Hyphen magazine - Asian American arts, culture, and politics

Help Hyphen fund an upcoming feature story on the challenges of incarcerating Hawaiians in Arizona prisons, which will appear in the November 2012 issue.

Critics at this year's New York Fashion Week seemed enamoured of Ralph Lauren’s less than pioneering embrace of one of fashion’s oldest tropes: Shanghai Chic. Critics eagerly dedicated valuable column inches to the collection, which featured all the mainstays of Asian-inspired fashion: jade jewelry, golden dragons, cheongsams. While some candidly wondered whether the designer’s invocation of China was a statement about the nation’s growing economic competitiveness, others were simply happy to break out as many tired euphemisms for “Eastern” as possible. (Not only did the “Orient Express” make several stops but East, inevitably, met West.)

 

At this year's Kollaboration LA show, founder and executive director Paul "PK" Kim said his goodbyes to an audience of 5,000+ people, having realized his dream of taking Kollaboration to 10 cities in 10 years. Fittingly, the 3-hour show was chock-full of memorable moments: Assembly Ted Lieu stopped in to deliver a census PSA, journalist Lisa Ling demonstrated how easy it is to join the bone marrow donation registry, and a girl wearing 3-inch, sling-back heels beat out 5 break-dancing, be-sneakered boys in the freestyle dance competition (no contest).

 

As if we small-breasted ladies didn't have it hard enough. We persevered through adolescences marred by a devastating lack of top-growth, endured comings-of-age minimized by the diminutive jabs of our bustier peers, and, as adults, find ourselves woefully relegated to Victoria's Secret's young teen "Pink" section, from where we covetously eye the perfectly impractical lacy/strappy/barely-there/disgustingly-provocative underthings so accessibly-sized for plumper patrons. Since childhood, men, magazines, and our mothers have ridiculed our relative lack of endowment, so maybe it was only a matter of time before whole governments made our bitty busts their business.

The first to do so: Australia, whose government censors are banning adult publications and films that feature women with small breasts, in an effort to -- get this -- curb pedophilia. Now, I'm no porn apologist, but I rather dislike having my body categorically likened to a child's, even more than I vehemently dislike censorship. [As I always say: It ain't much, but it sure ain't nothin'!] And it seems obvious to me that an industry founded on fake tits, fake orgasms, and the general fictionalizing of women's sexuality is only made worse by censors that further restrict it from realistically depicting women's bodies -- however flat-chested those bodies may be.   

In the aftermath of the earthquake that decimated Port-au-Prince weeks ago, journalists have worked 'round the clock to keep the flickering screens and hungry eyes of their eager public perpetually engaged. And we, in turn, have consumed, without pause, photo essay upon photo essay of devastated Haitians climbing bloody out from under piles of debris, desperate Haitians knocking over little boys, and homeless Haitians sleeping without shelter, among many other startling images captured by news photographers with Pulitzer-sized dreams (after all, Haiti's last disaster earned this guy one!).

And we are so moved by these terrible, suspended fragments of another's life that it may not occur to us that the bloody woman we saw rising from beneath blocks of concrete probably saw a photographer's lens before she saw the faces of her rescuers. Nor do we wonder whether she'll get a dime if her photo wins him any awards.

But that's nothing new. Photojournalism has always been an ethically shady enterprise. Whether Steve McCurry's portrait of the reluctantly compliant "Afghan Girl" or Kevin Carter's voyeuristic photo of a starving Sudanese baby, the trade has long borne a paradoxical reputation; while widely regarded as a public service, it nevertheless entails a level of detachment that is antithetical to most conventional conceptions of "service." It's a topic I've written about before, and one that I continually revisit, particularly as I get to know more photographers and especially as I strive to critique the ethical implications of my own journalistic projects. 

For most of my life, I've acted the part of the fiery feminist activist. At age 10 (before I even knew "feminist" as a word) my surprisingly cogent defense of biblical Eve moved my evangelical father into surrendering his argument that women are the root of all evil. At age 16 (when I only knew "feminist" as a term of derision) I scandalized my Filipino teachers by conducting an (albeit amateurish) study charting gender discrimination within Republic Central high schools. And by age 19 (when I proudly donned my first signature "this is what a feminist looks like" T-shirt) my transformation seemed complete. In those enlightened times, I was fond of telling people, "You're probably a feminist -- you just don't know it yet."

So thrilled was I to have found a word -- an ideology, a movement! -- which embodied my long-standing belief system that I didn't realize until much later the foolishness of such a proclamation; feminism isn't, after all, defined by one's inherent, unarticulated views on gender (however progressive those may be), but is rather a conscious, political choice one makes after considering and asserting those views.

These days, a much more educated, experienced, and cynical me teeters on the fence. Some days, I hear feminism derided by an ignoramus with a beer and the beast inside rears its rosy head in indignation. Other days, my oft-broken heart smarts at the memory of old friends and activists whose feminist ideals didn't stand in the way of their marginalizing a person of color, or objectifying another woman, or even downplaying the sexual assault of a friend. Most of the time, my commitment to social justice advocacy doesn't feel as though it requires a label so I have the room to vacillate.

However, my indecision peaks about every six months.

My last column, about the ethical differences between charity and solidarity, was a heavy-handed critique of NYT Magazine's "Saving the World's Women" issue. Good criticism, however, ought always be tempered by practical suggestions for improvement. So, for this week, I've distilled the opinions of other critics, suggestions of notable theorists, and my own rich reserve of activist foibles into 3 simple (albeit wordy) tips for doing solidarity work the right way.

Tip #1: Realize that, no matter how much you know, you actually don't know shit.

When Americans set out to work transnationally, we have a tendency to assume that our education, or experience, or even underprivileged upbringing makes us both "insiders" into other people's struggles as well as qualified to tell them how to address it. Please don't make the mistake of thinking that a poli sci major, a backpacking trip through Southeast Asia, and/or a stint as the president (and incidentally only member) of your local Amnesty International Chapter makes you qualified to be anything more than an asshole just shy of completing an undergraduate degree.

As do-gooding overachievers straddling transnational, cross-cultural and inter-generational divides simultaneously, Asian American activists are a breed unto ourselves. Carefully crafted by overbearing parents into perfectionist pinnacles of productivity, we boast: cognitive abilities honed at a young age by bilingualism, an inviolable sense of duty and discipline instilled by the stringent mores of a conservative household, and bleeding liberal hearts touched by the experiences of prejudice and injustice that come from growing up mixed-raced, multicultural, and/or just plain different. Not to brag, but we are also awfully good-looking. This favorable combination of intelligence, skill and soul that forms the Asian American Activist is unique among do-gooders. We could be social change powerhouses, if we wanted to.

We have been before, after all. Prior to touching these shores, our activist forebears staged revolutions throughout Asia: the Indian Independence Movement founded on passive resistance, the People Power Revolution of the Philippines which peacefully ousted a corrupt dictator, the Indonesian National Revolution which freed the country from colonial Dutch rule... and so forth. Just a few decades ago, our own American progenitors founded the Yellow Power Movement and coined the term "Asian American" as a statement of unity and rejection of racial stratification.

Today's Asian American activists are, by comparison, doin' alright... We're not radicals, but we're still out there, putting our skills to good use. We may have mainstreamed a little, either shedding ourselves of our seemingly incidental Asian American cloak or hyphening ourselves out the American way with a string of extremely specific identity markers, but the point is we're still activists. Activating. Against stuff. Or for stuff, whichever the case may be.