Race Gender and Sexuality

Race, Gender, Sex - Rollin' the Rs I wrote this to try to mirror some of the youthful feel of the book because that's what comes across. It is a REACTIONARY piece, not just an intellectual representation of the contents. That is what the assignment asks for. I tweaked it to read a bit better here and there but I think this is what was requested. The full assignment request said: "Read Rolling the Rs by Zamora Linmark and write a reaction paper on it.

And talk about how does it deal with the issues of race gender and sexuality?" This does that in an appropriate way. Rolling the R's is little bites in big mouthfuls. It's an indication that size matters even if largeness itself means little about who will prevail. The little people (the young ones) in the story take on very big challenges and, ultimately, they fail in ways and they are victorious in ways.

It is a story about how being honest and forthright comes out on top, and about how dishonesty and deception doesn't pay off, not even for fifth grade kids who shouldn't really be dealing with the issues that make up their lives in this very complex story about stories. It's an adult book by and about childhood characters that are so large in their involvement with a world about them that in many ways their work rises above race and ethnicity in favor of sexuality -- or so it seems.

The vignettes are presented in a hopscotch way, which reflects the child-like quality of the narrative. To me, this adds credibility far above just being a writer's tool. The plots unfold here and then over there and back to here again, pulling from Filipino, Hawaiian or even the valued televised depictions of American culture. It is hard to tell at times what factors the participants really value.

Playing their games involves following the idiosyncrasies of the day by jumping around, perhaps on one balanced foot at a time until they can bend over a pickup a marker. Gender queer kids of color living in a straight world of island politics, religion, power, control and raw abuse and manipulation.

The compartments that the young people jump between are intricate parts of the American paradise of Hawaii that is itself facing down a clash of its local native culture and the mainstream dominate culture that the actors want to be a part of. And this makes their rather unusual adventures all the more entertaining. It is a mistake to dismiss their engagement with morally questionable activities as just inappropriate for them; the interplay is a much greater balancing act than one might first suspect.

The youth portrayed in this story of stories are deprived from the start on many cultural fronts. They are low-class Filipinos whose people were usually always depicted as being poor workers who eat dogs. Their experience on a different island just makes them more vulnerable to negative perceptions by others of all kinds. They would likely not have been accepted in the Filipino culture on the islands of the Philippines either.

Gay, promiscuous, uneducated and trying to survive in a media-dominated life that makes these qualities into popular television and movie plots. These are sex-positive young people who have no idea what it means to have a positive look at their own sexuality, so they just grab for the remote and change the channel to something that seems more comforting. Intensive stories about explicit youthful and childhood sexuality and identity cannot possibly travel in a straight line. This book reflects this very authentically.

The main players bob and weave in their own ways between what they want and what they value where sex seems always to be a subplot. The strong and confident Edgar, who wants to showcase his independence and pride, explodes with jealousy and fear when Vicente, whom he wants to help come out of the closet, tells their friends about Edgar's secret (that he is having sex with the school janitor).

Edgar scoffs, calling Vicente a faggot while proclaiming proudly how we would really never give away such an important asset of his so easily. As Edgar says to their group: "I would never give my youth up that fast. I not that stupid. 'Sides, he stay married already. Vicente just jealous cuz I can get what I want and he no can." It sounds very much like the reality shows many adults of today have gravitated towards.

In a similar way, when Trina talks of her lover, Erwin, a high-school jock, she openly shares how she knows he loves her because of his wisdom of not wanting her to get pregnant too early. Plus, he always brings lots of condoms. She knows he is not "dickin around," that he really loves her, even if we as readers doubt that he cares of much beyond his football reputation. Still, the confidence that she portrays is pretty solid, even if misplaced.

She sees no conflict with what she knows and what the rest of us experience for her. Like Kalihi in Farrah, it is better to act like what you really want than to want something you're fearful of portraying. But the real story across all of the many layers is their use of language. This book is not just about youth and their exploits and naivetes. It is about the Pidgin-ing of a language to fit into the forces that rule their lives.

How they roll together Tagalog, Hawaiian idioms, and 1970s American television perplexes everyone while giving a salute to their cultural clashes. How they speak demarks their personal uniqueness, their strange creativity, their defiance; and it even sets.