Currently Listening to: Fabolous ft. Jeremiah – It’s My Time
NOTE: This post is written for the TAF blog as a recap for the Fast and Furious workshop. See the post here.
I’m re-posting this because I wanted to give credit to where credit is due. Shout outs to: Ann Wu, Justin Yang, Jon Lee, Christina Chou, Kevin Yau, and Hochie Tsai for making this workshop possible. I might be forgetting some people, especially from TAFMedia who might have done some things for this.
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You always have to be careful when you talk about race because you don’t want to understate it to a point where it becomes seemingly insignificant. But you also don’t want to overstate it to the point where you radicalize, dichotomize, or otherize your audience. Therefore, to maintain that balance in this year’s JH program, Ann Wu, Justin Yang, and myself focused on three major goals in our Fast and Furious workshop about race: understanding stereotypes, breaking down social barriers, and reaffirming the campers’ self-identity.
To break down social barriers, we showed a video compiled by Jon Lee, Christina Chou, Ho Chie Tsai, Justin Yang, and myself of famous Asian/Taiwanese Americans in the entertainment industry. We compiled a list of questions about stereotyping and social barriers for Musician Dawen Wang, Hip Hop Group Far*East Movement, Producer Karen Lin, Actor/Writer/Producer Will Tiao, and the writers of Asian American focused comic book Secret Identities.
In a “Post-Obama” world, many people think that all the social barriers for women or racial minorities have been torn down. Even the campers have the same impression as many of the JH students in my small group thought that social progress for many Taiwanese Americans was “good” or at least “getting better.” However, while these speakers in the video are Asian American pioneers and leaders in the entertainment industry, many of the campers admitted that they didn’t know any of these entertainers. Asian American representation in the media is still heavily based on stereotypes and that shows that, if anything, America has a misconception about race relations in our modern world. The recent arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates and the backlash that followed reveals that perfectly. We wanted to make sure that our campers realized some of these barriers still exist, and that there is still much room for progress and growth.
Finally there’s identity reaffirmation. We wanted to make sure that the campers saw themselves as Asian or Taiwanese American, but only in a smaller scope of their greater identity. Many times I’ve seen people radicalize or otherize their experience as Asian Americans and ostracize themselves from the greater community. It was important that they understand that they are more than an Asian American boy or girl. While we all share cultural backgrounds, each individual has a different path and a different identity that is beyond race, gender, socioeconomics, and so on. It is critical for us to embrace our culture or heritage, but only in terms of our greater autonomous identity.
All of the counselors came away with the experience feeling confident about the JH campers ability to comprehend some of the issues. Other issues, we realized, would be better resolved by time than by discourse. Overall, we were amazed by the maturity of the JH campers in discussing such issues; I know for a fact that I was not thinking or talking about such issues at such a level at their age.
However, the discussion doesn’t stop there. The pursuit for great social equality is an ever-evolving process that melds with a greater society. To keep up with that, I recommend TAFers read and educate themselves as much as possible. Blogs are a great medium for people of all ages to do just that. A couple recommendations: Angryasianman is a blog that updates its readers on the most recent news in the greater Asian American community. Disgrasian is a social commentary blog by two ladies who post about things from politics to fashion. Slant Eye for the Round Eye is a blog focused on but not specific to Asian America and its role in the media. 8asians is a community blog where a handful of Asian Americans (including myself) from all different backgrounds and places that post about anything and everything pertaining to Asia America. And finally, for an open discussion on greater issues of race, one should visit Racialicious.
