Anna Li
The “Asian American” is an inherently political identity. The concepts of the ornament, “the insignificant, the superfluous, the merely decorative, the shallow…,” the consumption of Asian goods and the “yellow” woman are easy to criticize. The discussion of the Asian American identity can move beyond attempting to place it objectively as a means of time and place. There is much more to how the identity, whether it is welcomed or not, is utilized as a political and aesthetic tool. In 2016, the US government banned the use of the word “oriental” from federal law. The word had been present in Title 42 of the US Code detailing public health and social welfare up until that point. It would be replaced with the term “Asian American,” created in 1968 to act as an umbrella term for a growing diversity of people of Asian descent. Ten years later in 1978, Asian Pacific American Heritage Week would be established (later into Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May), combining two originally separated communities into what is known as the Asian Americans and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. The Asian Pacific American community encompasses a large number of various ethnic groups from a various number of countries. At times, it is difficult to truly understand the worth in such a label when other more specific labels could be more appropriate. In Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the arts, Holly Shen writes, “I wanted to understand the nuanced relationship between representation and objecthood. I was uninterested in leveraging or exploring identity because I considered it juvenile… [but] the truth is, I wasn’t interested in identity politics because it meant having to engage in my Asian Otherness.” The concept of an “Asian Otherness,” often adopted into forms of orientalism, is not so much discussed in its form or how it has managed to stay alive rather than attacked for its existence. After all, as Xin Wang says in “Asian Futurism and the Non-Other,” “Otherness is not a universal experience… [it] necessarily operates from a place of deficiency.” A prominent definition of orientalism comes from Edward Said, who emphasized the West’s intentional distinction in separating ‘the Orient’ and ‘the Occident’ on several levels, including politically, socially and ideologically. Although Said’s book was centered around orientalism of the Middle East, the general concepts of the distinction between “the East” and “the West” (such as the overrun dualistic philosophies of “the collective” and “the individual” between the two groups) can still be applied. If we must accept the fact that globalization is an inevitable process, perhaps then the elements of Asian culture that are best palatable towards the West, or what the West chooses to represent the East can be seen as a pretty byproduct that is not truly “Asian.” If the Asian American identity is purely for modification and discourse within its community, what exactly does it mean to be Asian American? There comes the fear, and perhaps more prominently, anger, towards the buying in of the “Asian aesthetic,” both literal and metaphorical, while ignoring the basis of where such art came from. At the same time, there is a softer pushback in the name of “transorientalism,” claiming that the way globalization is changing and portraying the Asian identity is worth something in how it represents the current generations, and is not any less authentic compared to more “traditional” definition of defining what it means to be Asian. Even more insistently, fashion and art often push against the notion that an artistic idea is owned by a single or group of people. In regards to one prominent Chinese aesthetic in fashion and art, the blue and white porcelain, Michelle Guo mentions that “China voluntarily aestheticized itself into its ‘inauspicious signs’ for outsider consumption in the historical context of transnational trade rather than colonial power imbalance… the history of chinoiserie is one that is devoid of… sinisterly ideological underpinnings.” Yet still, there is a particular fear that race “pigeonholes” an artist’s work into forcing them to make their work about their identity. Jean Shin, an artist who works with detailed-oriented sculptures, speaks about a need to preserve her Korean-American identity yet knowing that it is utilized against her to generalize her art. But even if the artist does not intend to allow her art to represent a part of her racial or ethnic identity, the power lies in the audience in how it is interpreted and utilized. Ultimately, it is inherent to the identity-seeking process for some amount of performance to be involved: after all, “Asian American” and “Pacific Islander” are more than a single indicator of a person’s ancestry. Is it not enough to create art? It is, but it will not remain as simply just that as it diffuses out to its audience. There is no bowl of sweets to choose from: art will unconsciously cling to the experiences crudely and inaccurately defined as “the Asian American experience.” The idea of Asianness will remain an imperfect model of what a race looks like. But identity will always be there, unmoving, eternal.
1 Comment
Andrea
11/17/2021 08:55:45 am
Well said, thank you for exploring all these different people's ideas and continuing to make your own things as well
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