What It Was Like Being Mixed-Race Photographed By National Geographic

[image source]

by Sharon H Chang

Remember these pictures? They were part of National Geographic's mixed race photo campaign "Changing Faces" published in October 2013. "We're becoming a country," stated the magazine, "Where race is no longer so black and white." The images were shot by famous German portrait photographer Martin Schoeller who said he liked "building catalogs of faces that invite people to compare them." I think it's safe to say that happened. The gallery was widely viewed (it being National Geographic after all) and more or less greatly admired (it being Martin Schoeller after all). But there was some criticism, including my own, which I wrote about for Racism Review in Mixed or Not, Why Are We Still Taking Pictures of "Race"? One of the larger questions I raised was around the idea that we use images of mixed race people to debate race, without including those mixed folk in the debate themselves. I concluded that essay with a proclamation:

While modern race-photography believes itself to be celebrating the dismantling of race, it may actually be fooling us (and itself) with a fantastically complicated show of smoke and mirrors...We need to make much, MUCH more space for something ultimately pretty simple — the stories of actual people themselves which in the end, will paint the real picture.

But here's a truth I want to share with you. I also felt at the time that me making this proclamation wasn't enough. That I had to do more than just say it. I needed to live it; make a commitment to the practice I was preaching. So. As an old friend used to say, "Where attention goes, energy flows." Soon after making this personal resolve I had the amazing good fortune of running into Alejandro T. Acierto, a mixed race identifying person who was photographed for National Geographic's campaign. He graciously agreed share with me/us what "Changing Faces" was like for him through his own experience, his own words, and his own lens.

Yea 'Aloha' is Super White, But What's Up With the Way We're Talking About It?

From left to right Aloha stars: sovereignty activist Dennis "Bumpy" Pu'uhonua Kanahele (as himself), Bradley Cooper (as a white guy), and Emma Stone (as a white person playing a mixed-race Hawaiian/Chinese/Swedish person) [image source]

by Sharon H Chang

Okay first let's just get this out of the way. Aloha is a really, really bad movie. Like REALLY bad. It's getting horrible reviews (as it should) for lousy directing, a terrible script, mismatched A-list actors, poor production etc. It's boring as hell to watch. I'm not going to even bother giving a a story synopsis here because the plot is so pointless and uninteresting, it doesn't matter anyway. If you want or need a synopsis, it's easy to find one online. Just do a web search.

No all you need to know, if you don't already, is this: Set in Hawaii where Native Hawaiians continue to be besieged by whites and the military, the movie centers white people and the U.S. military anyway, all of which is supposedly made better by the conceit of a military-serving mixed-race Hawaiian/Chinese/Swedish character, who is actually played by a white actress.

Yup. Pretty much.

How 'Ex Machina' Abuses Women of Color & Nobody Cares Cause It's Smart

Sex slave "Kyoko" played by Japanese/British actress Sonoya Mizuno [image source]

by Sharon H Chang

Last month British science fiction thriller Ex Machina opened in the U.S. to almost unanimous rave reviews. The film was written and directed by Alex Garland, author of bestselling 1996 novel The Beach (also made into a movie) and screenwriter of 28 Days Later (2002) and Never Let Me Go (2010). Ex Machina is Garland's directorial debut. It's about a young white coder named Caleb who gets the opportunity to visit the secluded mountain home of his employer Nathan, pioneering programmer of the world's most powerful search engine (Nathan's appearance is ambiguous but he reads non-white and the actor who plays him is Guatemalan). Caleb believes the trip innocuous but quickly learns that Nathan's home is actually a secret research facility in which the brilliant but egocentric and obnoxious genius has been developing sophisticated artificial intelligence. Caleb is immediately introduced to Nathan's most upgraded construct - a gorgeous white fembot named Ava. And the mind games ensue.

As the week unfolds the only things we know for sure are (a) imprisoned Ava wants to be free, and, (b) Caleb becomes completely enamored and wants to "rescue" her. Other than that, nothing is clear. What are Ava's true intentions? Does she like Caleb back or is she just using him to get out? Is Nathan really as much an asshole as he seems or is he putting on a show to manipulate everyone? Who should we feel sorry for? Who should we empathize with? Who should we hate? Who's the hero? Reviewers and viewers alike are melting in intellectual ecstasy over this brain-twisty movie. The Guardian calls it "accomplished, cerebral film-making"; Wired calls it "one of the year's most intelligent and thought-provoking films"; Indiewire calls it "gripping, brilliant and sensational". Alex Garland apparently is the smartest, coolest new director on the block. "Garland understands what he's talking about," says RogerEbert.com, and goes "to the trouble to explain more abstract concepts in plain language."

Right.

Racializing Infants: When Anne Geddes Came to Seattle

from Google image search for "Anne Geddes"

by Sharon H Chang

She's been called legendary; famed; one of the world's most respected photographers. Her images are award winning, internationally acclaimed, considered iconic and beloved by many. She's sold over 19 million books and 13 million calendars in at least 83 countries and translated into at least 25 different languages. Anne Geddes is a globally renowned photographer famous for her whimsical portraits of infants and children in fanciful, fairytale-esque costumes and settings. The Australian born artist is also a global advocate for children. She founded the Anne Geddes Philanthropic Trust in 1992 and has worked to raise awareness around many child-related issues from abuse and neglect, to premature birth and the threat of meningococcal disease. "Protect. Nurture. Love," her website reads, "These three words have served as my mantra and inspiration throughout my 30-year career as a photographer."

But that's not exactly what happened when Geddes came to Seattle last year for a three day workshop and photo shoot for her 2017 Zodiac Calendar.

Are Mixed Race Asian/Whites, "Basically White"?

Amerasian Le Van Minh in post-war Vietnam, Newsday photo by Audry Tiernan (1985)

[She] never told the son who was crippled by polio about her relationship with his father. All she said was that the man was an American, a sergeant in the Army. He was one of the thousands of GIs who left children behind as victims of the conflict that the United States never officially called a war.

-- "Life and Times of Le Van Minh" by Irene Virag

by Sharon H Chang

I've gotten some pretty vitriolic comments these last months regarding my writings on white-mixing not being synonymous with whiteness. A recent response to my piece protesting Asian Fortune's troubled 2013 "Hapa" article:

"Guys...Sometimes you just need to calm the f down. You need to get out of your heads a little bit and stop over analyzing things. I'm sure all you hapas out there have some understanding of the way hapas are treated in Asia. Talk about superficial stereotypical understandings! Your ultra-liberal, ultra-progressive, straight-out-of-an-undergraduate-African-American-studies-class mumbo jumbo would only ever be considered in White countries. And you know damn well that you benefit from 'White privilege.' The reason I put that in quotes is beyond the scope of this comment. Don't write back with some bullshit about traffic stops - I know the statistics." (October 26, 2014) 

Another recent response, this time to my piece on talking mixed race identity with young children for Hyphen Magazine:

"'mom am i white?'

the answer is yes, he is. Stop confusing the poor child and STOP telling him he's of Asian descent when you and the baby daddy are clearly white. He will grow up with an identity problem and will very likely hate you for it. Have some decency as a parent." (February 10, 2015) 

Reflections on the 2014 Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference

Fred Sasaki performing "How to Hafu it All: Three Easy Steps to 100%" [image from CMRS Facebook]

by Sharon H Chang

Ah. Where do I begin. I'm sitting on a plane waiting to takeoff to Seattle (correction, taking off) thinking on my last 3 days in Chicago at the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference. I'm exhilarated, emotional, exhausted, enlightened. I got to present some of my research for the first time. After years of researching, MAJOR milestone. I got to be with and meet in the flesh so many folk doing great work whom I had mostly only known by name or via social media thumbnails till that point: Eliaichi Kimaro of A Lot Like You; Jeff Chiba Stearns of One Big Hapa Family, Yellow Sticky Notes, and the forthcoming Mixed Match; Megumi Nishikura of Hafu; Fanshen Cox of One Drop of Love and, with partner Chandra Crudup, Mixed Roots Stories; Ken Tanabe of Loving Day; Co-creators of War Baby / Love Child (as well as two of the conference's founders) Laura Kina and Wei Ming Dariotis; and Steven Riley of MixedRaceStudies.org.

with Jeff Chiba Stearns of Yellow Sticky Notes

Heading to Chicago to Get Critical About Being Mixed!

image from criticalmixedracestudies.org

by Sharon H Chang

Today I'm heading inland from (strangely) sunny Seattle to the Windy-Much-Colder-City for the 3rd Biennial Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference! I've never been and I'm excited. So excited. That's actually putting it kind of mildly. In three decades of life I haven't yet had the opportunity to be in a space filled with mixed-identifying folk and get gritty about what being multiracial means. And I don't mean like a multicultural festival where we revel in ethnic foods, get profound about international music, hold hands while singing All You Need Is Love, and wax poetic about globalization. I've done those. They can be fun. But they don't get at what it's like to move through a racially divided world that persists in being starkly unequal when you're a person who embodies crossed racial lines. Not even close. For instance, when half the planet's entire population lives in Brazil, the US, and primarily Asia, what is the perception of others and daily experience of being a mixed-race person of Asian/white descent? By contrast, when the poorest countries in the world are in Africa because the continent remains devastated by Western conquest and Blackness worldwide continues to suffer heavy negative perception, what is the experience of being a mixed-race person of Black/white descent? There is a trend today of lumping multiracials together as if our lived lives stood apart in some ethereal, united place. But we are not the same, though we may stand together on shared ground, nor do we transcend race by our mere "non-conforming" existence. People identifying as mixed, like all racialized peoples, need the chance to come together too to talk about who we are, how we are alike but different, what we're proud of, what pisses us off -- and what we're going to do about it. Can't wait.

In three decades of life I haven't yet had the opportunity to be in a space filled with mixed-identifying folk and get gritty about what being multiracial means.

Please take a quick look at my Storify slide show below or view it at here at storify.com. Over the last week I've been counting down to the conference on Twitter by tweeting about presenters, panelists, performers, etc. This is your chance to learn something about the many great multiracial people out there who are reflecting upon, researching deeply, and writing about the mixed experience. There are some fabulous photos, shows to catch, names to look up, links to click, films to watch, books to read  (*note: mouse-over photos/images to view captions). I assembled a list of Tweeps to follow at the end. During the conference this week, I'll be tweeting live as much as possible. You can follow me on Twitter @multiasianfams OR if you aren't on Twitter (and don't want to be), you can read my Twitter Feed live at this blog in the sidebar to the right. Come with me on my journey...it's going to be a great ride!