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MIXTAPE | NOW WATCH ME WORK

sosupersam:

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New mixtape!  I just woke up and can barely put a thought together, but I will try.  Here’s a new mix that I made with my friend MC Barao.  She’s an inspiration to me and such a good pal.  We wanted to put together a fitness-driven mixtape because it is beach season after all!

Some of the song selections are MC’s, and some are mine.  I made the mixtape in LA and we shot the cover in NY.  She’s an MC, I’m a DJ. 

Anyway, hope ya like.  See you at the beach.

Groovin’ to this at work right now. 

    • #sosupersam
  • 5 days ago > sosupersam
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White Christmas Princess

From The Asian Reporter, V23, #03 (February 4, 2013), page 6.

(This article was written by my former English professor from PSU. Absolutely love her narrative writing style and the situation itself is both endearing and troubling. This is one issue that I personally experienced growing up as well, hence my fascination with beauty and body image ideals). 

Last Christmas, my four-year-old daughter asked Santa for the following: a unicorn, a princess dress, princess shoes, and a fairy wand. And like the beleaguered feminist mom that I am, I groaned inwardly and gave Santa the okay.

When she was three, she asked for a ball and short hair because she wanted to be a “boy-girl,” and I happily snipped away, proud that my daughter was not going to succumb to traditional gender stereotypes and consumer culture. Fast forward one year later, and she refuses to wear anything that is not pink or purple. Her favorite accessory is her tutu, and her princess name is Jewel. Sometimes she goes by the nickname Sparkles.

Jewel has informed me that she wants to be a princess when she grows up, and she is already noting all the ways in which our house falls short of a castle. We have avoided showing her any of the Disney princess films, yet she knows all the names of the characters. We didn’t buy her a Barbie, but she still knows that somehow blonde hair means beautiful. My husband and I have consciously avoided all things princess, but we are outmatched by Princess Power, which flexes its muscles in fanciful playground play or in generous gifts from extended family. Even we are under its spell, when we find ourselves commenting on how cute she looks.

I am constantly reminded of how the world I grew up in is different from the one she is growing up in. But somehow, Princess Power seems timeless and unbounded by geography. I was six and we were on the eve of immigrating to Canada from Taiwan. My curiosity and anxiety about our new life bubbled up, and I asked my parents, “Will my eyes turn blue and my hair turn yellow?” I don’t remember asking them this question, but they love to remind me of it. They see it as a humorous example of the wacky logic of children. I see it now as a wish to be beautiful and to belong.

I know she will eventually grow out of this phase. Already there are cracks emerging in her princess worldview. Do I have to marry a prince, she asks. Too bad there aren’t real unicorns or Pegasuses, she laments. But, I also know that Princess Power will mark her even when she no longer wears the pink chiffon dresses and tiaras — when she recognizes that beauty remains the measure of value for females and that the standard of beauty remains white.

There is an emerging trend of Girl Power to counteract the effects of Princess Power. However, more often than not, it seems to be Princess Power 2.0. Rather than simply relying on one’s beauty to land the prince, Girl Power promotes multicultural protagonists whose independence and intelligence are the means to happily ever after. The end goal is still the same — male affirmation. This narrative logic mirrors the argument that the talent and interview portion of beauty pageants are just as important as the swimsuit competition. I have yet to meet someone who actually believes this. Even though Miss Universe winners have been non-white, there is not a lot of variation in terms of winners’ weight, height, and features.

Short of whisking Jewel away from Planet Earth and reprogramming her on Mars (a plan that still might not escape the reach of Miss Universe after all), I am not sure what our options are. In the meantime, whenever she asks for princess books, I make sure to slip in a book or two about talking pigs or scrappy girls with good imaginations. And I hold my breath and hope that I am giving her the skills she needs to fight Princess Power.

    • #asian reporter
    • #pdx
    • #portland
    • #marie lo
    • #asian american
    • #asian
    • #princess
    • #christmas
    • #beauty
    • #body image
    • #disney
    • #barbie
    • #girl power
    • #miss universe
    • #feminist
    • #feminism
  • 1 week ago
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I wish people wouldn’t just see me as the Asian girl who beats everyone up, or the Asian girl with no emotion. People see Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock in a romantic comedy, but not me. You add race to it, and it became, ‘Well she’s too Asian’, or ‘She’s too American’. I kind of got pushed out of both categories. It’s a very strange place to be. You’re not Asian enough and then you’re not American enough.
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I wish people wouldn’t just see me as the Asian girl who beats everyone up, or the Asian girl with no emotion. People see Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock in a romantic comedy, but not me. You add race to it, and it became, ‘Well she’s too Asian’, or ‘She’s too American’. I kind of got pushed out of both categories. It’s a very strange place to be. You’re not Asian enough and then you’re not American enough.

(via tofuforlunch)

Source: joanwatson

  • 1 week ago > joanwatson
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Mother-Love: Reflections of an Asian American Feminist Daughter

By Vickie Nam

The rift that steadily deepened between my mother and I emerged in the throes of adolescence, and mid-90s White feminism did little to mitigate my feelings of estrangement from her. Back in 1993, I was a first-year college student wading through writings, then, unfamiliar to me, by Mary Wollstonecraft, Betty Friedan, Catherine Mackinnon, Susan Faludi and Susan Bordo.  This was my rite of passage into the intellectual world of feminism and I delighted in the realization that feminist theory could change my life.  Asian immigrant women were largely invisible in my women’s studies classes, giving me the impression that I was part of an exclusive (and exclusionary) phenomenon that was neither of my mother’s nor my grandmother’s experience and thus not part of my matrilineal heritage.  When I returned home, I felt myself stumbling backwards into a maddening routine of roles and expectations. Suddenly one day, as I turned to look behind me, I discovered that my Ma, who made it possible for me now to glide upstream against the current, was no longer beside me.  I saw her waving me on, go, go, (or was she waving me toward her, come back, come back?).  How did we get here, I wondered, where I could barely recognize my own Umma?

In retrospect, I realize why, as a college student, I was inflamed and reactive so much of the time.  I lacked the analytical tools and coping mechanisms to resist racism and xenophobia in academia, where the process of constructing knowledge would become a struggle against the systematic silencing and erasure of Asian immigrant women’s feminist subjectivities.  Thankfully, this protracted phase of separation, splitting, differentiation, individuation from my former self, tradition, home, and Ma, began to lift as I started to realize my struggle was a collective one.  In a steadily expanding circle of feminist sisters and mentors of Color, I took up dialogues about feminisms and subjugated knowledges, where I came to the most sustaining realization of all: Feminists are messengers of communion, connection, healing, and love!

The master’s tools are created to split and separate – us from our potential allies, us from ourselves.  And how desperate I was to see myself as the opposite of Ma.  I would watch her, trying to adjust to the ways of mainstream culture, and trying even harder to be a good wife and daughter-in-law. The very sight of this would make me want to picket harder, yell louder, to do and be what I believed she was not.  In my attempt to be strong, feminist, and progressive, I failed to grasp what bell hooks so poignantly stated: Freedom does not come from “simply inverting the dominant ideology of culture” but requires careful rethinking of cultural binaries that function to distort and exoticize subjugated cultural practices.

So this is a love note to say thank you to those visionaries—Adrienne Rich, Alice Walker, Patricia Hill Collins, Carol Gilligan – who expose and disrupt colonizing cycles of self-(M)Othering and who ultimately brought me closer to my Ma, clearing my eyes of blame so I could see her: flawed and fully human.  Thank you, feminist daughter-writers—Cherrie Moraga, Maria Lugones, Nellie Wong, Mitsuye Yamada—many of you who are lesbian and of Color, who theorize Mother-Love, for making it possible for me to recognize my partiality and the limits of my own knowledge. You warn me against internalizing silencing, prescriptive—and thus oppressive—representations of the majority culture that render my mother the ‘Other,’ and I am reminded of how I have been complicit throughout my life of (M)Othering.

One of the most beautiful love letters ever written by a daughter: Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born.  Rich, thank you for boldly construing radical new ways of thinking that restored integrity to the social arrangement of motherhood and daughterhood that is, by design, simultaneously oppressed and oppressive.  Thank you, Bettina Aptheker, for Tapestries of Life and, Elsa Barkley Brown, for “Mother of Mind.” Tapestries articulates women’s often fervent desire to reframe and reclaim matrilineal heritage in search of languages – a quest that can make all feminist legacies legible and real. Brown speaks truth to Black feminist daughtering standpoint, artfully portraying how her mother taught her multiple ways of being as a Black woman that necessarily involved conforming to and resisting social norms and dictates. Such contradictions, for instance, where her mother socialized her to live “one way,” and equipped her with the “tools” to “live quite differently,” demonstrates how Mother-Love is necessarily critical and affirming.

Dear feminist daughter-writers, you have written against the master narrative of separation, while lingering on the complexity of pain—the physical, spiritual, and psychological wounds that we, mothers, daughters, women, have inflicted on each other.  How sharing pain erodes it, heals it, and transforms it!

And, yet, just last week, Ma and I were poised for battle.  She tells me again how I am straying too far from what she knows. This is her survival logic, in Bettina Aptheker’s words. Instantly, images of a ruthless “Tiger Mother” pop into my head and I want so bad to hurl them at her, but I resist. “Tiger Mother” is one of many racialized, controlling images that perpetuates separation, splitting, and strips my/our mothers of flesh, pain, and subjectivity.  Later, when Ma and I have finished sparring, I’m grateful that I did not cut (to conquer) her. I will remember the fierce, unapologetic voice of Asian American feminist daughter-writer Merle Woo, who, like a phoenix, rose up and bestowed wisdom: Feminist daughtering is activism!  Woo professes: “… do you realize, Ma, that I could never have reacted the way I have if you had not provided for me the opportunity to be free of the binds that have held you down, and to be in the process of self-affirmation?” My mom—her story, her past—continues to become visible, a process that was scaffolded by feminists declaration of Mother-Love.  As Woo declares, “Because of your life, because of … all those gifts you never received, I saw myself as having worth; now I begin to love myself more, see our potential, and fight for just that kind of social change that will affirm me, my race, my sex, my heritage.  While I affirm myself, Ma, I affirm you.”

This is my love note – to my Ma and to all feminist daughter-writers who live/dream/work toward making a critically affirming, anti-colonialist, anti-racist culture of Mother-Love reality.

  • 2 weeks ago > minj27
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It’s arguable that Asiaphilia, ironically, stems from legal attempts to exclude Asian Americans from the United States. The criteria by which many Asian women were permitted to enter the U.S. were not exactly morally sound: prostitutes, picture brides, war brides, mail-order brides. Sexuality was a prerequisite for refuge in the United States.
Yellow Fever (via loquatly)

(via everythingisacasestudy)

Source: loquatly

  • 2 weeks ago > loquatly
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18mr:

The Asian Pride Project, an intergenerational and multilingual resource for telling the stories of LGBT Asian & Pacific Islanders, recently launched their website. Many of the videos are really great—we loved this one of Elena and her grandmother.

They’re also having a launch party in New York this weekend. It’s free, and you can RSVP here!

I love this so much. It’s great that there are projects like this out there now to showcase and tell the stories of LGBTQ API people. Not only do folks have to go through the nerve-wracking event of coming out, but there’s also the factors of family, culture and community conflicts that intersect as well.  

    • #asian american
    • #the asian pride project
    • #asian
    • #family
    • #culture
    • #lgbtq
    • #pacific islander
  • 2 weeks ago > 18mr
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Q:Hi, thank you so much for following my other blog 'whitewashed.' Right now, I've been very interested in the topic of beauty and how it's perceived in media (particularly among Asian Americans). I want to ask, how would you define what is beautiful? Do you think mainstream media has any affect to what we perceive as "beautiful"?

coycolleen

Hello and thanks for following me back!

Your questions: I want to ask, how would you define what is beautiful? Do you think mainstream media has any affect to what we perceive as “beautiful”?

That’s a difficult question to answer, really. I don’t believe that one could truly define “beautiful” because of the way mainstream media has molded that ideal. I definitely think that mainstream media has a great affect on how we define what beautiful is. What we consider to be beautiful is what we often see in the many messages, photos, films, music videos, magazines, and so forth, which is the dominant image of the thin white female form. Other female forms that do get a moment in the spotlight are only caricatures of what is still a small percentage of an entire group of women. By that I mean, when we look at Beyonce or Nicki Minaj, they are only two female representatives in the black community thus the media neglects to show the variety of bodies and beauty ideals among black women. If they DO show other forms of black female beauty it generally tends to be in a negative light (think black hip hop artists and their music videos). The same portrayal goes for Asian American women as well, where the media representation for them is even smaller, with very distinct boxes they must fit into - hypersexualized, nerdy or submissive. 

Asian American women, along with women from all racial and ethnic backgrounds, are so multifaceted that the media needs to get to a point where we can accurately portray that. 

- Luann

  • 2 weeks ago
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Unlike today——where Asian American communities categorize “culture” and “politics” into different spheres of professional activity—in the late 1960s they did not divide them so rigidly or hierarchically. Writers, artists, and musicians were “cultural workers” usually closely associated with communities, and saw their work as “serving the people.” Like other community activists, cultural workers defined the period as a “decisive moment” for Asian Americans—a time for reclaiming the past and changing the future.
Glenn Omatsu, The Four Prisons and the Movements of Liberation: Asian American Activism from the 1960s to the 1990s (via seanmiura)
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My Love for The Mindy Project & Mindy Kaling

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First of all, I absolutely love this show. I was heartbroken when I missed the airing of the first episode because I (unfortunately) spent my Tuesday nights in class. But as soon as it was uploaded on Hulu the next day I immediately watched it say, twice, maybe three times during that week. I’ve been a huge fan of Mindy since her days on The Office as Kelly Kapoor and I believe I have read her book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) a dozen times or so now. She’s funny, smart and successful - all of the characteristics that, as women, we’re socialized to be envious of of one another. But I love her and have tried my best to see beyond the caricature that prime time television has molded her to be: a weird, slightly-off, obsessed with pop culture, Asian nerd. 

Mindy’s character on The Office was one that was unique in terms of the common Asian character that we’ve seen on television. She was obsessed with celebrities, smitten and often times maniacal about her lover/co-worker Ryan. I loved everything about Mindy’s character on The Office because the writers chose to refrain from having Mindy’s South Asian heritage be the primary appeal of her character’s existence, which if you’re an Asian actor, your race/ethnicity tends to take center stage.  But the great thing is that the writers simultaneously didn’t ignore the fact that Mindy is still South Asian and therefore, they have to incorporate that knowledge into the story line somehow, which then gave us the ‘Diwali’ episode the Hindu Festival of Lights celebration. 

But one thing that always stuck out to me as different about the characters that Mindy plays is how multifaceted they are. Now, if this is an executive decision on her part - that I don’t know, since she is a writer on both shows. Kelly Kapoor and Mindy on the Mindy Project are not that much different from each other, but there are some slight differences to note. They’re both outgoing, funny, a little too obsessed with celebrity gossip, and looking for love. But while Kelly is a nuisance to most people in The Office, she is force to be reckoned with on the Mindy Project. It’s a breath of fresh air from the many stereotypical caricatures that we’ve seen in the media amongst Asian Americans. They’re not hypersexual (although she talks plenty about sex she is not overtly sexual) and they’re not brainiacs (although she does play a doctor on the Mindy Project, she could’ve been a chef and I don’t think it would have changed the storyline much). Asian American women portrayed as diverse beings is apparently, something new and is hopefully, a phenomenon that needs to catch on with the rest of Hollywood. They can be funny, act, write AND produce?! 

Mindy is definitely a person to keep an eye on. I expect even more awesome projects from her… if that’s even possible.

- Luann

    • #mindy kaling
    • #the mindy project
    • #south asian
    • #indian
    • #the office
    • #gender
    • #race
    • #ethnicity
    • #writing
    • #asian american
    • #asian
    • #women
    • #funny
    • #humor
    • #comedy
    • #kelly kapoor
  • 2 weeks ago
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Exhibitions Highlight Range of Asian-American Designers

Exhibitions at the Museum of Chinese in America show the creative range of Asian-Americans in fashion and other fashion news this week.

Asian American fashion designers are finally getting their well overdue recognition! 

    • #asian american
    • #asian
    • #museum of chinese in america
    • #fashion
    • #new york times
  • 3 weeks ago
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About

Avatar Aspiring writer, educator, and researcher. Raising your consciousness on the intersections of race, gender, sex, class, and sexuality. Emphasis on the Asian/Asian American experience. Fascinated with manifestations of beauty and how we as a society embrace/denounce it.

Have a question? Just ask!
Or send me an email at lovelyluann@gmail.com

Please also check out my other blog Luann is Writing

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