Unbroken

By Sasha Hohri, Leon Sun and Eddie Wong
from East Wind Winter/Spring 1985

We are now in the middle of the 1980's, and it is becoming increasingly cleat that Asian American artists are facing critical challenges, not just in the realm of survival but of growth as well.

Under Reaganism, most Asian American artists are having a hard time surviving. While we have to scratch and dig for a gig, exhibit space, publisher, etc., symphonies and museums sit fat and sassy as ever. What little private support there was for Asian American artists from the established art world has shrunk even further, and we end up competing and fighting with each other, instead of our common enemy. Reagan's takeover for the National Endowment of the Arts along with his master plan for economic recovery, means that now, working class and minority artists must turn directly to the 'private sector," which is often controlled by the ruling circles, for their daily bread.

With Reagan's re-election and the ruling class' move to the right, Asians, other Third World people, and working people are facing an ideological and social climate which is becoming increasingly hostile to progressive politics and culture.

We all know what American Cultural Life is. It assaults and offends us daily with distorted values and denies our history end existence. For years now the right-wing has been pushing its degenerate nostalgia - a yearning for the "good old white days" - into our living rooms through the mass media. Now, under Reagan, American cultural life has become increasingly empty and egocentric. Violence, racism and sexism are now fashionable. At the same time, fewer end fewer minorities in the mass media, and sympathetic portrayals of Asians, if we think hard, are less than a handful. A few years ago, we protested the reemergence of Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu. Last summer, we found reincarnations in slicker productions such as Sixteen Candles and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Under capitalist society, art has always been a commodity. Esthetic values are secondary worth measured by arbitrary and superficial standards. And as seen in the previous examples, art is a powerful ideological weapon wielded by the ruling class to reinforce national and class oppression. No matter how much we do as individual artists or progressive activists, it is never enough to reverse the completely racist media which is blatantly dehumanizing and oppressive. The dominant art and mass media reflect the ruling class' ideological outlook, which is chauvinist and exploitative. How else could they maintain their power and profits?

While the ruling class owns controlling interest in the airwaves, publishing houses, film studios, etc., it cannot totally suppress the expression of minority and working class culture - the outgrowth and creative expression of our existence replete with its joys, sorrows, humiliations, triumphs, vacillations and resistance. Culture expresses peoples' existence, and for Third World people and working people, includes a howling, fierce condemnation of the discrimination and suffering brought about by capitalist society. It's a story that may not be televised on prime time but it's a message kept alive in the community through progressive theater, literature, storytelling. It's a flame that cannot die as long as people resist.

We don't need any more media junk to demoralize us or to poison our children's minds and distort our self-images. We need strong, truth-speaking art to provide hope enlightenment and inspiration. Art can illuminate, can validate experience and break isolation and despair. Art can elicit the response, "Yes, that's what it is! Yes, we can make revolution! Yes, we, too, have culture!" in a deep, personal way. This is the unique contribution that artists can make to the collective struggle of Asian people, Third World people, and working people of all nationalities.

But in order for art to elicit such a response, it must be true to the lives of the people, the majority of whom are workers. It must show empathy, compassion, and optimism, not cynicism and rhetoric. People do not live abstractly; their lives are centered concretely on work, home, family, and community. Just being Asian in the U.S. today poses a host of contradictions. If this society is truly democratic, why are there so few of us in political office? Why don't we sit on the board of public broadcasting, let alone, ABC, NBC, and have a hand in programming? If this society is just, why are the majority of our people working in sweatshops and restaurants, underpaid, overworked and non-unionized? Why are Asian artists forced to choose between ideals and Madison Avenue-dictated art? If this society is truly equal, why are there such large differentials in income and education between whites and minorities? Why is European-based art considered "universal" while Asian American and Third World art are relegated to the fringe and considered too "narrow" or catering to "special interests"? There is a wealth of themes, subjects and characters from which we can fashion powerful art that can unite people, forge their will to resist, crystallize their desire to overthrow this oppressive system, and educate them about socialism - a far more equitable and just social system.

The challenges facing Asian American artists are tough and will not be overcome in a year, a decade, or even a lifetime. We need revolutionary-minded artists who are tough, dedicated, enduring. We need artists who are filled with a passion for ending the misery of Asian and all oppressed peoples. Artists driven by a vision of a better future.

What is true is most powerful. The truth of our collective lives is that we built this country along with other peoples, and we continue to give of our sons and daughters. The artist who knows this and who has experienced this reality can create lasting works that touch peoples' lives and change the way they see the world. Our lives abound with examples of everyday heroism that go unrecorded and, therefore, unacknowledged. The tenacity of the San Francisco Chinese restaurant worker who walked a picket line for three months in the cold rain for a decent contract and the collective strength of New York Chinese garment workers who defied their bosses by staging a massive walkout are just a few examples of moments in history which need to be chronicled and heralded. This art can become a weapon that working people and all oppressed people can use against the system which exploits us.

It is the eighties. We've got a lot of work ahead of us. The capitalist system, as powerful as it is, breeds its own destruction by the creation of an ever-growing and impoverished working class and the continued super-exploitation of national minorities. It cannot and will not last forever because the seeds of revolution are already implanted and must be nurtured. It's time, not for cynicism and retreat, but to move forward even more rigorously, and continue our proud tradition of cultural resistance - unbroken.

We must all support this process of growth and development in the arts for it is our own voice that demands to be heard. For us in the communities, we must become an educated audience capable of appreciating what our artists are trying to do.

Sasha Hohri is a Contributing Editor and was the Chair of the Asian Desk for the Mondale]Ferraro campaign in New York. Leon Sun is art director of EAST WIND. Eddie Wong is co]editor.