Dear BPRLive, Do you call yourself Asian American?
A bunch of us were at Alexandra Chang’s talk about her new book Envisioning Diaspora in which she described various aspects of Asian American Art, specifically the artist groups Godzilla, Godzookie and the Barnstormers. From what I’ve seen, this book is a rich collection of photographs of artwork and artists with discussion of the artists and their art (I couldn’t buy one as I had only $7 in my wallet, and then I lent $5 to Theresa so she could buy one). It’s available from Amazon and other booksellers.
During this talk, I became curious about how this category of art has been cast by artists and “the art world”. Does being an Asian American who is an artist (working on themes that may completely lack any overt Asian/Asian American elements, whatever that means) automatically make you an Asian American artist in the eyes of certain people? Who specifically calls themselves an Asian American artist? (Admittedly, I didn’t even actively self-identify as Asian American until well after college, but now I do so almost emphatically.) And we’ve got a lot of Asian American artists featured on BPR, but do they call themselves simply musicians/artists or Asian American artists and how should I be referring to them? Or does it not really matter? For example, I’m listening to Thomas’ Apartment right now, and one could say that there seems to be nothing in their music that makes them “obviously” Asian American artists. Is Adrian Tomine a graphic novelist, an Asian American graphic novelist or both? It may seem silly to ask these questions, but given that we still face mis-/under-representation in the media, such questions may have relevant consequences for our communities.
So here are my questions to you: In an era in which art by Asian Americans is sometimes deemed to be Post-Identity (no longer concerned with notions of identity, at least explicitly), how do you feel the idea of Asian American Art is changing? Do you think this kind of categorization and labeling is important? Do you actively call yourself Asian American or an Asian American artist, or does it really depend on the context or venue? Please share your ideas in the comments of this post!!
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“Asian American” is a phrase that I really don’t care for. I identify as “Asian” or “Chinese” and if I”m in another country, I will generally identify as “American.”
But that’s because the common social definitions of these phrases are convenient shorthand that cut to the heart of what people want to know. If it’s with someone who I know more closely, or something like that, then I might eschew these strictly defined phrases altogether.
I think this would be a good time to point people to “API*” – a phrase BPAC came up with to describe our community.
From BostonProgress.org:
API* is a reappropriation of the term API, which was created by the US government to more easily categorize our communities. While API still stands for Asian/Pacific Islander, with the * we redefine and expand the term to include- but not limited to: South-, Southeast-, East-, Central-, or West-Asian, Middle Eastern, Arab, Pacific Islander, Oceanic, Americans of Asian decent, multiracial, adoptee, “other,” or however one chooses to represent their cultural/political/ethnic identity.
For decades, others have used the category API to tell us what we are to them . But now, we use API* to define who we are to ourselves.
i finally read the post, albert! i tried to comment, but found there was too much context or background to my response that i couldn’t just leave a neat little comment.
however, i did get carried away and started writing on the topic of racial identity related to personal experience independent from response form.
glad giles left that comment…i actually didn’t realize that API-asterisk was a new and distinct expression…
Oh yeah… BPAC introduced that phrase API* to the world.
i’ve been wanting to respond to this for a few days now. bear with me, this will probably be convoluted and quite long!
with art, questions of what labels to attach really goes into questions of how important the artist’s Hand is in the artwork. i think the context of the artist’s life experiences matters a lot in terms of why and how s/he creates etc. i think he was talking more specifically about cultural artifacts and ‘high art,’ but there’s a philosopher named dennis dutton who argues that art serves to express and embody the culturalsocialetc beliefs/norms/blah to a people group and personal character and feelings specific to that individual. and i think this can be applied to different artforms to varying degrees. and here we need to look at what shapes and affects the character development of these individuals creating art. because race still carries a lot of weight in american society and culture, it’s hard for me to not assume that race had some effect on shaping the way the artist is expressing him/herself– even if the artist denies it him/herself (a tangent on which i will resist going off on for now). and also how audiences will view the artist. the categorization and labeling as ‘asian american’ or something else matters because it communicates the effect that living in a society where there’s some value placed on race has on an individual, be it via self-identification and/or other people identifying them as such.
(perhaps on on a more global stage, we can look at the way wang lee hom is classified as an ABC artist in taiwan and asia in general. his american upbringing have clear influences on his music and calling him an ABC artist serves to communicate this about his work.)
so there’s that, but then there are those darn pesky issues with the terms ‘asian american’ and ‘asian pacific american.’ the terms have a useful function in terms of categorical purposes. like the blog post author said, there’s still a lot of mis-/under-representation in the media, and most asian kids growing up get excited when they see any sort of mirror of their possible future selves, and the terms ‘asian american’ & ‘asian pacific american’ theoretically serve as useful terms to centralize resources for these kids to look up… when they get to college! …if they get to college! the term is so gated off by educational level that i don’t even know if it actually does serve as an effective resource. also, the terms as they are today carry strong connotations of east asians trying to combat the model minority by trying to speak on behalf of some southeast asian/pacific islander/whatever marginalized experience, but this attempt only serves to more deeply anchor the terms to a very specific east/south asian experience in america and (i think) are generally an insincere showing of trying to bridge east/south asian with southeast asian/pac. islander/whatever experiences. so i really think that the term can only encompass the experiences east/south asian kids w/certain socioeconomic background.
and yea, feel free to interpret my thoughts on the terms ‘aa’ and ‘apa’ are borderline hater, because i don’t really have a better alternative for what would work as a catchall phrase to categorize artists and non-artists alike. but i think i would label artists of asian backgrounds in subcategories as such: if they exhibit a particularly ‘white’ sound (indie, folk, etc) i’d probably call ‘em an asian american artist. if they have exhibit more hiphop/urban/whatever stylings, i’d probably call them something more generic (‘real’??) like ‘asian.’ ‘chinese.’ ‘filipino.’ etc. i can’t say this is the most politically correct approach and admit its very racialized, but it feels more honest and appropriate to me than calling them all ‘asian american’ does.
m. alright, good read of a comment. i just have one thing to pick at in regards to your mention of ‘white’ sound. while a lot of folk, indie, country, punk music scenes are dominated by “white” people, i think to group any or a few of these genres together and then classify them with a possessive racial term like “white sound” would actually reinforce a problem in music culture–the problem being that the trace of musical roots and traditions that these genres are influenced by or founded on can be traced back, in part, if not largely, to people of african roots and to non-european origins.
it’s already unfortunate that white people tend to dominate such musical subcultures and scenes, without evident efforts to diversify or develop a cultural/racial/gender consciousness amongst the musicianship, but let us not give “whiteness” further credit for having some sort of claim to any such sound. to racialize music in such a manner is not only a diss to the predecessors whose musical traditions these genres were founded on but to “people of color” who have an interest in and play such styles of music.
on another note, in thinking about under- and mis-representation in media, i had a few thoughts/reminders. as much as lack of representation and misrepresentation can be problematic and undesirable on a global level, the root of the these issues are far more than racial. they are symptoms of fundamental problems, including american culture’s attitudes and relation towards media and the screw-over that tends to come with capitalist production. i mean, even for white people, the “mirror” that media art provides is pretty wack, in my opinion, and the role that TV, commercial film, etc. plays in people’s lives is perhaps overwhelming. the point is that maybe we shouldn’t be seeking ourselves through external representation and that maybe we should be creating more and consuming less. personally-speaking, the problem i have with under- and mis-representation of people of asian descent is that it is a blatant reminder to most of us that our visibility remains undesirable or in low demand, that people in the industry face marketability inequality and that our fellow americans could really give a s*it that the visual culture that has become such a staple aspect of most people’s lifestyles and interests is worth consuming and loving without any respectful amount of “our” or other marginalized people’s presence. yo, people of all kinds get screwed over by the tv/film/media industry. women, LGBTQ peeps (because Will and Grace, RuPaul and the L word just don’t cut it), people who don’t have symmetrical faces or don’t want to make their naturalness or quirks the butt of a cultural joke or novelty of hipsters, et cetera…