Medium Post #2: Cultural Productions as Tools Against Colonial/Capitalism Rule
When I think about cultural productions and their impact on how I navigate my world in relation to how I identify myself and with other communities, the first example I thought about is the idol boy group BTS from Korea.
5 to 6 years prior to 2021, not many people knew or even heard of BTS or even the small country of Korean between its well known neighbors China and Japan. However, as BTS became a global phenomenon, their cultural productions of music and dance have spread across the continents and with it, Korea.
Joining the fandom around 2015, I came to learn about Korea’s society through the eye of the Korean youth as they struggled with Korean society’s extraordinarily high standards for education and achievement in life. BTS addressed these issues as Korean youth themselves through their lyrics and album themes. As they grew not only as artists but also as individuals within Korean society, they developed their narratives to highlight the impact of Korean society on themselves, often criticizing the rigorous lifestyle.
By learning about the Korean social climate for Korean youths, I was able to compare and strengthen the understanding of my positionality as a Korean American. Living in the United States as a minority, there is a lack of representation of Asians in media, movie, and music industry. This often led me to feel a lack of belonging regardless of my American citizenship status. However, with the increased awareness of Korea through Kpop, I found myself proud of who I was as a Korean American and more than happy to share what I knew about my culture to my friends. In addition, I was able to find myself more accepting of the American aspect of my identity as I realized how fortunate I was to pursue my education within an environment with lower mental and emotional pressures of success.
Similar to my experience with exposure to Kpop and how that has impacted my views of my identity and community in the United States, I believe isolated communities could build their sense of community and identity by sharing their experiences through music and storytelling. As many of these isolated communities are under colonial control, it is easy for communities to loose their voice with constant foreign cultural messages such as the Okinawans and efforts to live the idolized Japanese lifestyle or the Korean and Chinese communities pressured to live a labor intensive captialist lifestyle. By contributing to their narratives as minority communities, minority Asian communities create opportunities to discuss social issues and keep their struggles alive through oral/written stories as they place-make spaces where ever discussions take place on foreign lands. Through the mutual feeling of solidarity within members of the community, minority Asian communities can have a stronger collective response towards pressuring colonial governments towards improving living conditions.
Another cultural production I could recall were the pop-up art installations organized by RAICES in New York City against the inhuman detainment of children along the southern boarder as part of the “No Kids In Cages Campaign.”
Simulating the treatment of children at the southern border of the United States, a wire cage contains a child covered with an emergency blanket paired with real audio of crying children at the immigration facilities. By placing the art installation directly out on the streets of New York, RAICES strikes the pedestrians with the harsh realities of children at immigration facilities that the United States are enforcing. Although is is a single art installation, it helps beg the questions of how minorities are treated as the “other” within political policies surrounding immigration and raises awareness of immigration struggles.
By coming across the the art installation and registering the severity of situations at immigration facilities, it has compelled me to engage in the larger questions of immigration and advocate for bettering the conditions for immigrant children. In addition, it helped me question the political status quo of why immigration was happening in the first place as many minority communities turned to the United States for a new life. As the art installment shifted the streets of New York into a place of exposing the uncomfortable truth, it contributes to the ongoing movements against political agendas against border control.
With accessible public art that challenge the political norms, cultural productions of art can pack a punch while fighting a political struggle. Similar to immigration communities from the South utilizing cultural productions, Asian communities may utilize impactful forms of art to push political agendas for change. In addition, with other minorities influencing culture (and therefore artwork), collaborative artwork might emerge to convey similar goals to improve their living conditions similar to Black Jamaican Chinese Jamaican communities collaborating on the development of reggae music.
