Yokota (2022) Retrospective: Stranger in a Strange Land at Living on the Edge
Gerry Yokota
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Autoethnography,
Metaphor,
Cognitive Linguistics
This is a retrospective view of a presentation I gave in May 2022 at an online conference called Living on the Edge.
Abstract
Most university students are at a transitional stage of life, many leaving home for the first time and/or uncertain where they are headed after graduation, and many English language educators are in similarly liminal positions.
In this presentation, I show
- how I use autoethnography and engaged cognitive linguistics, especially attention to the power of metaphor,
- to facilitate classroom and professional discussions in the field of English language education
- about shifting experiences and perceptions of home and community,
- with reference to cultural expressions found in film, music and poetry,
- particularly works by or about exiles and refugees.
Metaphor Spotting
I often play the game of metaphor spotting in my classes, and this presentation is based on that exercise. I collected examples of works that came to mind when I thought about what home means to me, and then spotted the metaphors that appeared and explored how they express shifting experiences and perceptions of home and community.
*Yokota, G. (2020). Metaphorical Creativity for Intercultural Communication. In Journal of Research and Pedagogy VI, pp. 7-17. https://www.otemae.ac.jp/english/gotemae/60/
The first song that came to my mind was “Stranger in a Strange Land” by Leon Russell. I encountered this song as a high school student in Kentucky in the late sixties or early seventies, at the intersection of the anti-war movement and the ecology movement. In my memory, Earth Day was first established in 1970 in response in no small part to the ecocide being committed with defoliants like napalm and Agent Orange in Vietnam.
There are of course many other far more popular songs evoking images of home from that era that could have come to mind, such as Simon & Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound” or Lynard Skynard’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” But in retrospect, I think the main reason this song came to my mind first is related to my identity as a multiracial Asian American born in Ohio and growing up in Kentucky, often treated as an outsider and called racial slurs such as “Jap,” “nip,” and “gook.”*
*Yokota, G. (2022, forthcoming). Teaching for Social Justice in Japan: A Sustainable Model. In G.P. Glasgow (ed.), Multiculturalism, Language, and Race in English Education in Japan: Agency, Pedagogy, and Reckoning.
1. Listen to Leon Russell (1971)
https://youtu.be/0iL5aOJ7LR8
How many days has it been since I was born, how many days until I die
Do I know any ways that I can make you laugh, or do I only know how to make you cry
When the baby looks around him it's such a sight to see
He shares a simple secret with the wise man
He's a stranger in a strange land
. . .
And the baby looks around him and shares his bed of hay
With the burro in the palace of the king
He's a stranger in a strange land
. . .
Well, I don't exactly know what's going on in the world today, don't know what there is to say About the way the people are treating each other, not like brothers Leaders take us far away from ecology with mythology and astrology
. . .
Why can't we learn to love each other
It's time to turn a new face to the whole worldwide human race
Stop the money chase, lay back, relax, get back on the human track
Stop racing toward oblivion, oh, such a sad, sad state we're in
Delving into the rhetoric of this particular song,
I realize the first feature I must mention is the rhetorical roots of the phrase “stranger in a
strange land”: the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament of the Judeo-Christian Bible. It is spoken by Moses when he names his firstborn son. But I must honestly say that, although I religiously attended church three times a week until I graduated from high school, I was not consciously aware of the source of the expression, although it was vaguely familiar to me. It was only in the process of preparing for this presentation that I discovered the precise source. At the time, as a teenager, the song resonated for me more on an experiential level.
2. Reference: Exodus 2:22 (KJV)
1 And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.
2And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.
3And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink.
4And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.
5And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it.
6And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children.
7Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?
8And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child's mother.
9And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the women took the child, and nursed it.
10And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.
11And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.
12And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.
13And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?
14And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known.
15Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well.
16Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father's flock.
17And the shepherds came and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.
18And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon to day?
19And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock.
20And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? why is it that ye have left the man? call him, that he may eat bread.
21And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.
22And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom:
for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land. 
Next, as you were reading or listening to the lyrics, you may have noticed that Russell shifts to the New Testament and the story of the birth of Jesus. Having been born and raised in a Christian home,
this story was far more familiar to me than the story of Moses and the Exodus (despite having seen Charlton Heston in “The Ten Commandments”).
While making every effort to avoid any dishonest romanticization of my high school self, I recall clearly that what resonated for me most about this song was the references to class, as the child of a single mother (“the baby ... shares his bed of hay with the burro in the palace of the king”; “stop the money chase”), race (“the way the people are treating each other, not like brothers”; “why can't we learn to love each other”; “it's time to turn a new face to the whole worldwide human race”), and the environment (“leaders take us far away from ecology with mythology and astrology”).
Digression: Photo from my 1973 high school newspaper where I am allegedly a “campus radical” taking over the principal’s office. This forgotten relic was recently shared on my alumni class page as we gear up for our fiftieth anniversary next year. I actually edited an alternative newspaper called “The Bird,” where the masthead was cleverly designed to look at first glance like our school mascot, an eagle, but upon closer inspection could be recognized as a stylized raised middle finger. I provided information such as how to register as a conscientious objector. 3.
Listen to Joan Baez, “David’s Song” (1969) https://youtu.be/OxqrjqN3vXA
In my heart I will wait by the stony gate
and the little one in my arms will sleep
Every rising of the moon makes the years grow late and the love in our hearts will keep
There are friends I will make and bonds I will break as the seasons roll by and we build our own sky In my heart I will wait by the stony gate
and the little one in my arms will sleep
The stars in your sky are the stars in mine and both prisoners
of this life are we
Through the same troubled waters we carry our time
you and the convicts
and me
There's a good thing to know on the outside or in to answer not where but just who I am
Because the stars in your sky are the stars in mine and both prisoners of this life are we
The hills that you know will remain for you and the little willow green will stand firm
The flowers that we planted through the seasons past will all bloom on the day
you return
To a baby at play all a mother can say he'll return on the wind to our hearts, and till then I will sit and I'll wait by the stony gate
and the little one 'neath the trees will dance
The word “home” does not actually appear
in this song, but it is still the next song I thought of when I meditated on what home means to me. This is a prime example of the
limitations of corpus linguistics.* It would have been easy to simply Google “home metaphors” or use KWIC or WordSmith with the BNC and take my lead from what popped up, but that would not have been an honest or productive way to achieve my goal here, which is to identify how art may work at a level deeper than that and consider why.
*Yokota, G. (2022). Gender and the Rhetoric of Waste: An Intersectional Approach.
GALE Journal 14, pp. 55-67. https://www.gale-sig.org/journal
Why did this song say “home” to me?
(The extent of its importance to me is evidenced by the fact that I auditioned to sing it in the school talent show, accompanying myself on piano.
I didn’t pass the audition, but got a friend to sing it for me and I accompanied her on the piano.) It is because I knew that Baez’s husband, David Harris, was a conscientious objector who was imprisoned for 15 months for his beliefs. That knowledge gave special resonance to lines such as these.
“we build our own sky”
“we carry our time”
“to answer not where but just who I am”
This vision remains foundational to my sense of home.
6.
listen little sister
angels make their hope here
in these hills follow me I will guide you careful now no trespass
will guide you word for word mouth for mouth all the holy ones
embracing us all our kin
making home here
renegade marooned lawless fugitives grace these mountains we have earth to bind us the covenant between us can never be broken vows to live and let live
9.
autumn ending leaves like
fallen soldiers manmade hard hearts
fighting battles
on this once sacred ground
all killing done now dirt upon dirt covers all signs of death memory tamped down ways to not remember the disappeared dying faces longing to be seen one lone warrior lives comes home to the hills seeking refuge
seeking a place to surrender the ground where hope remains and souls surrender
4. Two poems from bell hooks, Appalachian Elegy (2012)“Tell this old Haitian, with his old ways, about a spiritual.”
“They’re like prayers,” Joseph said, “hymns that the slaves used to sing.
Some were happy, some sad, but most had to do with freedom, going to another world. Sometimes that other world meant home, Africa. Other times,
it meant heaven, like it says in the Bible. More often it meant freedom.”
5. Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994)
Meditating on these three selections and why they came first to mind in connection with the theme of home, I realized they connected the idea of home with two issues dear to my heart: war and freedom. I realized that the response of my high school self to “Stranger in a Strange Land” (the song, not the SF novel, which I only read years later) was coming not only from my Asian identity, often feeling I was being identified with the enemy, but from my sense of alienation from the ecocidal, genocidal, militaristic, misogynistic war culture that was generating that enmity and destroying the natural environment. In retrospect, I now see that the alienation of my youth lacked perspective on my own complicity as an American in the war system. As a new sense of alienation is now being triggered by the war in Ukraine and the many violent conflicts raging elsewhere in the world, I hope my last two musical selections will help keep awareness of that responsibility firmly in mind. 
On the surface, these two songs may initially sound very different rhetorically: the first more as a prayer, the second more as a question. But listening to them together, and also in the context of the excerpt from Breath, Eyes, Memory, I realized “Free” is not just a simple prayer. I encourage everyone to look for the questions that it also asks about the connection between freedom and home, as well as the question Lina Sleibi and my co-presenter May Kyaw Oo ask about our complicity and why conflicts in some countries get paid more attention than others. 
6. Listen to John Legend, “Free” (2022)
Go down Moses, way down Moses, go down to Egypt land
Lay down soldiers, lay down those weapons, let peace rush in
Let it wash through the valley, soar to the mountains, fall in the deepest blue sea
Let it fly 'cross the sky, a banner so high, that even the rockets will see
That there is a god, and I'm just sayin' Lawd
Rain down freedom, rain down 'til we're all free
Low down broken, homeless floatin’, lost and thrown to chance
Caged birds singing, break chains so we can do our holy dance
Let 'em ring through the valley, soar to the mountain, pierce to the core of the earth Let 'em sing cross the sky, a chorus so high, that everyone will know their worth
And that there is a God, and we're just sayin' Lawd Rain down freedom, rain down 'til we're all free https://youtu.be/R5Ol-Dx-7Ms 7. Listen to Lina Sleibi, “Over the Rainbow” (2018)
Open Mic Questions
In the open mic session before the closing ceremony, we were invited to share our passions. I dared to overcome my fear of ridicule and say my passion is world peace. But actually, that courage was inspired by an earlier speaker who lamented that they felt they had lost their passion for life. I owe my own rescue from the verge of a similar loss to them.
I asked five questions, the questions that were asked by Tony Jenkins, Education Director of World BEYOND War, when he accepted an award for his book An Alternative Global Security System.
Q1. Do you believe that war is inhumane?
Q2. Do you believe that war is immoral?
Q3. Do you believe that war is an illegitimate means to resolving conflict?
Q4. Do you believe that the institution of war can be abolished?
Q5. (Seeing, as expected, that everyone raised their hands for the first three questions but no one for the fourth) Why not?
Thank You!
gyokota@gmail.com gerryyokota.academia.edu
