Tag: identity

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Asian Girls in Western Worlds

“Ni hao”

Creator:
Rachel Leong (she/hers)

Growing up as racialized diaspora almost certainly means being subject to particular experiences, including not being assumed that you are born domestically (despite being a multi-generational Canadian), or having people assume that you speak Mandarin because you look Chinese (if your face is remotely East Asian-coded), among others. It is only in the recent decade that there has been a proliferation of media from Asian diasporic filmmakers who have been able to unironically poke fun at such racist tropes that Asian diaspora faces to a mainstream audience, not just camp movies that stay within diasporic communities. Rachel analyzes the film, White Elephant from filmmaker Andrew Chung, to discuss portrayals of constant “otheredness” that diaspora experience – a film that, as of the writing of this description, is featured on the mainstream platform CBC Gem. Are these experiences that you have had if you belong to a racialized diasporic group?

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I don’t want being Asian Canadian to be the only thing they know about me

“[T]hat’ll be the day when we really have that freedom.”

Creator:
Kaitlyn Lee (she/hers)

Guest:
Cathy Huynh

Racialized and minoritized individuals involved in the arts often face a dilemma: On the one hand, being minoritized means feeling external pressure to have to tell stories associated with one’s minority group(s). On the other hand, there is an internal desire to tell stories that are true to themselves as an individual, and not to be known only as their minoritized identity. What does freedom from this dilemma mean? Kaitlyn interviews her friend and Vietnamese Canadian filmmaker, Cathy Huynh, to discuss how these opposing pressures play out in the filmmaking process, how they affect her as a filmmaker, and how she reconciles them.

Downloadable file here
Transcript here

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A Tale of Two Vases

Creator:
Amalee Truong (she/her)

A common experience among minoritized artists is the internal struggle associated with creating art that is traditional to their culture. For example, a Chinese Canadian artist might want to showcase Chinese styles in their art because that is what best represents them; however, the question of whether one is “enough” of that minoritized culture to even use that style often comes up. It makes them question whether they have the credibility to use such cultural styles, and whether they would be seen as merely appropriating a style that they don’t have enough credibility to use. And does using that style create the perception that their usage signals representation? This all creates additional pressures on the artist to do a really good job, lest their potential failure reflects poorly on their entire community. With all of these pressures, though, it is still imperative that minoritized artists push forward and create a style that is their own. Dive into Amalee’s thought process as she discusses similar struggles while creating two ceramic vases to represent her and her brother. If you were in a similar position, how would you reconcile the need for representation with the worries about being too much of an imposter to engage in representation?

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“Where are you from?”

“Are you a ninja?”

Creator:
Anonymous

If there is one thing that racialized people have to do a lot as they move through society, it is having to explain their own identity, culture, and (presumed) history of migration. “Where are you from? No, where are you really from?” While the person asking the question might not have meant it maliciously, the fact that racialized people disproportionately have to answer this question suggests a fundamentally and systemically different perception that many in society have about racialized people. In particular, this perception involves the insidious assumption that racialized people don’t belong here, or that they can’t possibly be from here. Instead, they really belong there, and must be from there. Take a look at this video and wonder for yourself…when someone experiences these perceptions so often, how does this affect their identity formation? How does this affect the ways in which one might see themselves?

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Voices of Queer Asian Canadians

Voices of Queer Asian Canadians: Identity and Belonging for the Queer Asian Diaspora in Vancouver

Author:
Alger Liang 梁家傑

Queerness is a set of identities that many individuals in Asian diasporic communities still face barriers over due to a combination of the perceived clashes between queerness and Asian cultural traditions/concepts, and a lack of understanding/discussion on the part of friends, families, and family members from older generations. This is compounded by the racism that queer Asian Canadians experience in the face of a predominantly White queer scene in Canada, compelling queer Asian Canadians to create communities by themselves for themselves. Read as Liang summarizes some important themes underlying three queer Asian Canadians’ experience as they explore what it means to be a queer Asian for them. “Identity” is a complex issue, especially when it exists at the intersection of multiple dimensions of marginalization. Can better understanding of these intersections allow for a better equipped society to helping each other achieve liberation?

Click on the following to reveal the paper (Note: PDF viewer not compatible with some mobile platforms; but it is available for download or to view via mobile PDF viewers)

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Forming identity as a Filipino Canadian

We need people who won’t give up on our country

Artist:
Anonymous

Identity formation is a difficult process for members of the diasporic community, including the Filipino diasporic community. As the anonymous artist discusses, there are a lot of dynamics to consider – Am I abandoning people from the Philippines? To what extent do I embody a Canadian versus Filipino identity? How do people think about my English – is it too Filipino-accented for me to sound Canadian, or is it too Canadian-accented for me to sound Filipino? Ultimately, the big question is “Who am I?” While it’s a cliché to talk about this question, it’s a cliché precisely because of how commonplace it is. The anonymous artist decided to use a novel medium to explore all these ideas, and to ask a very important question – in the Filipino context, how might the interplay of colonial and nativist influences affect the experience of acculturation among Filipinos migrating to another context with an interplay between a different colonial influence, progressivism, and cultural protectionism?

Click on the screenshot to access the Instagram account

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Con người có tổ có tông – Humans have origins

Như cây có cội như sông có nguồn – Like trees have roots, like rivers have headwater

Hosts:
YoungJi Kim 김영지
Tommy Nguyễn 阮武風

Guest:
Tiêu Kiến Vinh (Vietnamese heritage)

Surprise! Not all Asians are the same! (As if that even needed highlighting). As Kim and Nguyen discuss with their guest, it becomes abundantly clear that there is direso much heterogeneity among Asian commnities. North vs. South Korea, North vs. South Vietnam, heritage individuals vs. diasporic individuals, first generation settlers vs. multigenerational settlers, those who settled directly from the homeland to Canada vs. those who settled elsewhere first. All of these distinctions undoubtedly have an impact one’s identity formation and experiences of cultural adaptation. Take a listen as to how the different identities and experiences of the podcast’s discussants are brought to bear in this frank and interesting discussion. More importantly, the discussants challenged each other on disagreements, yielding an hour of conversation that covers so much ground. This certainly leads to a much broader question – with all this complexity inherent in cultural identities, how should we talk about and represent identities in a way that is inclusive, but not tokenizing?

Download here

Click on the following to reveal the artist’s statement (Note: PDF viewer not compatible with some mobile platforms; but it is available for download or to view via mobile PDF viewers)

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Parallel loss of culture

It is important to support [cultural] neighbourhoods and business to keep them alive

Photographers and Storytellers:
Tamara Chang 陳秀明
Steffi Lau 劉晴昕

In a stroke of creative and artistic brilliance, Chang and Lau use their cameras as witnesses to the changing faces of two geographically disparate but culturally linked places – Hong Kong and Vancouver. Despite their distance and being on two different continents, the two cities are inextricably interlinked through history, culture, and migration – in both directions. Through these beautiful photographs, Chang and Lau weave a thought-provoking narrative that compels readers to consider how development, gentrification, and in some ways, capitalism, are pushing traditional and cultural neighbourhoods to the brink in both cities. With painful histories and rebellious resilience evident in both spaces, how do we go about protecting these spaces that have fostered and contributed to the growth of their respective cities?

Click on the following to reveal the photography project (Note: PDF viewer not compatible with some mobile platforms; but it is available for download or to view via mobile PDF viewers)

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