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# Week 1
## Lecture 1 (9/30)
- Ralph Ellison: novel bound up with nationhood
- What/who are we?
- What has been the experience of this particular group?
- How did it become this way?
- What stops us from attaining the ideal?
- American writers + artists always return to question of our national
collectivity -> successes / failures
- American flag is abstraction + symbol
- Same painting, over and over again, different meaning/symbol
- w/ rise of democracy in US, slavery happened in parallel -> cannot talk about
one without the other
- Use example of Asian American literature as entryway toward understanding
larger American / minority literature
- _Otherness_: radical difference -> Asian is always "foreigner", "strange",
"grotesque"
- Asians come to US for labor shortage (railroads, etc)
- Perceived through 19th century and further as radically different
- Assimilation: American promise of leaving behind "tradition" -> "modern life"
- Theoretical concept -> trickle into daily lives
- W.E.B. DuBois -> "the problem of the color life" + "double consciousness"
- Most useful metaphor: double consciousness
- Double consciousness -> hybridity: rethinking from two different distinct
selves -> combination / overlapping "hybrid consciousness"
- Does the arc of history bend toward progress?
- On style: how do stylistic decisions (by writers) shape their thematic
arguments?
- Leave things out, emphasize, etc
- On realism, modernism, postmodernism
- Next: read Erika Lee
## Section (10/04)
### Logistics
- 2 excused absences -> no questions asked
### Notes
- Minority-ness in 5 categories
- Assimilation
- Hybridity
- Double consciousness
- Invisibility
- Otherness
#### Otherness
- What is us? -> group an individual identifies w/ and sense of belonging
- Other -> (perceived) different / "out group"
- Distinguishing "us" / "other" -> culture, language, behaviors, religious
traits, citizenship, race, etc
- Social constructs -> (may) change over time
- Stereotypes, power, political policies, hegemony, etc...
- Anti-Asian laws and policies
- 1875 Page Act
- 1882 **Chinese Exclusion Act**
- 1907 Expatriation Act
- 1913 First Alien Land Law
- 1922 Cable Act (reverses Expatriation Act except for women who marry "aliens ineligible for citizenship")
- 1924 Immigration Act
- Keep in mind while reading Bulosan (191X, 1930-1956)
- Attain citizenship for rights, representation, and influence
- Accumulate wealth through real estate
- Form _families_ and establish a lasting presence

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# Week 2
## Lecture 1 (10/07)
- America is in the Heart -> What is the life that Bulosan is living as he's
producing the book?
- 1950s/1960s -> series of radical changes (CRM, Brown v. Board, CRA, Voting
Rights Act, Immigration and Nationality Act)
- Asians from Assimilation -> Model Minority
- Compliance, emasculated -> in contrast to "loudness" of African Americans /
Latinos (in fighting for civil rights) -> Model way to be minority is to be
silent
- Supposed _cultural_ traits -> better at math, stronger family structures
- Asian American literary response -> "claiming America for Asian Americas"
- Community -> desire to remain "others" but by defining our own "otherness" ->
resistance to domination
- History of Asian America is also a history of how race works in United States
-> there is a particular history of race in America which is understood by
looking at the Asian American history, cannot be understood solely by looking
at history of other groups
- Liminal Asian America -> simultaneously included and excluded
- AA living between America and "origins" -> transnational to achieve something
that is quintessentially American
- How are our writers expressing the notion of being included and excluded
- Bulosan is telling his own story from the POV of an older, wiser person
- Using Spanish words -> showing people that they have a whole separate POV,
distinct group of people
- Bulosan's aesthetic eyes fall on the natural land -> repeatedly talks about
how beautiful his home was -> his way of explaining ("translating") life in
Phillipines -> a certain "transcendence to nature" -> same in one place to
another
- Once Bulosan leaves America, never comes back -> act of writing is nostalgic
- 1899-1902: American-Phillipine War -> 1907-1924 approx. 52,000 Filipinos
immigrate to US -> 1946 Phillipines gains independences -> Bulosan arrives in
between
- Context between Bulosan's arrival in 1930 and publication of book in 1946:
The Great Gatsby -> Emblematic of Roaring Twenties; not a huge hit
immediately -> Fitzgerald explores the life of striving outsider -> critique
of American promise (upwards mobility, second chances)
- Context 2: The Good Earth -> American born Pearl S. Buck, daughter of
Chinese, grew up in China, Wrote her most famous novel about inhabitants of a
Chinese village. Shaped ways in which Americans viewed Chinese in America
- Greatest connection: Grapes of Wrath
- First few pages of Bulosan -> Nature, Bulosan's location, translating
Filipino reality for Western audience, split between young and older/wiser
Bulosan
- What is Bulosan doing besides just talking about nature? Why is he
concentrating on it? -> in conversation with specific type of literary style
-> the "pastoral"
- The pastoral is a literary tradition -> traditionally, poems about shepherds
-> beauty of life, waking up early, farming, etc -> idealized lives of the
poor -> tension between cultivated author and low born subjects -> Bulosan
deconstructs pastoral through realism
- Social Realism -> unvarnished and unfiltered economic racial injustice ->
working class figure as hero -> scrutinizing ills of society -> reality
without illusion -> one problem: emphasis on collective vs. individual
- Do for Filipinos in America what Lange tried to do for working class -> book
as work of pastoral social realism
## Lecture 2 (10/10)
- AH is a biography in the "social realist" mode -> leaves home in the
Phillipines after beaten down by harsh realities of life -> tries to maintain
optimism about American Dream as he continues through his journey
## Section
- Pastoral
- Realism -> depict life as it truly is, complexities, imperfections, etc,
verisimilitude
- Social realism -> see peoples' struggles, critiques about causes/reasons,
### Writing assignment
Then, please write up why Carlos portrayed them in this particular manner.
Each individual should write your own answer. Please write the name of the woman you are analyzing.
1. Mary Strandon
2. Marian
3. Judith
Mary Strandon was portrayed as a kindly woman who gave Bulosan work and allowed him to read

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#import "@preview/unequivocal-ams:0.1.1": ams-article, theorem, proof
#show: ams-article.with(
title: [Week 2],
authors: (
(
name: "Youwen Wu",
organization: [University of California, Santa Barbara],
email: "youwen@ucsb.edu",
url: "https://youwen.dev",
),
),
bibliography: bibliography("refs.bib"),
)
= Vectors, linear combinations, spans, matrix-vector product.
- Consider a whole new way of looking at linear systems
- Add vectors entrywise, head to tail
- Multiply vectors via scaling
- A more flexible way to draw a line. For a line through point $p$, in direction $arrow(d)$, use $arrow(p) + t arrow(d), t in RR$. Intuition: Add a vector $arrow(p)$ pointing to point $p$ and compose a vector pointing in the intended direction $arrow(d)$ head to tail.
A linear combination is
$ arrow(y) = sum_(k=1)^n alpha_n arrow(v)_n $

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@article{netwok2020,
title={At-scale impact of the {Net Wok}: A culinarically holistic investigation of distributed dumplings},
author={Astley, Rick and Morris, Linda},
journal={Armenian Journal of Proceedings},
volume={61},
pages={192--219},
year=2020,
publisher={Automatic Publishing Inc.}
}

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#import "@preview/unequivocal-ams:0.1.1": ams-article, theorem, proof
#show: ams-article.with(
title: [A Digression on Abstract Linear Algebra],
authors: (
(
name: "Youwen Wu",
organization: [University of California, Santa Barbara],
email: "youwen@ucsb.edu",
url: "https://youwen.dev",
),
),
bibliography: bibliography("refs.bib"),
)
= Introduction
Many introductory linear algebra classes focus on _application_. In general,
this is a red herring and is engineer-speak for "we will teach you how to
crunch numbers with no regard for conceptual understanding."
If you are a math major (or math-adjacent, such as Computer Science), this
class is essentially useless for you. You will learn how to perform trivial
numerical operations such as the _matrix multiplication_, _matrix-vector
multiplication_, _row reduction_, and other trite tasks better suited for
computers.
If you are taking this course, you might as well learn linear algebra properly.
Otherwise, you will have to re-learn it later on, anyways. Completing a math
course without gaining a theoretical appreciation for the topics at hand is an
unequivocal waste of time. I have prepared this brief crash course designed to
fill in the theoretical gaps left by this class.
= Basic Notions
== Vector spaces
Before we can understand vectors, we need to first discuss _vector spaces_. Thus
far, you have likely encountered vectors primarily in physics classes,
generally in the two-dimensional plane. You may conceptualize them as arrows in
space. For vectors of size $>3$, a hand waving argument is made that they are
essentially just arrows in higher dimensional spaces.
It is helpful to take a step back from this primitive geometric understanding
of the vector. Let us build up a rigorous idea of vectors from first
principles.
=== Vector axioms
The so-called _axioms_ of a _vector space_ (which we'll call the vector space
$V$) are as follows:
#enum[
Commutativity: $u + v = v + u, " " forall u,v in V$
][
Associativity: $(u + v) + w = u + (v + w), " " forall u,v,w in V$
][
Zero vector: $exists$ a special vector, denoted $0$, such that $v + 0 = v, " " forall v in V$
][
Additive inverse: $forall v in V, " " exists w in V "such that" v + w = 0$. Such an additive inverse is generally denoted $-v$
][
Multiplicative identity: $1 v = v, " " forall v in V$
][
Multiplicative associativity: $(alpha beta) v = alpha (beta v) " " forall v in V, "scalars" alpha, beta$
][
Distributive property for vectors: $alpha (u + v) = alpha u + alpha v " " forall u,v in V, "scalars" alpha$
][
Distributive property for scalars: $(alpha + beta) v = alpha v + beta v " " forall v in V, " scalars" alpha, beta$
]
It is easy to show that the zero vector $0$ and the additive inverse $-v$ are
_unique_. We leave the proof of this fact as an exercise.
These may seem difficult to memorize, but they are essentially the same
familiar algebraic properties of numbers you know from high school. The
important thing to remember is which operations are valid for what objects. For
example, you cannot add a vector and scalar, as it does not make sense.
_Remark_. For those of you versed in computer science, you may recognize this
as essentially saying that you must ensure your operations are _type-safe_.
Adding a vector and scalar is not just false, it is an _invalid question_
entirely because vectors and scalars and different types of mathematical
objects. See #cite(<chen2024digression>, form: "prose") for more.
=== Vectors big and small
In order to begin your descent into what mathematicians colloquially recognize
as _abstract vapid nonsense_, let's discuss which fields constitute a vector space. We
have the familiar space where all scalars are real numbers, or $RR$. We
generally discuss 2-D or 3-D vectors, corresponding to vectors of length 2 or
3; in our case, $RR^2$ and $RR^3$.
However, vectors in $RR$ can really be of any length. Discard your primitive
conception of vectors as arrows in space. Vectors are simply arbitrary length
lists of numbers (for the computer science folk: think C++ `std::vector`).
_Example_. $ vec(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) $
Moreover, vectors need not be in $RR$ at all. Recall that a vector space need
only satisfy the aforementioned _axioms of a vector space_.
_Example_. The vector space $CC$ is similar to $RR$, except it includes complex
numbers. All complex vector spaces are real vector spaces (as you can simply
restrict them to only use the real numbers), but not the other way around.
In general, we can have a vector space where the scalars are in an arbitrary
field $FF$, as long as the axioms are satisfied.
_Example_. The vector space of all polynomials of degree 3, or $PP^3$. It is
not yet clear what this vector may look like. We shall return to this example
once we discuss _basis_.
== Vector addition. Multiplication
Vector addition, represented by $+$, and multiplication, represented by the
$dot$ (dot) operator, can be done entrywise.
_Example._
$
vec(1,2,3) + vec(4,5,6) = vec(1 + 4, 2 + 5, 3 + 6) = vec(5,7,9)
$
$
vec(1,2,3) dot vec(4,5,6) = vec(1 dot 4, 2 dot 5, 3 dot 6) = vec(4,10,18)
$
This is simple enough to understand. Again, the difficulty is simply ensuring
that you always perform operations with the correct _types_. For example, once
we introduce matrices, it doesn't make sense to multiply or add vectors and
matrices in this fashion.
== Vector-scalar multiplication
Multiplying a vector by a scalar simply results in each entry of the vector
being multiplied by the scalar.
_Example_.
$ beta vec(a, b, c) = vec(beta dot a, beta dot b, beta dot c) $
== Matrices
Before discussing any properties of matrices, let's simply reiterate what we
learned in class about their notation. We say a matrix with rows of length $m$,
and columns of size $n$ (in less precise terms, a matrix with length $m$ and
height $n$) is a $m times n$ matrix.
Given a matrix
$ A = mat(1,2,3;4,5,6;7,8,9) $
we refer to the entry in row $j$ and column $k$ as $A_(j,k)$ .
=== Matrix transpose
A formalism that is useful later on is called the _transpose_, and we obtain it
from a matrix $A$ by switching all the rows and columns. More precisely, each
row becomes a column instead. We use the notation $A^T$ to represent the
transpose of $A$.
$
mat(1,2,3;4,5,6)^T = mat(1,4;2,5;3,6)
$
Formally, we can say $(A_(j,k))^T = A_(k,j)$.

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@misc{chen2024digression,
author = {Evan Chen},
title = {Digression on Type Safety},
year = {2024},
howpublished = {\url{https://web.evanchen.cc/upload/1802/tsafe-1802.pdf}},
}

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# Peace dialogue notes
Rotem Levin's introduction
- Grew up as Israeli, became soldier
- Doubted morals, told to not think about consequences
- Army is above everything
- Never imagined meeting Palestinians -> always told to never cross wall (into
West Bank), violent
- Never heard about Nakba (in Israel) until Germany -> In Israel, Law prohibits teaching Nakba
- Israeli/Palestine peace activists: First step forward is recognizing the
other side
- Decided to move and live with Palestinian friends in West Bank -> reaction
was shock
- Oppressive system, Israeli government encroaching on Palestinian way of life
Osama Illiwat's introduction
- Lived in Jericho, born in East Jerusalem
- Stories of Nakba were earliest
- In Jerusalem, no services, not allowed to fix houses, etc
- Army gave two options: administrative detention -> kidnapped by General for
2-3 years or military court
- Learned about all injustices committed by jews (Israelis) and began to feel
hate, throw stones, etc
- Heard of peace talks, celebrations in Jericho
- Felt not recognized by international law, community, etc -> no rights
- Palestinian schools closed by Israeli army
- Shocked by jews who believe in peace -> could not believe they exist -> only
one narrative
- Met woman who believed had right to live on land, but did not believe they
had the right to displace and discriminate against others
- Everyone is suffering, paying the price
- Went to Europe, learned what happened to Jews (holocaust) -> came to
conclusion that Israelis and Palestinians have to meet and talk to resist the
system
- Started "Visit Palestine" to show Israelis what Palestine and life under
occupation looks like
- Only way forward is to give everyone their freedom
Questions:
Where was the meeting in Bethlehem?
_Q: What other parts of the system oppress the people?_
A: There are three groups:
First - from (Jordan) River to Sea. Arabs born in Israel ostensibly have
citizenship
Second group: Palestinians in West Bank, Gaza: not citizens, military
law/police instead of civil police
Third group: Palestinians expelled
The entire system is how to guarantee Jewish majority (ethnostate). You can't
guarantee "Jewish democratic state" without discrimination. Jewish democratic
state / Jewish majority / "Jewish supremacy"
_Q: Is land redistribution is a path through this crisis, and do you see that as
a part of this movement?_
A: In America, ethnic cleansing is complete, so we can talk about reparations,
redistribution, etc. In Gaza, we are in the middle of ethnic cleansing.
Redistribution is a "fantasy", because we need to stop the violence now. Of
course, it is part of thefuture, but no one is imagining it because worried
about more immediate issues
Need to work on a ceasefire now. Worrying about what is the best solution,
peace organization, etc, is us trying to keep conscience happy. No one knows
about what is going on in Gaza, Israeli jails, etc. We need to talk about the
governments defending Israel's crimes. Peace organizations are part of the
system. Can't use system to change system.
Israeli government doesn't want citizens to learn common language with Arabs.
Discourage learning Arabic. Want to keep people apart because otherwise they
will realize they are similar.
System needs to keep people divided to dehumanize them.
_Q: Who in the system do or would you think you need to speak to?_
A: Very flexible, willing to speak to anyone who agrees or disagrees with us.
Want to convince everyone.
_Q: What do you think are the best steps to take to promote ceasefire on
individual and institutional level?_
A: We are all complicit because the system in Israel is the same system here.
The same military complex, the same bombs. Understand how system works, and
unite and build power and a movement. Need to be open and let people who
disagree with us into our space, to stop separation of us against them.
Transformation takes time. We are fighting against the empire who makes
billions while we kill each other.
Q: It seems that real transformation will not occur until mass media begins to
change. The most respected media voices censor much of the discourse. What has
your experience been with the media branding many of your points as
anti-semitic?
A: The mainstream media are not interested. Only invited by podcasts and small
newspapers. Big channels will never talk to the activists. We need to build
alternative independent media.
Q: Do you feel that with support for Palestine on social media, Israelis are
beginning to see the actions of the Israeli state?
A: More and more Israelis are waking up but it's not enough, the mainstream are
moving right. Every night, the news is propaganda. The prevalence social media
and phones is very good because it's finally documenting the war crimes.
Before, people wouldn't believe the atrocities committed by the Israel
government. The US government is working more for Israel than the Americans.
Q: Is the way that we discuss the issues productive?
A: Many people are too busy infighting amongst themselves, when they have no
skin in the game.

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#import "@preview/ilm:1.2.1": *
#set text(lang: "en")
#show: ilm.with(
title: [Notes on the Israeli-Palestine Peace Dialogue],
author: "Youwen Wu",
date: datetime(year: 2024, month: 10, day: 08),
abstract: [
],
figure-index: (enabled: true),
table-index: (enabled: true),
listing-index: (enabled: true),
)
= Introductions
- Recruited to

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# Week 1
## Goldschmidt & Marashi Reading
- What is "middle east"?
- Nile Valley to Muslim lands of Central Asia
- Geography: hot + dry, rainfall but small
- Many farming villages found, however
- Polar ice caps retreated, rainfall diminished. People move to Nile, Tigris,
Euphrates, etc.
- Middle East more accessible than US, China, etc.
- Not endowed w/ nature; no grassy plains, scarce drinking water
- Meager mineral deposits
- Huge oil reserves (more than half of world's), but concentrated in few
countries: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, UAE
- Exploitation started in 20th century
- Mountains shield minorities in countries (eg. Lebanon, Yemen, Iran) while
invasions bring new races + culture into Middle East, resulting in cultural
"mosaic" - many physical characteristics, belief systems, languages, cultures
<!--- $9$ of ME is muslim, half / half speak Arabic / (Turkish, Persian)-->
- "Mosaic" starts to crumble - modern information age (schooling, TV, etc) lead
to universal culture (mostly) among young
- Cultural/religious difference persist -> conflicts. Muslims felt unequal to
Christians -> Lebanon civil wars
- Iraq -> Suni vs. Shi'a Muslims
- Israel -> 1.7 million Arabs in borders
- Gaza Strip -> occupied between 1967 -> 2005, invaded 2006, 2009, 2014,
contains 1.8 million Arabs. Jews (in Israel) divided between European or Asian
and African origin (Ashkenazim vs. Mizrachim / Orientals).
- Interaction between humans + geography important
- Main causes of ME conflict
1. Incomplete transfer from religious / theological government to secular
government
2. Resulting belief that governments are illegitimate, not willingly obeyed
3. Quest for dignity + freedom by people determined to not lose independence
(again)
4. Involvement of outside gov't without regard for the people in ME
5. Growing concentration of destructive weapons in volatile countries
6. Scarcity of / demand for food, water, fossil fuels
7. Overpopulation and widening inequality (wealth gap)
8. Failure to resolve Palestine-Israel
9. Sectarian / Ethnic tensions
10. Palestinian, Iraqi, Syrian, Yemeni refuges. Internal displacement.

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@ -9,6 +9,12 @@ garden_.
This is where I grow my ideas, and they are meticulously tagged to form the This is where I grow my ideas, and they are meticulously tagged to form the
knowledge webs you see in the top right. knowledge webs you see in the top right.
Currently this is a very new vault and the only contents are the trash notes
which I took in the fall quarter of 2024. You can find them in
[the Fall 2024 directory](./Fall-2024), with [[./Fall-2024/as-am-5/week-1.md]],
[[./Fall-2024/as-am-5/week-2.md]] and [[./Fall-2024/mes-45/week-1.md]] being
the weekly notes.
Feel free to take a look around and appreciate the scenery. Feel free to take a look around and appreciate the scenery.
## FAQ ## FAQ

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import { PageLayout, SharedLayout } from "./quartz/cfg" import { PageLayout, SharedLayout } from "./quartz/cfg";
import * as Component from "./quartz/components" import * as Component from "./quartz/components";
// components shared across all pages // components shared across all pages
export const sharedPageComponents: SharedLayout = { export const sharedPageComponents: SharedLayout = {
@ -8,11 +8,10 @@ export const sharedPageComponents: SharedLayout = {
afterBody: [], afterBody: [],
footer: Component.Footer({ footer: Component.Footer({
links: { links: {
GitHub: "https://github.com/jackyzha0/quartz", "Source Code": "https://code.youwen.dev/youwen5/alexandria",
"Discord Community": "https://discord.gg/cRFFHYye7t",
}, },
}), }),
} };
// components for pages that display a single page (e.g. a single note) // components for pages that display a single page (e.g. a single note)
export const defaultContentPageLayout: PageLayout = { export const defaultContentPageLayout: PageLayout = {
@ -34,11 +33,15 @@ export const defaultContentPageLayout: PageLayout = {
Component.DesktopOnly(Component.TableOfContents()), Component.DesktopOnly(Component.TableOfContents()),
Component.Backlinks(), Component.Backlinks(),
], ],
} };
// components for pages that display lists of pages (e.g. tags or folders) // components for pages that display lists of pages (e.g. tags or folders)
export const defaultListPageLayout: PageLayout = { export const defaultListPageLayout: PageLayout = {
beforeBody: [Component.Breadcrumbs(), Component.ArticleTitle(), Component.ContentMeta()], beforeBody: [
Component.Breadcrumbs(),
Component.ArticleTitle(),
Component.ContentMeta(),
],
left: [ left: [
Component.PageTitle(), Component.PageTitle(),
Component.MobileOnly(Component.Spacer()), Component.MobileOnly(Component.Spacer()),
@ -47,4 +50,4 @@ export const defaultListPageLayout: PageLayout = {
Component.DesktopOnly(Component.Explorer()), Component.DesktopOnly(Component.Explorer()),
], ],
right: [], right: [],
} };