Thursday, January 20, 2011

The Tattoo #3

In the final chapters of "The Tattoo", we see the dynamics that make the characters Ken, Claudia, Koa and Kahala so strong collide together. Ken and Claudia flee to the Windward side of the island after Ken has a run in with Mama-san and her crew. At this point in the story Claudia is pregnant which upsets Mama-san and perpetuates there leaving to other side of the island. While on the Windward side there plan is to make enough money to support themselves, and the child, and head off to the mainland where they can start over. When Ken and Claudia meet up with Koa and Kahala for the first time at their house Claudia is reluctant to find out that Koa has been abusing Kahala. Ken, knowing Koa, is not too surprised. Koa ultimately tells Claudia to not get involved with there problems much to her dismay. Unfortunately, the gender expectations in today's society are for women to be complacent and inferior to men in every aspect. Friends and family can safely intervene to help women they know in violent situations by first and foremost letting them know that there is help and they do not need to stay in there current situation. Friends and family of the victim is there best asset in this situation. The victim needs to be aware there is help and in a dire situation be physically taken by a family member, or friend, to a shelter away from the perpetuator. I wouldn't advise anybody to confront them both, namely the perpetuator, in fear that when that person leaves the violence could escalate.
In order to prevent gender-based violence there needs to be a shift in the gender-role expectations in society. The United States has come a far way since the days before 1920 when women did not even have the right to vote. The problem is that many people, specifically men, are stuck in the traditional mentality that men are superior to women. Women need to know that they have a voice regardless of the situation they are in. A big component of this is understanding that information equals power. As a society, we need to spread the word about resources for help and rights of women in violent situations.
Taking into account how much the perception of race impacted the social dynamics in the novel I think that the book dispels stereotypes. In the end of the novel, Ken reflects on his past while talking to Cal and says, "It's funny, I think about race and sometimes feel that it would be a lot easier if we were actually that different from each other. I ain't here because of race, I'm here because I'm human. (McKinney, 217)" The ethnic stereotypes of groups play a big part on the dynamics in which the characters see themselves and others. For example, Koa and Ken would cruise around Kailua on a mission to be beat up haoles and Koa even had aspirations of beating up so many that they would one day leave the island. Another example is the dynamics between Claudia and Ken's father that play out when they move into his house on the windward side. At the dinner table Ken's father tells her, "You know, once da Japanese learned how fo' build da boats, dey built one of da most powerful navies in the world. What did Koreans do? Dey just kissed our asses and made more kim chee. (McKinney,198)"  His motives for not liking her are purely based on racial stereotypes. In order to diminish racial inequality in today’s society it is going to take some time. Racial inequality typically comes from historical events that happen between races. The dislikes for haoles comes from the time of Captain Cook when he arrived on the islands in 1778.  In a fight with Hawaiians Captain Cook died in 1779, but over the course of time haoles slowly took control of Hawaii. As a result of feeling oppressed by haoles over the course of these years, haoles are perceived by native Hawaiians to be arrogant and to not care about the people around then. To diminish racial inequality we need to educate each other on our differences and make people realize, as Ken said, that everybody is purely human.
I enjoyed reading this novel because it gave me insight into the side of Hawaii that I would have otherwise not been introduced to. It was interesting to read about the racial dynamics between the people living on the island. I had always heard that the locals, and native Hawaiians, have a distrust of haoles however I was not aware of the dislike they had between each other. As seen with Claudia and Ken's dad, Ken's dad was Japanese and did not like Claudia because she was Korean however to an outsider they would all appear to be locals. I found it useful for this course because it touched on everything we covered such as gender relations, ethnic stereotypes, and violence.

References
McKinney, Chris. The Tattoo. Mutual Publishing, 2000.



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