May marks the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843, and completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869, which was built primarily by Chinese immigrant labor.  While Asian Pacific Americans have been central to the American story, it took members of congress, Representatives Frank Horton of New York and Norman Y. Mineta of California, and Hawai‘i Senators Daniel Inouye and Spark Matsunaga, to lobby their colleagues and the President to recognize what had been earned through sacrifice in military service and public service, and through the countless ways that Asian Pacific American communities have made America their love and home.

Twenty years ago, President George Bush signed Public Law 102-450 permanently designating May of each year as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Through the month of May, The May Project will post the reflections of Asian Pacific Americans who are associated with the Smithsonian, imagining, celebrating and teaching America from perspectives that are not always recognized and in a way that suggests the importance of these voices.

As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the month of May being permanently designated Asian Pacific American Heritage Month we can reflect on a number of dates that have defined Asian Pacific American communities in one way or another: 2012 marks 30 years since the controversial death of Chinese American Vincent Chin; 60 years since U.S. citizenship was granted to those born on the island of Guam; 60 years since the first AAPI Member of Congress, Dalip Singh Saund, served as a judge and as a delegate to the convention of a major political party; 70 years since Executive Order 9066 authorizing the Japanese American Internment; 100 years since planting of first cherry blossoms from Japan; 130 years since the Chinese Exclusion Act; and 150 years since the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 promoting the construction of the transcontinental railroad.

Want to see your own story in the May Project? Send your submission to Molly at higginsme(at)si(dot)edu.

Gather in the Kogod Courtyard to see how dance, new media, language, and visual projections work together to explore identity and cultural influence.

“Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits of Encounter”—organized as a collaboration between the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program—is the Smithsonian’s first major showcase of contemporary Asian American portraiture. It features the groundbreaking work of seven artists.

KYOPO: Multiplicity is an exploration of how culture and Asian traditions survive, expand, and evolve abroad. The performance piece is a collaboration between the artist CYJO—whose work is in “Asian American Portraits of Encounter”—modern dance choreographer Dana Tai Soon Burgess, French composer Benoit Granier, and composer Anthony Paul De Ritis.

Related Links:

• Download the Program and Participant Biographies (PDF)
• Download the postcard flyer (PDF)
• National Portrait Gallery Calendar Page
• Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits of Encounter
• CYJO Bio Page

This event is sponsored by:

• Korean Cultural Center at the Embassy
• of the Republic of Korea
• DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities
• Northeastern University’s College of Arts, Media and Design
• Yale School of Music
• Quince Imaging
• National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
• Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program
• National Endowment for the Arts
• Cherry Blossom Giving Circle

Shanghai Express and Hud film posters

The Smithsonian presents two films to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month:

1 PM: Shanghai Express (1932, 80 min) is a tale of romance and intrigue that unfolds aboard an express train during the Chinese civil war. Known for its Oscar–winning cinematography by Lee Garmes, this film features Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, and Anna May Wong. Melissa Bisagni (National Museum of the American Indian’s film and video manager) introduces the screening.

3 PM: Hud (1963, 112 min.) starring Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas, and Patricia Neal, depicts a Texas ranching family coming apart at the seams. The film was nominated for 7 Oscars and won 3, including James Wong Howe’s statuette for Best Cinematography (Black and White). Konrad Ng (director, Smithsonian’s Asian Pacific American Program) introduces this screening.

Portraits of Anna May Wong and James Wong Howe are on view in the related exhibition, Twentieth-Century Americans.

Click to download the PDF postcard

Bring the whole family to the Smithsonian’s kickoff celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month! Enjoy a fun-filled day sampling music and dance performances by local artists and engaging in challenging but child-friendly hands-on activities. This family day of activities centers on the exhibition, Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits of Encounter. The Hirshhorn’s ARTLAB+ teens will be on hand to videotape interviews with interested visitors.

If you think you would like to help out at this event, please contact Lydia Alcock at alcockl@si.edu as soon as possible about volunteering. Please also feel free to forward this note to friends, family, and colleagues.

Schedule

11:45 a.m.	Lion Dance (Opening) The Washington Chinese Youth Club (CYC) performs traditional Chinese Lion Dances at a variety of major events. Lion dance is a form of traditional dance in Chinese culture in which performers mimic a lion’s movements in a lion costume.
12:00 p.m.	Remarks by Konrad Ng Konrad Ng is the Director of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program, which provides vision, leadership, and support for Asian and Pacific Islander American initiatives for the Smithsonian Institution.
12:15 p.m.	South Asian Dance Performance by Dhroopad Dhroopad is an all volunteer Bengali American cultural organization in the  DC Metro area with an objective to promote rich Bengali cultural heritage and to foster arts and literature as a force that transcends social, cultural and religious barriers and instigate compassion for humanity.
1:00 p.m.	Spoken Word and Poetry Performances The 2013 Asian Pacific Islander American (APIA) Spoken Word & Poetry Summit Artists are a gathering of spoken word artists, poets, writers, musicians, thespians, activists, organizers, and artists who convene based on the commonality of their Asian American, Asian, and/or Pacific Islander identity.
1:30 p.m.	Storytelling with Mokihana Our storyteller, Mokihana, will share The Island-below-the-Star, by James Rumford, which tells of the adventure of five brothers and teaches Polynesian navigation skills.  Mokihana will teach the children hula motions to enhance the story and will share an original chant based on the book.
2:00 p.m.	Book Reading & Signing with Sushimita Mazumdar Sushmita Mazumdar is a D.C. area book artist, writer, and educator. She started writing stories for children when her children were little and made them into fun books by hand. Since then, she teaches art education programs for children as well as adult groups to encourage storytelling and passing on cultural heritage from one generation to the next.
2:15 p.m.	Filipino American Dance Ensemble by MHC The Migrant Heritage Commission (MHC) Filipino American Dance Ensemble is composed of talented youth and adults from various groups who trained for cultural events. The group is under the artistic direction of the Philippine Embassy’s former Cultural Officer & Attache’ Grace Valera.
2:45 p.m.	Lion Dance (Closing) Performed by the Washington Chinese Youth Club (CYC)

Ongoing Activities

Ti Lei Bracelets
Ti leaves (lā`ī in Hawaiian) have had many uses in Hawaiian culture:  rain capes, roof waterproofing, cooking (as tin foil facsimile) and more.  Participants will learn a simple yet authentic lei-making method to make a bracelet that can be worn repeatedly by storing in the freezer.

Lion and Dragon Masks
Decorate your own lion or dragon mask to celebrate the year of the dragon. The Lunar New Year is symbolized by a different animal zodiac each year, determined by a 12-year cycle. 2012 is the Year of the Dragon which is the most revered in the calendar.

Handmade Storybooks with Sushmita Mazumdar
Children and families can create a storybook illustrating their personal story. Sushmita Mazumdar and museum volunteers will provide directions and help.

Charcoal Drawings with Rebecca C. Adams
In contemporary American culture hair type can indicate where you live, it can tell a story about your ancestors, and it can even be a form of creative self-expression.  Based on the artworks of Zhang Chun Hong in the Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits of Encounter exhibit, visitors will create their own hair scroll “portraits” in charcoal to celebrate their individuality.

Clay Fortune Cookies
Learn how to make fortune cookies out of clay. The history of the fortune cookie dates back to Los Angeles, California. According to “Madam Chu’s Chinese Cooking School” (a book by Grace Zia Chu), George Jung invented the fortune cookie in Los Angeles, circa 1916. He either wanted to cheer up customers during WWI or entertain them while waiting for their food.

ARTLAB+
ARTLAB+ is a digital media studio based at the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden that gives teens the opportunity to become integral members of a design team. Production teams are inviting participants to share personal stories that relate to the theme of APA Heritage Month and the Portraiture Now exhibition. The footage is compiled into a montage video by an ARTLAB+ teen video editor.

Photo Booth
Bring home memories by taking free photo booth pictures with your family and friends.

Special menu available at the Courtyard Café.

Related Links:

• 2011 Family Day Recap
• Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits of Encounter

• Asian Pacific American Heritage Committee
• National Portrait Gallery
• Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program
• Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
  

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Christine Chou at the National Museum of American History

By Christine Chou, Spring 2012 Intern

What is more synonymous with New York City than the yellow taxi cab? The Big Apple is home to the country’s largest concentration of taxi drivers – about 60% of whom are of South Asian descent. Their presence in the industry is so strong that the South Asian taxi driver has now become a common figure in popular culture and an inescapable part of metropolitan life.

The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program along with the National Museum of American History’s recent acquisition of New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) artifacts for the HomeSpun Project will help showcase the working lives of Indian Americans, whose experiences and struggles form an important part of this country’s social and economic history. These items will also be used to address the broader topic of workers’ rights and labor movements in the United States.

Established in 1998 by Bhairavi Desai, NYTWA is currently the nation’s largest taxi driver union, with over 15,000 multi-ethnic members. The organization’s mission is to improve the working conditions of taxi drivers in New York City, who work 12-hour shifts with no health insurance, retirement benefits, or paid time off. According to the Department of Labor, taxi driving is the most dangerous occupation in the country. The fatality rate is 30 times higher than in any other profession, and taxi drivers are also 80 times more likely to be robbed on the job.

NYTWA provides its members with access to healthcare and legal services, and also fights to overcome harsh regulations, police discrimination, and industry exploitation through political advocacy, media campaigns, and democratic organization.

The collection of artifacts, donated by NYTWA co-founder Javaid Tariq, tells the often unseen side of life as a taxi driver. Some highlights include:

• Trip sheets, which drivers use to record every instance of where and when they have taken passengers. The sheets are a representation of how drivers work both day and night, even during times when the rest of the world is sleeping or taking a much-needed holiday. This is most vividly illustrated on one such sheet, dated January 1, 1996.

• A taxi meter, a key symbol of the economic situation facing taxi drivers, who begin each morning in debt. The red color of the meter display is a reminder of the daily debt owed to their leasers, which can average around $120 per 12-hour shift. In fact, taxi driving is one of the few jobs where one can work a full day and still lose money.

• A Citizens’ Band radio used during the successful New York taxi drivers strike on May 13, 1998 in protest of severe new regulations proposed by then Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. With almost 40,000 participating drivers, the city was emptied of yellow cabs that day. Because cell phones were still uncommon, drivers would instead use CB radios to coordinate with their fellow drivers and the executive director of NYTWA during the strike.

These objects and many more may be included in the HomeSpun Project as a part of the Speaking Up! exhibition opening next year. Mr. Tariq’s generous donations have been successfully added to the National Museum of American History’s Work & Industry Collection.

Related Links:

• NYTWA Website

Franklin Odo accepting his award at the AAAS Conference on April 14, 2012.

The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program congratulates its founding Director, Franklin Odo, on receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Asian American Studies.  Over the course of a professional life that spans several decades, Franklin has advanced and institutionalized Asian American scholarship at several organizations, including the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and the Smithsonian Institution.  These were not easy feats.  Franklin established these programs in climates where the Asian American experience was relatively unknown and/or struggled for cultural, financial and political capital.  While Franklin fought these important battles, he continued to be an active scholar who never lost faith in the public’s capacity to embrace the concerns of Asian America and recognize our centrality to understanding America and the world.  We offer our heartfelt congratulations to Franklin Odo.

White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Logo

On Monday, April 2, our Development Specialist, Sameen Piracha, and I attended the first National Philanthropic Briefing by the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (WHIAAPI) to draw attention to Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Native Hawaiian communities (AAPINH), the fastest growing racial group in the U.S.  Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, White House Cabinet Secretary Chris Lu, and Chief of Staff to the First Lady Tina Tchen attended the briefing to express their support to over 200 participants from more than 50 foundations.  Participants convened around key issues important to AAPINH communities.

As Director of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program (APAP) and member of the WHIAAPI Inter-Agency Working Group, I, along with colleagues from the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), facilitated the focus group on culture and the arts.  Our task was to explore how public-private partnerships could improve the life and opportunity of AAPINH communities through art and culture.  While the Smithsonian Institution is supported by Congress, the resources that support its exhibitions and programs, especially the exhibitions and programs of APAP, come from individuals, corporations, and grants.  Our capacity to tell America’s whole story relies on the generosity of our supporters; it depends on you.  The Ford Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, and the W.W. Kellogg Foundation’s commitment of $1 million to seed public-private partnerships was the greatest success that emerged from this briefing. We remain excited about the possibilities of this historic meeting.

click image to view more photos

The Edgar P. Richardson Symposium Asian American Portraits of Encounter: Between Image & Word was held on April 14, 2012 at the National Portrait Gallery’s McEvoy Auditorium and featured readings by seven renowned Asian Pacific American writers: Bao Phi, Marianne Villanueva, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, Kazim Ali, Anna Kazumi Stahl, David Henry Hwang, and Garrett Hongo.

The purpose of the symposium was eloquently expressed by Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis, editor of the Asian American Literary Review, in his opening remarks:

“There’s greater production of Asian American arts and letters now than ever before, but I think that it’s easy to see the writers as if they’re at their separate tables at a giant book fair, or artists at their respective galleries, sort of as a chain of islands of disparate talents… And the impetus for this event is to view Asian American arts and letters as a living body, a living community that needs nurturing and provoking, precisely by means of exchange and conversation, and we hope today’s event provides these sorts of exchange and dialogue.”

Konrad Ng, Director of the Smithsonian APA Program, also gave remarks via video that compliment the mission of the symposium:

“…what you do, what you write, what you create, is of great importance and relevance because the meaning of your work far exceeds the fact of its existence.   Your work captures the particularities of this time and allows future generations to admire creative expression and respect critical interventions. The idea of today’s event grew out of the recognition that art and literature possess profound powers, and the encounter between Asian American writers, as they respond to Asian American portraiture, could incubate critical acts of creativity. “

The four-hour symposium also featured the artwork of Roger Shimomura, Hey Yeon Nam, CYJO, Shizu Saldamando, Hong Chun Zhang, Tam Tran, and Satomi Shirai, all of which are currently on display in the Asian American Portraits of Encounter exhibition. Each of the seven participating writers was paired with a visual portrait from the exhibition and asked to create an original literary work in response. Presented in the form of poems, short stories, and plays, these response pieces explored themes of identity, immigration, xenophobia, Asian American stereotypes, and cultural dissonance. The writers also shared personal anecdotes and other works from their oeuvre with similar thematic content. Ranging from comedic send-ups of youth culture to deeply heartfelt narrations of the artists’ own creative and personal journeys, the great diversity of works presented that afternoon provided a bridge between the visual and literary arts, and hopefully prompted some thought-provoking discussions on what it means to be Asian American today.

Watch the webcast video below or on our Ustream page.

Between Image & Word was organized and presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Asian American Literary Review with generous funding from the Commissioner Edgar P. Richardson Symposium Fund of the National Portrait Gallery and OCA-DC.

Related Links:

• Original post
• Official Between Image & Word Symposium website
• Photos from the event
• Review by Patricia Wakida – Through the Fire: Asian American Portraits of Encounter: Readings of Identity

If you would like to host a HomeSpun reception, please contact Sameen Piracha at PirachaSA@si.edu.

We are looking for volunteers to help with our upcoming Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Family Day.

This family day of activities centers on the exhibition, Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits of Encounter, and includes musical and dance performances, and a range of hands-on activities about portraiture and identity. The Hirshhorn’s Artlab+ teens will be on hand to videotape interviews with interested visitors.

If you think you would like to help out at this event, please contact Lydia Alcock at alcockl@si.edu as soon as possible.  Please also feel free to forward this note to friends, family, and colleagues.

Related Links:

• Pictures from last year’s Family Day
• 2011 Family Day event recap