Week No. 10 of 16

Guest Speaker: Samaneh Vahaji

Summary & Reflections: This week in class Samaneh Vahaji, a 23-year old Iranian woman who is an undergraduate student in architecture at the UofM, came to talk to us about veiled women, including housing considerations, and her own personal experience as a veiled woman living in the United States. She began her talk with a Powerpoint presentation, explaining the religious motivations of muslim women to cover themselves in the presence of non-relative males. She also mentioned the poetry of a famous Iranian poet who wrote a verse explaining the reasons for women wearing the veil in terms of metaphors of men as water and women as fire. When there is no screen between the two, water dominates fire by extinguishing it. But if you add a screen between the two, like a clay pot for example, the fire will eventually heat the water, and even cause it to evaporate eventually. She used this example to counter some commonly held misconceptions on the part of westerners who view veiled women as oppressed.

At first Samaneh seemed quite nervous talking to us—this is understandable, since giving a talk in front of a room of strangers is always stressful. But I really admired her confidence to stand before us and speak frankly about her religious beliefs and convictions in a very open way. Sure enough, within a few minutes, and especially once she sat down and joined in our circle discussion, she seemed very relaxed, and the entire class was interested to hear more. It was noteworthy, I think, that the majority of our questions dealt with non-specifically design questions...It seemed we were all very eager to first understand her as a person...how did she handle day to day things? How did she date the man she eventually married? What does she look like under the veil? The kinds of questions that we were asking I think was particularly revealing of our own lack of interaction with veiled women, and probably with muslims in general. We know so very little about her life, beliefs, and day to day....it was more important to answer some of those basic human questions first.

Questions: I was surprised myself to be so fascinated by Samaneh. As she spoke I felt the veil having the opposite from intended effect on me! I grew so curious about her, what could she look like under that veil?! What does she think about the way we dress? I was glad when someone asked that question that I also wanted to hear the answer to. She was a great visitor to our class in the sense that she brought the real issues of "similarity" and "difference" right into our circle of desks. The difference was before our eyes. The similarity had to be coaxed out by our eager curiosity. Eventually, it was.

Hmong American New Year's dress: The display of ethnicity, by Annette Lynch (1995)

Summary & Reflections: This article by DHA alum Lynch talked about the ways in which displaced Hmong refugees living in the United States are maintaining ties to their Laotian culture while blending in elements of the new culture in the United States. Lynch talks about some differences across generations, but focuses her attention on the young people and traditional dress, which comes out mainly at Hmong New Year. What is interesting, is that as we pointed out in discussion, it's not always easy to tell a Hmong on the street, since their everyday dress may look completely "normal" to us---unlike a very easily distinguished veiled woman like Sameneh. But for the New Year's celebration, the Hmong bring out their traditional clothing with its painstaking handiwork...What is interesting, as Lynch points out, is how this "traditional" handcrafted clothing has changed in America. Now, the borders between Hmong clans are blurred (the totemic boundaries), but the ethnic boundary is stronger, as disparate Hmong subgroups have found solidarity in their Hmongness against dominant White American society. What they are facing culturally, politically, socially, and geographically is now being reflected in New Year's costume. Examples given included the blending of White and Green Hmong dress styles---something that never happened back in Laos, but is now commonplace in the U.S. Other cited examples showed complete breaks with Laotian customs, and new breakthroughs made possible by wealth, materials, and techniques acquired only since arriving in the U.S.

Questions: None, really. This was a well-written article that raised great points and highlighted some important ways in which dress is reflecting a shifting cultural identity under stress of transition. I do wish that more photographs had been included along with her written descriptions of White and Green styles. I'm not sure what else to comment on, the article was straightforward, and our discussion was somewhat brief.