{"id":59649,"date":"2020-04-01T01:00:10","date_gmt":"2020-04-01T01:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=59649"},"modified":"2020-04-01T01:06:16","modified_gmt":"2020-04-01T01:06:16","slug":"the-healing-power-of-steven-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=59649","title":{"rendered":"The Healing Power of \u2018Steven Universe\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>The Healing Power of \u2018Steven Universe\u2019 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The New York Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2020-03-28 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nicoleaclark.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Nicole Clark  (opens in a new tab)\">Nicole Clark <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<table class=\"wp-block-table\"><tbody><tr><td><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2020\/03\/29\/opinion\/sunday\/28Clark\/merlin_143021418_eb88ef43-a2b8-421c-b0ac-67009fabf510-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"550\" border=\"0\"><\/figure>\n<small>Steven Universe is raised by the Crystal Gems: Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl, female-presenting, nonbinary aliens. <em>Cartoon Network<\/em><\/small><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n<p><em>  The hit cartoon series has helped me process my biracial identity.  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For most of my life, Taiwan was a place that lived in my head. My mother told me her origin stories like a series of tall tales, full of pitched, tin roofs and fields of underbrush that my grandmother used to drive through on her moped, lifting her legs to avoid snake bites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Her stories felt like aphorisms I could attach to the idea of being Taiwanese, something I knew I was, but felt no particular ability to locate outside the life I lived in California. I could not get past the differences of our childhoods, the disparities in our means, the foreign topography. It would take me years to realize I\u2019d inherited her cultural traditions and perspectives growing up \u2014 and even longer to separate my identity from the need to demonstrate proficiency in it, as if it were a set of actions committed to memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I began watching Rebecca Sugar\u2019s musical cartoon series \u201cSteven Universe\u201d and its limited series spinoff \u201cSteven Universe Future\u201d \u2014 which aired its final episodes on Friday \u2014 it immediately fit like a familiar sweater. So much of Steven\u2019s coming-of-age story mapped onto my own: We both come from two distinct cultures, the most dominant of which can feel inscrutable&#8230;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read the entire article <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"here (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/03\/28\/opinion\/sunday\/steven-universe-finale.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The hit cartoon series has helped me process my biracial identity. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,16,8413,8,20],"tags":[30847,2640,30846,30848,2327],"class_list":["post-59649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-asia","category-communications","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-cartoon-network","tag-new-york-times","tag-nicole-clark","tag-rebecca-sugar","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59649"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59651,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59649\/revisions\/59651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}