Thoughts, musings, and observations about race in America, particularly the mixing of race--in all the ways you can imagine: people of various races interacting, people of various races not wanting to mix, issues of purity, hybridity, multiplicity, heterogeneity, and any other way you can describe the blending, melding, melting, tossing, turning, churning of race relations in the United States.
Today Rodney King passed away. He was found dead in his swimming pool in southern California. He was 47 years old. For those of you who may not know, Rodney King was the catalyst (I think that's probably an accurate way of putting it) for one of the most massive and cataclysmic race riots/insurrections in recent memory. In fact this past April marked the 20th anniversary of the LA Riots/Insurrection (click here for more information about this event--also Mike Davis has an excellent essay about why the April 1992 event should be referred to as an uprising or insurrection vs. riot--I can't find it on-line but here's a piece by him in the LA Review of Books that's worth looking at).
In the New York Times article about his passing, King is quoted as saying:
“People look at me like I should have been like Malcolm X or Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks,” he told The Los Angeles Times
in April. “I should have seen life like that and stay out of trouble,
and don’t do this and don’t do that. But it’s hard to live up to some
people’s expectations.”
It's hard to live up to the expectations that others have of us. Especially, in King's case, when he found himself catapulted into a national and international spotlight. Especially when we want people to be role models and to take on the causes for important social justice movements or to become the spokesperson who will speak truth to justice and do the right thing.
But Rodney King was human. Which meant he made mistakes. He was flawed. He didn't live his life perfectly (how many of us do?). And yet from this quote, it seems as if others, perhaps including King himself, thought he should have been something more than he was. And trying to live up to the expectations of others is probably one of the hardest things that any of us could ever encounter. And if you're Rodney King, imagine how much harder those expectations would rest on your shoulder.
Rodney King's name will forever be linked to the LA Riots/Uprisings. And his name will forever be associated with the worst of police brutality. But I also hope he will be remembered as someone who also inspired people to want a different vision of racial justice and who also, in the heat of violence, pleaded with people by somewhat helplessly asking, "Can't we all just get along?"
Can't we all just get along.
It seems like such a simple request. But just like expectations, it can be hard to live up to.
I should begin this post by disclosing that I know the subject of today's T.G.I.F. (The Great Impossible Feat). But this is not why I've chosen to talk about Helen Zia today. Helen Zia is an Asian American activist par excellence. She most famously is tied to Vincent Chin--fighting for justice on his behalf. She was featured prominently in Christine Choy and Renee Tajima's excellent documentary Who Killed Vincent Chin? (by the way, if you haven't seen this documentary, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT, although truth be told, it will be hard to find outside of indie video rental shops or college/university libraries).
The first time I met her was when she came up to me after I delivered a conference paper on R. Kelly and The Matrix called "From R. Kelly to Keanu Reeves: Asian influences in American Pop Culture" (to be honest, I'm not sure if this is the exact title, but I know that the title had both R. Kelly and Keanu Reeves in the title, which made people scratch their heads since this was an academic conference). I saw her walk into the room and was pleased that she stayed for our panel and then shocked when she came up to me afterwards and asked for my card because she liked my paper! You have to understand: I am a total academic geek. So Helen Zia coming up to me at the end of a conference panel and telling me she wanted my card would be the equivalent of having George Clooney or Helen Mirren coming up to you and asking you for your autograph--you'd be speechless (and I nearly was).
So why was I so thrilled? Because I want to be Helen Zia when I grow up. Seriously. This woman was a community organizer in Detroit back in the day when we had no idea what a community organizer was. She was on the front lines of fighting for social justice in the Vincent Chin case, but has also continued to fight for social justice for many causes, like women's rights (she was an executive editor at Ms. Magazine), queer rights, Asian Americans falsely accused of espionage, like scientist Wen Ho Lee (she helped co-author Lee's My Country Versus Me), civil rights (she has testified to Congress about racial impacts in news media) and the connection between race and gender (which came about from her research on women who join neo-Nazi organizations). She is also clearly in support of gay marriages since she was featured on the cover of the New York Times as one of the first couples to be married to her long-time partner Lia Shigemura in 2008 when California, for a brief and shining moment, allowed gay marriage in the state (she and Lia also married in 2004 when Mayor Gavin Newsom allowed marriages to occur in SF City Hall).
[Helen and Lia at their 2008 wedding at SF City Hall]
Plus, she is the author of an incredible book: Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People. I had the privilege of introducing Helen at a book reading at the latest American Literature Association conference.
When Helen talked about writing this book and finding a publisher for the book, she talked candidly about wanting to tell a story, private yet public, personal yet global, about Asian American experiences that reflected the reality of Asian American life, which means talking about queer Asian Americans and her own experiences as a lesbian and coming-out. And her book talks about gender, class, racism, and a host of other topics in an organic and empowering way.
Helen Zia continues to be a scholar and activist and journalist and a woman who wants others to be involved--like most recently with this video she did on behalf of AAPI Momentum encouraging APA people to get involved and volunteer the week of May 24-31 as part of AAPI Week of Service:
Helen Zia inspires me to want to work on behalf of social justice issues; her dedication and devotion to multiple causes is admirable. Like I said, I want to be Helen Zia when I grow up. Which is why she gets the T.G.I.F. award for not just talking the talk but walking the walk of social justice as a life-long activist.
[REMEMBER: If you post a comment during the month of May (which is APA heritage month) you will be automatically entered to win one of five books donated by Hachette Book Group. Read the May 14 post (scroll to the bottom) to see the details of the books and how to win]
I am a firm believer in allies. When I teach the novel Donald Duk, I point out how Frank Chin, a man renown for his ethnic-nationalism (as well as his misogyny) and one who is quick to bash white racists, has carefully crafted the character of Arnold Azalea, the rich, white best friend of the eponymous protagonist, Donald Duk. That Frank Chin, of all people (Mr. Yellow Power himself) recognizes the importance of white allies in the fight against discrimination should be a signal that allies are seriously needed and wanted for all types of reasons, causes, movements, and paradigm shifts.
And I have written about allies elsewhere in this blog. And I want to return to the topic of allies because I think for some people, the idea that you can cross lines of affiliation, be they ethnic, racial, sexual, gender, class, or religion is impossible. In other words, as a straight woman I can't possibly understand the discrimination that a queer person experiences. True. I probably can't. But that doesn't mean I can't fight on behalf of queer people. And really, it's not so much, for me, fighting on behalf of queer rights as it is fighting on behalf of my own rights as someone who embraces a social justice worldview. Their fight IS my fight.
Let me also be clear--I'm not talking about appropriating someone else's cause or speaking FOR a community (I don't know that I could even speak for Asian American female academics, a community that I do identify with, but who am I to make pronouncements for my peers?). I am talking about being an ally. On educating yourself on topics, not because you want to fetishize or save the world (and here I'm thinking in particular of the disturbing narrative that emerged at the RNC in September of Cindy McCain "rescuing" a poor little orphan girl in an impoverished third world country, saving her from a life of destitution by bringing her to the bountiful bosom on the U.S.), but because you feel you are part of the larger world and because your commitment to being a world citizen requires you to understand others regardless of your subject position.
Which brings me to a little plug I want to make on behalf of a playwright who recently left a comment on my post on Yuri Kochiyama. The commenter has written a play about Kochiyama and other Japanese American girls who wrote letters to Japanese American soldiers fighting in the 442nd/100th battalion during WWII (largely on the European front in Italy, although there were other Japanese American soldiers involved in intelligence and translation in the Pacific theater during this time). The commenter noted that she was hesitant to write about the history of the Japanese American internment due to her distance from the subject as a Russian-American-Jewish woman, but then she was inspired by the example of Yuri Kochiyama herself, because she had expressed similar apprehensions before meeting Malcolm X, and certainly Kochiyama's life is an exemplar to us all of how to be an ally across multiple lines of affiliation.
So. If any of you are reading this and live in the Bay Area, let me share some information with you about the one-act play Bits of Paradise (click here for original notice in Asian Week):
Play Excerpts to Honor Freedom Fighter Yuri Kochiyama
San Francisco’s Marsh Theatre will host excerpts from the one-act play Bits of Paradise, based on the letter-writing campaign between Japanese American girls and women in U.S. concentration camps and Japanese American soldiers during World War II, at their Monday Night Series Nov. 17 and Dec. 1 at 7:30 p.m. Known as “The Crusaders,” the internees were led by then-20-year-old Mary Nakahara, who went on to become a prominent civil rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Yuri Kochiyama.
Together they proved the saying that “Occasions do not make heroes, they simply unveil them.” Playwright Marlan Warren directs the young, all-Asian American cast that includes Chanelle Yang, Pisha Wayne, Linda Wang, Connie Kim, Wesley Cayabyab, Jean Franco, and Wilton Yiu. Kochiyama will attend, along with other original octogenerian Crusaders. Tickets are $7.00. No reservations. For more info, contact 415-202-0108.
Go out and see it--and write back and leave a message for all of us who aren't able to take in this performance.
In continuation of the series I'm doing in honor of APA history, I'm turning the spotlight on Asian American activism in the form of one particular activist:
Yuri Kochiyama
[this is a picture of Kochiyama with two black activists in the late 1960s]
Yuri Kochiyama was born in 1961. She and her family were interned in Jerome, AK for the duration of WWII in an American concentration camp, and after the war, she and her husband, Bill, moved to Harlem, where they became active with a variety of social justice movements. Kochiyama is most famously known in activist circles for her friendship with Malcolm X and her work with his organization and other Civil Rights organizations of the 1960s and 1970s. There is a very famous photo of Kochiyama cradling Malcolm X's head right after he was shot--it can be seen in Renee Tajima-Pena's excellent documentary Honk if you Love Buddha or My America.
Kochiyama had a passion for social justice. In addition to working on Civil Rights with African American activists, she was active in anti-Viet Nam war protests, she worked with Puerto Rican activists agitating for Puerto Rican independence, she labored on behalf of Japanese American reparations for the injustice of the internment, and for general Asian American causes. And even today, when Kochiyama is in her 80s, she continues to be involved in educating younger generations about Civil Rights and social justice and to be active in protesting for causes she believes in, as the tee-shirt she wears below clearly indicates her support for social justice issues.
Yuri Kochiyama is an amazing woman--she is an inspiration because of her activism and the way she has always worked as an ally in various communities, ones beyond her own identity as a Japanese American/Asian American woman. And truly, that is what mixed-race America is all about--going beyond your own interests and understanding the way that we are all mixed here together--someone else's injustice is OUR injustice.
There has been some discussion on various blogs (like Racialicious) about how to have real conversations about race--debating about where these spaces are (because they don't seem to be happening in mainstream media). I guess one of the questions I wonder about is: will it make a difference? I want to believe that it will--that blogging about issues of race will lead to larger social justice in the world. But like all things that are proactive or preventative, it's just hard to know what the real effects will be.
Two weeks ago, at my uncle's memorial service, I got up to speak towards the end of the evening--to be one of the "family voices" to commemorate his life. I had actually been asked, by my eldest uncle, to represent the family, and even before he asked me to do this, I had been thinking about what I wanted to share about my uncle--things along the lines of what I wrote a few blog entries back when I first learned that he had died (my own on-line tribute to his life). I ended up being an incoherent mess, which is disappointing both because I tend to be fairly articulate (I do teach for a living) and don't have a problem speaking to large crowds, yet for some reason, this was entirely different--probably the emotional aspect. I also relied on reading the last 2 pages of a freshman composition essay I wrote about an Annie Dillard essay, "The Deer at Providencia" because my uncle features prominently in my essay, and I thought that given the message of Dillard's essay--to understand that there is suffering and pain in the world--to understand that life isn't fair but not to be blind to that unfairness--well, I believed it spoke to the end of my uncle's battle with cancer as well as his own attitude in life. Because in the freshmen composition essay I wrote about how he interrogated me about race at UC Santa Barbara (late 80s) and when I said I didn't think race was a problem (HA! How naiive my younger self was!) he told me that I was choosing not to see that racism existed and that things are far more complicated than their surfaces suggested.
I'm not sure that my remembrances and commemoration of my uncle were well received; in fact, one aunt actually asked me why I chose to talk about racism at the memorial--subtly suggesting (or am I being oversensitive...) that it was an inappropriate topic. But even if she hadn't said this, I could tell.
But here's the thing. Maybe this is not how people wanted to think about my uncle, but for me, he was someone who helped me to understand race and racism in the U.S. and, more importantly, he was someone who wanted to make a difference in the world. He was constantly seeing inequities and injustice and commenting on these issues. And in his own way, I think he also tried to act -- I certainly think he donated to causes and supported people he believed were working to make a difference.
And so, in that spirit, I wanted to invite everyone to think about how they can make a difference in the world. Although this blog is focused on issues of race, and more specifically "mixed race" (although I know I haven't written specifically about mixed race issues in a while, but don't worry--I'll return to this soon!) I also think this blog is about trying to make a difference. It sounds cliche and grandiose to say that I want to make the world a better place. But I think that's the reason my interests led me here. Although big gestures are important for big problems (and we have A TON of those), doing something as small as writing an email message to someone out of the blue to tell them that they are in your thoughts is also about making a difference. We hear so much bad news and feel so powerless to stop the evil of the world. But I think that when we can act, we should--even if it's just to send an email.
Recently I received an email from a former Mount Holyoke student who wanted to get me caught up on her life and to share an anecdote with me. A few years ago she was working for a Fortune 500 company and found herself in a board room with about a dozen people (mostly men in their 40s and 50s) to review a brochure that would advertise the "diversity" and "global influence" of their company. The image they selected for the brochure was of a geisha. The student, who had taken an introduction to Asian American literature class with me, as well as an independent study on Asian American literature, realized, immediately, how problematic this image was, took a deep breath, and told them what her concerns were and made suggestions for more appropriate images to convey the message of diversity and global awareness. Her suggestions were both heard and taken seriously, they got rid of the geisha, and they implemented the new images.
Baby steps, but important ones. And I'm really proud that she was able to speak truth to power, to make her concerns heard, and to be taken seriously. She attributes a lot of her core convictions to being a Mount Holyoke alum, and I have to say that after teaching there for 3 years I am a convert to single-sex education. So here's to all of us taking small steps to try to enact social justice, one brochure at a time.
I'm in Seattle doing research in the University of Washington archives. They have a lot of materials about the Japanese American internment, and two of the files I looked through were of Seattle area attorneys, Austin Griffith and Arthur Barnett, two men who represented various Japanese Americans and wrote letters to various government officials in an effort to find exemptions for these people from internment, and in the case of Arthur Barnett, a member of the American Friends Service Committee, he was very active in working with the Japanese American community in helping them through the evacuation, relocation, internment and then eventual relocation back to Seattle. Barnett, was also the attorney who represented Gordon Hirabayashi, one of four people who brought lawsuits against the US Government alleging the unconstitutionality of the camps (he didn't win during his time but he was vindicated years later, along with Min Yasui and Fred Korematsu).
Which just goes to show, there have always been people who have protested injustice--there have always been white allies. And I think that's important to remember, we've never just stuck to our own.
Hello! Welcome to "Mixed Race America." A few rules now that this blog is once again "public" (meaning, you no longer need to sign-in to read this blog):
1) Please leave a comment! I really am interested in hearing what others have to say. You cannot leave anonymous comments (which means you do have to have a gmail account), and you must comply with rule #2, but aside from these things, I really want to hear from YOU.
2) Please be respectful in your comments. I reserve the right to moderate all comments, which means deleting comments I believe are disrespectful, rude, or which generally devolve into ad-hominem attacks. I don't mean that people should not engage with what I'm writing (or others have written) and I'm not looking to "preach to the choir." But I also believe that the best way to be heard is through respectful discourse--at best, we can just agree to disagree.
3) Please feel free to share this blog link with others, but please do not reprint sections of this blog or its comments without explicit permission of the author of this blog. If you would like permission to print segments of this blog into your own blog or another media outlet, you will need to write to me to gain permission to do so.
A 40-something professor of contemporary American literature and Asian American literature interested in issues of social justice and specifically how to create spaces to talk comfortably (and sometimes uncomfortably) about race.
