Courtney Heintzelman

Class, Gender, and The PoCo Midterm

            I had little to no experience with the material of this course when I signed up to take it.  In fact, the only readings for this class that I had ever even heard of were Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.   Although I hadn’t learned about the subject matter in terms of colonial and postcolonial, I had learned about class and other socioeconomic issues in many of my women’s studies and cross-cultural classes.  Throughout my college career, I have studied issues of gender (sometimes associated with issues of class) both in the United States, and internationally.  Again though, I had never learned about it in context of colonized versus colonizer. 

            This class has helped me to learn how constant of an issue class can be.  Although I may have learned class issues with a different vocabulary, the results are the same.  For example, I learned about the subject with terms like majority versus minority and dominant versus submissive, while this class has taught me to use terms like colonizer versus colonized.  The principal behind these terms are basically the same: one group controls the other.  One thing about learning from the colonial perspective is that it helps explain the history of oppression in many ways. 

            First, it helps explain the history of many countries.  Learning about various histories helps for understanding other countries and how they became the way they are.  Secondly, it helps to show how one group came to dominate the other.  Third, it helps to show how and why some ethnic groups fight each other- either to become dominant or to be kept out of domination.  In other words, either they want to colonize or be kept from colonization. 

            One topic of the course that I did have some experience with was that of transnationalism.  I understand transnationalism as simply the international migration of laborers.  In some of my previous university courses, I have learned about this type of migration, especially as it relates to women.  Mostly I have learned about women moving to various countries to work as nannies, maids, and housekeepers.  In fact, even mainstream American culture has learned at least a little about this issue.   The Nanny Diaries, a novel turned movie, about a nanny in America, helps shine a little light on the issue.  Although its focus is on a white nanny, the movie at least skims the surface of the migrant workers issues.  These migrant workers move to countries to make money to send home to their families. 

This type of migration was displayed in Jamaica Kincaid’s, Lucy.  This text reveals the life of a young woman who travels to America to work as a nanny.  It moves through her first experience with America, and how her perception of her world changes, and even stayed the same, since moving from the West Indies.  Lucy portrays how some migrants don’t expect a perfect paradise in America; they just want something better than they know in their native land.  Lucy also helps show the division some workers have with dealing with issues from their homeland and with the pressures of a new country. 

            While Lucy helps show a feminine point of view, Robinson Crusoe shows colonization from a masculine view.  Both novels show how woman and man, colonized and colonizer, bring expectations with them to their new land, based on their old life experiences.  Both stories show how relationships can form, be maintained, and even changed between the roles of master, servant, and friends.  Another similarity that the two novels have is that the protagonist in each is highly influenced by their same gendered parent.  For example, Lucy often thinks of her mother, while, Crusoe often references thoughts of his dad.  Although both characters have been greatly affected by thoughts of their parents, neither character has any real sense of duty to their parents.  A final similarity the two characters have is that they both reinvent themselves while in their new land. 

            Having never read either of these works before, the subject matter of oppression seemed familiar.  As a Women’s Studies student, it’s interesting to see how similar the issues of oppression run through gender and through class.  When starting this semester, I wouldn’t have thought how a colonial/post-colonial class would contain so many similar issues as my gender classes.  Another thing I do like about this class is how many regions it covers.  I have no experience with the Caribbean, and little experience with South America.  Although I do have some experience with African and East Indian subjects, I am interested in learning about these areas from a new perspective. 

            All that being said, I plan on choosing the two separate research posts for my research option.  Although I haven’t completely decided on what I want to do for the two posts, I am interested in finding out more about the issues that face transnational women in the nanny industry, in various parts of the country. 

I wonder if experiences for these women differ, according to the region of America that they work in.  Depending on the answers I find in referencing American migrants, I might compare the data to other nations.  For example, for my second research post, I might look at various European countries and how they treat their transnationals versus how America treats them.  Again, I’m not sure what information I’ll find, but I am interested enough in the information to try and figure some of these issues out.