Category: Scissors

A personal journal – these posts will include any snippets (pun intended), fragments, partially formed thoughts, personal observations, etc., related to our program and which you may or may not reassemble into logical/linear fashion form by quarter’s end.

Up and Coming Artist: Rina Sawayama

British based singer Rina Sawayama’s new EP emits nostalgic late 90’s early 2000’s POP/R&B vibes and futuristic aesthetics in these newly released tracks.  She presents experimental and melodic twists in her vocal performance. She heavily utilizes layering both visually, vocally and metaphorically. She bright, bold and unapologetically inspired by her culture.  In many ways her presence feels revolutionary to see an Asian women singing and gaining success in R&B as a genre.  R&B is self assertive and often visits heavier themes, all notions some what distant from most peoples ideologies surrounding Asian women.

Themes focused in the EP : loneliness, identity, addiction,love, romance, the internet.

The Often Dismissed/Untold Blasian Narrative

www.blasianproject.org

FB – Blasian Narratives

YT – www.bit.ly/blasianyoutube

IG – www.instagram.com/blasianproject

TW- www.twitter.com/blasianproject

“Blasian Narratives is a multi-media project that intimately explores the intersection and identities of mixed race Black & Asian individuals through live performances and film. The project began as a collaboration between Morehouse and Spelman College students documenting and exploring the identity formations of individuals with mixed Afro-Asian heritage, colloquially known as “Blasians.” The grassroots project aims to bring historically polarized communities together by illustrating the complexities and unity of identity awareness–how you see yourself vs how you are seen–in hopes of building solidarity along the way. The cast and crew now includes students from Stanford, NYU, and more.”

This video series serves as an important reminder that no two mix race experiences are the same, especially when using umbrella terms such as “Asian” to embody complexed identities.  The narratives provoke viewers to confront perhaps their own myths/bias about bi/multi racial people.  One specific poem I found myself attached to, focused on feeling as if you are “enough” and how that feeling is tied to familial validation.  While another story spoke on being “multi-ethic,” the author’s honestly brought to light the efforts kids of color make to connect to their own cultures the best they can, which is usually in the form of pop-culture (anywhere from hip hop to Naruto.)

XING : Exploring Identity in Snap Shots

"Using mimicry to subvert the stereotypes imposed on Asian women and their bodies, XING enlists a roster of photographers to explore identity and ‘Othering’"

                                            Courtesy of XING © Tammy Volpe

Xing portrays the intersections of sex, race and gender and the people who are the products of these overlapping identities. Xing collaboratively captures still images of what it means to coexist in society as a sexual stereotype of desirability.

“I hope the book is a message to the West (as well as its Eastern counterparts) that the Asian female identity is multifarious, and it is ever-changing and independent.” She adds, “I hope it inspires people from all different backgrounds and ethnicities that it is important to own and be proud of one’s heritage.”

The booklet also contains a decent amount of nudity and opens up conversations of what does empowerment look like?  Intent when paired with the concept of  vulnerability can offer insight into “the gaze” and the internal and external conflicts showing skin.

Site were you can access the photos: http://xi-ng.co/9/

More reviews of xing: http://crackmagazine.net/article/art/xing-addresses-the-stereotypes-east-asian-female-sexuality/

 

“You’re the Model Minority until You’re Not”

http://professorshih.blogspot.com/2015/04/youre-model-minority-until-youre-not.html

Officer Liang’s controversy led to conversations about the model minority narrative/ Asian American history in relation to the Black Community. The discourse in this article confronts “positive stereotypes.”

Quotes from article:

“My students sometimes aren’t sure how to feel about “positive” stereotypes of Asian Americans. What’s wrong with being known as educated, hard-working, and law-abiding? The problem with positive stereotypes is the same problem with negative ones: the dominant group gets to decide what they are. It decides who gets to be a part of the favored racial group and why. What this means is that you’re the model minority until you’re not. ”

“The history of Chinese Americans is a crash course on the social construction of race in America. Stereotypes come and go. From the beginning of significant Chinese immigration during the California gold rush to the present, Chinese Americans have been racialized as undesirable or desirable depending on circumstances at home and abroad. The Exclusion era, the World War 2 era, and the Korean War era all racialized Chinese Americans differently according to the historical needs of white supremacy. It took the Civil Rights Movement to shift the social meanings of Chinese Americans once again. Like negative stereotypes, the model minority stereotype is also a tool of white supremacy.”

“The model minority stereotype has always been less about praising Asian people than it has been about shaming black people.”

Small Kine Talk Story

Writing Activity/Writing Workshop Week 2

When the moon waxes and flaunts it’s crescent, half is still whole.  Just as a mix plate or a poi dog isn’t a second thought but a mundane memory of local familiarity; neither was being raised hapa on an island separated from the tales of the mainland by an abyss of rolling aqua hills and the crisp salt air, that tainted the tongues of the people who flocked to this promise island like minabirds when one keiki went drop their musubi.  Looking for an opportunity, a lively hood, their own special grain of rice.

“Aqueducts and black and white photograph became the treasure map to an almost forgotten history.  Submerged in lumbering stocks of bitter sweet sugar cane and sleeping grass.  The graves once forgotten.”

Example Scissors Post

A personal journal – these posts will include any snippets (pun intended), fragments, partially formed thoughts, personal observations, etc., related to our program and which you may or may not reassemble into logical/linear fashion form by quarter’s end.