Mixed Race Studies

Capturing the Spirit World on Film: Albert Chong’s artistic recipe blends Jamaica, Catholicism, Santeria and America in an eclectic artistic stew

The Los Angeles Times
1993-10-10

Leah Ollman

When photographer and installation artist Albert Chong was about 6 years old, his parents bought a new house in Kingston, Jamaica.

Chong’s father invited a Catholic priest to bless the house by sprinkling holy water throughout. A few days later, his father brought in another priest, this time a black Obeahman, or shaman, who sacrificed two roosters and scattered their blood not far from where the holy water had just dried.

“My father thought he should cover all his bases,” Chong recalls, laughing. “We were Catholics, really. But when things would start getting really bad and you’d see forces that were being worked against you that the regular, established Catholic religion couldn’t help you with—you couldn’t go to your local priest and say, hey, somebody has worked some wicked magic on me. Yet it’s a real thing.”

Like his father, Chong has a lot of bases to cover. His life gives new meaning to the overused term multicultural. Half-Chinese, half-Jamaican Chong was raised Catholic but has followed Rastafarianism, the Ethiopian-inspired political/religious movement, and Santeria, the syncretic religion forged by African slaves living under Christian domination in the Caribbean. He is married to Frances Charteris, an artist from England, and their two children, Ayinde and Chinwe, are, he says with pride and just a touch of resignation, very American…

Read the entire article here.

Self Portraits of an African-Canadian Dressed as Her White Ancestors Explores Her Mixed Heritage

feature shoot
2013-07-01

Keren Moscovitch

Brooklyn-based photographer Stacey Tyrell’s series Backra Bluid is a dramatic investigation of the artist’s own mixed heritage and the colonialized experiences of non-whites. As an African-Canadian, whose family most recently hails from the Caribbean, she is brutally aware of the English/Scottish/Irish blood in her veins—the ubiquitous reality lived by people who are labeled as “black” in the West.

Tyrell poses herself as women and girls of various ages, dressed in the outfits of her white ancestors. She displays ambiguous racial features achieved through an elegant combination of lighting, costuming, make-up and digital retouching. The images are inspired by formal Western painting, a nod to the imperialism to which the project refers.

Drawing from the self-portraiture tradition of Cindy Sherman and Niki S. Lee, she combs public records for historical data to add dimension to her characters, such as names carefully curated from Scottish baby registries and the US Social Security Administration. The series is tinged with discomfort, anger and shame, sentiments that are repeatedly mirrored in the cold stares and tense facial expressions of her characters…

Read the entire article here.

Naked Bodies, Bodies of History

Hyphen Magazine: Asian America Unabridged
2013-06-27

Jenny Lee

“She mimics the speaking. That might resemble speech. (Anything at all.) Bared noise, groan, bits torn from words…From the back of her neck she releases her shoulders free.  She swallows once more.”

So begins the story of the halting diseuse, or female storyteller, of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s genre-defying text Dictée, first published just over three decades ago in 1982. Organized in nine parts named after the Greek Muses, Dictée has been described in mythic terms – a Korean Odyssey, a rewriting of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, a theatrical ritual, a shamanistic exorcism.  Above all, however, Cha’s work interrogates history, refracting the history of Korea in the twentieth century through the themes of exile, the displacement of colonized bodies, and the lost – and resurrected – bodies and voices of women…

…I must have had Dictée on the brain, because I thought of Cha’s work again a few weeks ago when I dropped by the DePaul Art Museum to see the exhibit War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art, curated by DePaul and San Francisco State University professors  Laura Kina and Wei Ming Dariotis. The exhibit is part of a larger project that features visual media produced by nineteen artists who hail from the rapidly expanding community of 2.6 million Americans (and counting) who identify as Asian American plus one or more ethno-racial groups. While the exhibit blurb explains that the show “examines the construction of mixed heritage Asian American identity in the United States,” this actually doesn’t do justice to its ambitious range, which not only investigates the historical origins of these identities (U.S. wars in Asia, colonialism, transnational adoption, the 1967 Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia outlawing laws against interracial marriage) but breaks down insidious present-day theories about “post-racialness,” while also featuring work by a younger generation of artists who seem to stay out of the conversation completely.  

In an interview, Dariotis revealed that the title of the exhibit was inspired by her own experience fielding annoying questions about her background (which, incidentally, is Chinese, Greek, Swedish, English, Scottish, German, and Dutch). According to Dariotis, people would inquire whether her parents “met in the war.” “And I always ask myself, ha, I was born in 1969, we were not at war with China in 1969. Where did they get this image?” Dariotis’s story highlights persistent mainstream assumptions about mixed-race (if not mixed-ethnic) Asian Americans of a certain age as either/or – that is, either the product of military personnel and Asian women, or free-love hippies indulging in illegal interracial sex. If Young Jean Lee’s Untitled Feminist Show offers a critique of the sexualizing of women’s bodies, War Baby/Love Child draws attention to the cultural sexualization of specifically Asian (and mostly female) bodies through the bodies of their mixed-race offspring…

Read the entire article here.

‘Soy Yo!’: Play explores being multi-racial in a world where race matters

St. Louis Beacon
2013-06-26

Nancy Fowler

Parents, can you even imagine being accused of kidnapping your own children? It happened to Shari LeKane-Yentumi of University City.

The reason was race. She’s white, her husband’s black. Their three children are both; and in our society, “both” often reads: black.

It was the mid-1990s. LeKane-Yentumi opened her door to the accusing faces of state officials. Someone had seen a white woman shepherding a black toddler and baby across a grocery-store parking lot on Lindell in St. Louis City, and called the authorities.

“It was reported that I had children who were not mine,” LeKane-Yentumi said. “And I was investigated.”

A review of birth certificates and other documentation settled that situation. But the demoralizing incident put LeKane-Yentumi on alert whenever she left the inclusiveness of her own community.

Being multi-racial—with African, Caribbean, European and Native American heritage—also forces the Yentumi children, now young adults, to deny much of their identity when they have to check a single box.

LIke the loose translation of “Soy Yo!,” an upcoming local play about being multi-racial, the Yentumi children believe, “I Am Me.” They and their friends, who are mostly multi-racial, reject narrow definitions of “black,” “white” and other such categories.

“They aren’t as strict about how they want to define race,” LeKane-Yentumi said. “And they don’t want to be defined by it.”…

Read the entire article here.

Solo Show at 2013 Hollywood Fringe Festival Examines Notions of Racial Identity

Contact: Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni
Email: onedropoflove@gmail.com
Website: http://www.onedropoflove.com/
May 2013

(Los Angeles, Calif.) — When actress and playwright Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni married the love of her life in 2006, her father did not walk her down the aisle. In fact, he declined to attend the wedding altogether.

Seeking to understand why he chose not to participate, DiGiovanni began a trek through family history — and time and space — that ultimately led to her M.F.A. thesis project: the multimedia one-woman play, “One Drop of Love: A Daughter’s Search for Her Father’s Racial Approval.”

DiGiovanni will perform the hour-long show on Friday, June 21st at 2:30 p.m., Friday, June 28th at 4:15 p.m. and Sunday, June 30th at 6:00 p.m. at the Lounge Theatres (www.hollywoodfringe.org/venues/11). The cost of the two Friday perrformances is $12 per ticket. The Sunday show is a fundraiser for MASC – Multiracial Americans of Southern California (www.mascsite.org) – all proceeds ($15 per ticket) will go to MASC. This show is also a Los Angeles celebration of Loving Day (www.lovingday.org).

Incorporating filmed images, photographs, and animation DiGiovanni tells the story of how the notion of race came into existence in the United States, and its effects on her relationship with her father. To tell her story, DiGiovanni travels back in time to the first US census in 1790, to cities across the United States, and to West and East Africa, where both father and daughter spent time in search of their racial roots. A leading activist on issues related to mixed cultures and ethnicities, DiGiovanni is an actor, comedian, producer, and educator. She developed “One Drop of Love” as the thesis project for her Master of Fine Arts degree in film, television, and theater from California State University Los Angeles. She will use footage from her performances—the most recent was at the University of California, Santa Barbara—to produce a documentary film. DiGiovanni, who appeared in the Academy Award-winning film “Argo,” is also the co-creator, co-producer, and co-host of the award-winning weekly podcast Mixed Chicks Chat, and co-founder and co-producer of the Mixed Roots Fm & Literary Festival^®.

Read the entire press release here.

You don’t have to be mixed-race to have a mixed identity

The Seattle Globalist: Where Seattle Meets the World
2013-06-24

Maggie Thorpe, Graduate student in Japan Studies
University of Washington

Editor’s note: Laura Kina, who is quoted throughout this post, disagrees with the representation of her perspective here. You can read her response in the comments.

A new exhibit at the Wing Luke museum is part of a growing movement that says our racial identity is a personal choice, not a fact of birth.

“Aren’t you insulted by that?”

Michael Tenjoma, 23, set down the rolled-out slab of Japanese noodle dough and looks at the blackboard specials beside him in the Seattle restaurant.

“What?” asked the fifth-generation Japanese-American from Hawaii.

“That!” The irate customer pointed at the words “Jap. Satsuma Potato.”

Tenjoma let out a chuckle.

“It has a period after the word ‘Jap’. There’s nothing insulting about it.”

The customer stormed away, irate.

“I’m not Japanese,” Tenjoma said after telling this story. “Whenever I was in Japan, everyone kept asking me what I really was. But I’d just answer that I’m American. It seemed to bother everyone that I couldn’t give them a straight reply. But when I’m in Hawaii, I’m Japanese. It all really depends on where I am.”

In 2000 the U.S. Census allowed Americans to identify themselves as being two or more races for the first time. According to National Journal, people who identify themselves as multiracial have risen from 9.2 percent in 2000 to 32 percent in 2010.

“Under My Skin” — a recently opened exhibit at the Wing Luke Museum — discusses the issues of race and identity through art. Each piece weaves an intricate story evoking introspection, whether through modern art installations or traditional oil paintings. It is a quiet place with all 26 artists’ emotions and perspectives prodding into each attendee as they view each display.

Laura Kina, a contributing artist to the exhibit, is mixed. Her father’s side of the family is from Okinawa, Japan and her mother is of mixed-European ancestry with origins in small town Washington…

Read the entire article here.

Library of Congress Appoints Natasha Trethewey To Second Term as U.S. Poet Laureate

News from the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress
Washington, D.C.
2013-06-10

Trethewey Will Launch Project as Part of the PBS NewsHour Poetry Series

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington has appointed Natasha Trethewey to serve a second term as U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.

“The Library and the country are fortunate Natasha Trethewey will continue her work as Poet Laureate,” said Billington. “Natasha’s first term was a resounding success, and we could not be more thrilled with her plans for the coming year.”

Trethewey’s second term will begin in September. She will follow previous multiyear laureates—such as Kay Ryan, Ted Kooser, and Billy Collins—and undertake a signature project: a regular feature on the PBS NewsHour Poetry Series. Trethewey will join NewsHour Senior Correspondent Jeffrey Brown for a series of on-location reports in various cities across the United States to explore several large societal issues, through a focused lens offered by poetry and her own coming-to-the-art.

The Poetry Series, featured on the PBS NewsHour, engages a broad audience through thoughtful, in-depth reports on contemporary poets and poetry. Online, the NewsHour features weekly poems on its Art Beat blog as well as on a special page dedicated to poetry.

Ms. Trethewey’s first term as the 19th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry was noteworthy for her “Office Hours,” during which she met with the general public in the Library’s Poetry Room—harkening back to a tradition established by her predecessors in the post from 1937 to 1986. For her second year, Trethewey will move beyond the capital to seek out the many ways poetry lives in communities across the country and addresses issues and concerns of Americans.

In that pursuit, she will draw on her own life experiences as a guide—visiting places she feels a personal connection to, such as a domestic violence center, an inner-city school, a prison or juvenile detention center, a nursing home, or places that have suffered natural or man-made disasters. The specific locations will be determined closer to the start of the Poet Laureate’s second term. In her travels to cities and towns for the series, Trethewey also intends to hold “Office Hours on the Road”—meeting with members of the general public as she did in the Library…

Read the entire news release here.

One Drop of Love

Hollywood Fringe Festival
L.A.’s Largest Celebration of the Performing Arts
2013-06-13 through 2013-06-30

Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, Playwright, Producer, Actress, Educator

Jillian Pagan, Director

Produced by: Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Chay Carter

Performances:

Friday 2013-06-21, 14:30 PDT (Local Time)
Lounge Theatre
6201 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, California

Friday 2013-06-28, 16:15 PDT (Local Time)
Lounge Theatre
6201 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, California

Sunday 2013-06-30, 18:00 PDT (Local Time)
Lounge Theatre
6201 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, California

One Drop of Love is a multimedia solo show that journeys from the U.S. to East & West Africa and from 1790 to the present as a culturally Mixed woman explores the influence of the “one -drop rule” on her family and society. All proceeds from the Sunday, June 30th show will go to MASC – Multiracial Americans of Southern California – in celebration of Loving Day.

For more information, click here.

War Baby/Love Child: An Interview with Richard Lou

Visual Memphis
2013-06-12

According to the project’s website, War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art “investigates constructions of mixed heritage Asian American identity in the United States. As an increasingly ethnically ambiguous Asian American generation is coming of age, this multi-platform project (book, traveling art exhibition, website and blog) examines how, or even if, mixed heritage Asian Americans address hybrid identities in their artwork, as well as how perspectives from critical mixed race studies illuminate intersections of racialization, war and imperialism, gender and sexuality, and citizenship and nationality.”

The exhibition features work across diverse mediums by 19 emerging, mid-career and established artists who reflect a breadth of mixed heritage ethno-racial and geographic diversity: Mequitta Ahuja, Albert Chong, Serene Ford, Kip Fulbeck, Stuart Gaffney, Louie Gong, Jane Jim Kaisen, Lori Kay, Li-lan, Richard Lou, Samia Mirza, Chris Naka, Laural Nakadate, Gina Osterloh, Adrienne Pao, Cristina Lei Rodriguez, Amanda Ross-Ho, Jenifer Wofford and Debra Yepa-Pappan.

The exhibition is on display right now through June at the DePaul University Art Museum in Chicago. It will travel to the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience in August and will remain there through January 19, 2014. If your travels don’t take you to either of these places, you may purchase the book on Amazon that includes a series of critical essays, interviews and images of artwork associated with the exhibition. For updates on upcoming events, see the War Baby/Love Child Facebook page.

Richard Lou, Art Department chair at the University of Memphis, is kind enough to share some of his knowledge of and experiences with War Baby/Love Child here…

Read the entire interview here.

Panel Discussion: “Mixed Race Asian American Art and Identity”

DePaul University Art Museum
935 W. Fullerton
Chicago, Illinois 60614
Phone: 773-325-7506
Wednesday, 2013-05-29, 18:00 CDT (Local Time)

War Baby / Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art

Debra Yepa-Pappan, “Live Long and Prosper (Spock was a Half-Breed),” digital print.

Laura Kina, Vincent DePaul Associate Professor of Art, Media and Design
DePaul University

Camilla Fojas, Vincent DePaul Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies
DePaul University

Debra Yepa-Pappan, Jemez Pueblo and Korean Artist
Chicago, Illinois

This event is cosponsored by the Japanese American Service Committee, DePaul’s Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity President’s Diversity Series, and Latin American and Latino Studies.

For more information, click here.  Watch the video of the presentation here.