Talkstory: APA Superheroes
Sunday’s Folklife Festival (June 27, 2010) saw the appearance three of the four editors of Secret Identities, an anthology of Asian American superheroes, including Jerry Ma, Jeff Yang, and Keith Chow.
The Secret Identities crew’s session at Talkstory discussed the parallels between the real lives of Asian Pacific Americans and those of modern day comic superheroes. What makes the character of the superheroes is in a large part due to their heritage, their upbringing, and the life experiences that they have gone through outside of their superhero persona.
Keith Chow begins to verbally paint a picture of a familiar figure: from a far away place… dark hair… dark-rimmed glasses…
It’s undeniably…
…Jeff Yang, on stage next to Chow.
With a foot in two worlds, with multiple identities, Asian Pacific Americans and superheroes, the trio suggests, have parallel struggles of identity and inclusion.
To illustrate how they created some of the characters in their work, Secret Identities, the three panelists invited audience member Ni’jah to create a superhero of her own. By asking Ni’jah questions about the background and potential reasons and motivations behind having a super power, Yang helped her to create the superhero character The Dodger. The Dodger, a teenage girl who grew up in Brooklyn, NY, with a yearning to escape from the place her family has been for generations, develops super speed, activated by impending danger. Meanwhile, Jerry Ma skillfully sketches how this character might look, resulting in a drawing with some resemblance to Ni’jah herself.
This demonstration illustrates the process many of the characters from the anthology were created and brings to mind an example of how the life experiences and situations of a character shape the superhero’s persona and reflect the motivations and dreams that fuel her powers.
Check out the review of Secret Identities on BookDragon.
For more discussions on history, culture and contemporary topics dealing with Asian Pacific Americans, be sure to visit the Talkstory tent at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
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Cool appearance by the authors of the book. I wish I was there to hear them speak. On a different note, I’d like to see Ni’jah’s character, the Dodger, made into a full comic. It sounds like she has an interesting story!