Blu's Hanging Controversy

While the UH Pamantasan Council's concern over Yamanaka's portrayal of Filipino culture is understandable, the assessments and insights offered in their criticisms are shallow and ill-founded. The boldest of their claims,"Her one dimensional characterization of Filipinos," assumes an absolute Filipino identity- a fact that is simply untrue. It is clear that Council's beliefs are directed by the notion, "a good Filipino, or no Filipino." More clearly, the Council appears to hold the Filipino character as a morally flat, unchanging identity. This is ironic, as assuming the Filipino character to be composed of only moral goodness (if Yamanaka's portrayal is entirely wrong) parallels Yamanka's alleged crime. The only variance, Yamanaka is accused of negatively polarizing Filipino culture, while the Council affords the opposite view.
Additionally, the Council's belief that awarding Blu's Hanging with the AAAS Fiction Award "demonstrates insensitivity and disrespect" is an overreaction. The Council's inability to see Yamanaka's literary purpose, and decision to immediately scapegoat her characters due to personal offenses, reveals their inefficiency as critics. It is foolish to believe the award praises Yamanaka solely for her portrayal of Filipino culture.
Conversely, the critique offered by Simpson, Chung, Eng, and Ho is more appreciative of Yamanaka's novel. The ability of this assessment to see beyond the racial and gender divides demonstrates a literary fluency, unlike the Council's aforementioned response. More so, this cluster of authors is able to speculate Blu's political commentary, in a more rational and reasonable form of discussion. Unlike the Council, these author's concern themselves only with the book's own identity (as a political statement, a response to imperialism, etc.) rather than nit-pick at the novel piece by piece. In short, to appreciate the novel, all personal bias must be set aside.