, how France shaped it, where they found solace, how they understood their place as Americans, how they were changed by immersing themselves in french culture, and what Americans can learn in retrospect from their unique "american" experiences.

Reprise; To Being Understood

The idea that when a person dies you're allowed to let them have it--you're allowed to tell them all the things you never told them in life. And then if you've got breath enough, you can tell them you love them. Doing that in life would never work; it was just create rifts. Because after all the hurt, love never heals anything. I envy them that: that they write the way they feel. Am I really so different from anyone else on this earth? If only I could say the things I think, the way I really feel. To every person But I'm twenty-two now, and old enough to realize what should not be said, what should not be voiced. But as time passes I feel rifts growing inside of me, as they all stack up against me: the things I never say.

I'd tell you that you've paired me up with someone irresponsible--again.

I'd tell you that old age shouldn't mean you've forgotten what it means to be human.

I'd tell you I hate you passionately and love you dearly at the same time.

I'd tell you I'm afraid of my life turning out your way.

I'd tell you that you're a hypocrite.

I'd tell you that you're beautiful.

I'd tell you that I can see right through you, even when you think you're hiding.

I'd tell you that you hurt me more often than anyone--the person I love best.

I'd tell you that I'm afraid, but I think I can make this work.

I'd tell you I'm afraid of hurting you.

I'd tell you about the value of tact.

I'd tell you to give me a chance.

I'd tell you that you have no right to speak to me the way you do.

I'd tell you that you simply do not matter to me.

I'd tell you the things you think matter, really don't.

I'd tell you there are things I want, and then there are things I need, and you just don't understand the difference.

I'd tell you that I need to know you're real.

I'd tell you I still have a temper.

I'd tell you that you made me feel more insecure than I've ever felt.

I'd tell you that your impatience infuriates me.

I'd tell you that all I need is for you to tell me I'm fine just the way I am, the way you used to.

I'd tell you thank you for holding on to me.

I'd tell you to respect me.

I'd tell you that I'm human.

I'd tell you I admire you.

I'd tell you that I shouldn't have to convince myself I matter.

I'd tell you that nothing scares me more than thinking, 'Maybe, I don't.'

I'd tell you to take out the trash.

I'd tell you I'm afraid of doing this alone.

I'd tell you to put your phone on silent.

I'd tell you not to sing.

I'd tell you that you're the best man I've met.

I'd tell you that you are so very wrong.

I'd tell you to tell me everything and anything and just to speak for hours and hours and let me listen.

I'd tell you to trace my hand on a piece of paper.

I'd tell you, I wish you'd done it too.

I'd tell you that all I want is an apology.

I'd tell you that you never did anything wrong, it was just timing.

I'd tell you that you should have taken my side, because I would have taken yours.

I'd tell you that you should have treated her better.

I'd tell you to stop smoking.

I'd tell you that you waited too long, and missed your chance.

I'd tell you frustration is still my most common emotion.

I'd tell you not to pressure me to be like you.

I'd tell you to care.

I'd tell you that you made my life unbearable.

I'd tell you you're the best friend I've ever had.

I'd tell you if I could have sat out under the stars with you on your lawn all night I would have chosen an eternity of it, just to have you the way I remember you.

I'd tell you I'm letting you go.

I'd tell you . . . I'm so sorry.

I'd tell you I wish I was different.

I'd tell you that you were unfair.

I'd tell you, 'So was I.'

I'd tell you to listen to each other.

I'd tell you to let it go.

I'd tell you that you could have been more adult about it.

I'd tell you that you're forgiven.

I'd tell you that even when I'm with you, I'm so very alone.

I'd tell you I think you're an idiot.

I'd tell you that I rarely think that of anyone.

I'd tell you that you take yourself too seriously.

I'd tell you that you're worth every thing you think you've lost.

I'd tell you you're right.

I'd tell you that you're not as smart as you think you are.

I'd tell you that I really mean nothing at all in the grand scheme of things, but you--you mean the world.

I'd tell you that you're missing someone who is right in front of you; that she's what you need, that you're not looking.

I'd tell you I wasn't right for you; maybe I'm not right for anyone.

I'd tell you that you are everything; that I look to you in all things; that I belong to you more than I belong to anyone else.

I'd tell you that I'm blind, and I'm happy you have what you need.

I'd tell you thank you.

. . .

I'd tell you. I'd tell you. I'd tell you.

I'd tell you the truth.

I'd tell you I love, love, love, love, love you.