tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59005264030876662992024-03-04T22:17:50.415-08:00Seattle JACL Blog Seattle JACLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14195467554355256972noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900526403087666299.post-9809933471108301852020-10-27T16:09:00.017-07:002020-10-27T17:25:43.742-07:00Uprooting anti-Blackness in the Japanese American community<b><span style="font-size: large;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBkoEo-KRzrnVrlMy5ly-kEP8Ucg2j9689RCjLoN-Tl7LaBTz0QmytpmgK4GGVqbBsAc5EW-iC9rbuqs5dquaPIMxoCmC8Rg-O7dlcJZifZbp_g7UOoSYVdZLHY24Fd3YxxPTyp0JEy7w/s2736/BeFunky-collage+-+2020-10-27T165214.252.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1149" data-original-width="2736" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBkoEo-KRzrnVrlMy5ly-kEP8Ucg2j9689RCjLoN-Tl7LaBTz0QmytpmgK4GGVqbBsAc5EW-iC9rbuqs5dquaPIMxoCmC8Rg-O7dlcJZifZbp_g7UOoSYVdZLHY24Fd3YxxPTyp0JEy7w/w640-h268/BeFunky-collage+-+2020-10-27T165214.252.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nikkei activist Yuri Kochiyama, courtesy of UCLA Asian American Studies Center, sign by Katherine Nagasawa, WBEZ artist Mari Shibuya painting a portrait of Breonna Taylor, photo by Ellen M. Banner, The Seattle Times. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></b><div><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSejHG_2N8lRTo2uwZZG572JH89EkE-_wtzcBVksvGdX5tMAMg/viewform?gxids=7757">Register now</a> for a free series of digital workshops this fall and winter! Geared for non-Black Japanese American youth, community members—and all who wish to attend! These sessions will be moderated by Dr. Kyle Kinoshita and an intergenerational team of API organizers. Let's "clean our house" as a community so that we can better show up in solidarity for our Black siblings. </span></b><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Japanese American youth: What needs to happen in our community so that we can be powerful accomplices in the movement for Black lives? How can we ensure that our cries for “Never Again is Now!” are rooted in collective BIPOC action—not simply in the self-interests of non-Black Nikkei or API's? This upcoming webinar series will empower Nikkei young people—and others who wish to attend—through education, community-building, and dialogue. Join us for these much-needed learning sessions where we’ll be “cleaning our own house” and examining our history (such as the creation of the "model minority" myth and Black/Asian solidarity). By coming together to learn and connect, we hope to give youth the anti-racist tools they need to navigate the world today, and to lay the foundation for a future we all believe in.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Japanese Americans have survived forced assimilation, collective trauma, and racially motivated incarceration during World War II. Recently, we’ve had to navigate the world in an era where anti-Asian hate is an increasing threat. Our own experiences under white supremacy have created resilience and empowered activism in members of our community. Today, we wish to continue building on our civil rights work and values of social justice. As People of Color who carry our own history of oppression, we are also a settler group on Indigenous land, benefitting from a system built on the enslavement and oppression of Black people (and often upheld as the good, obedient “minority” to draw a wedge between us and our BIPOC siblings). In other words, the broader Japanese American community has work to do. Let's do this work together. </div><div><br />Geared toward youth, open to all, and created through an intergenerational committee of API activists, this series is proudly presented by Seattle JACL and sponsored by the Robert Chinn Foundation. We are honored to have our workshops led by Dr. Kyle Kinoshita, an instructor with the University of Washington. Kinoshita previously served as Chief of Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction for Seattle Public Schools, and helped to implement the ethnic studies program during his time with SPS.<br /><div><br /></div><div>Sign up for our Uprooting anti-Blackness series via this <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSejHG_2N8lRTo2uwZZG572JH89EkE-_wtzcBVksvGdX5tMAMg/viewform?gxids=7757">Google form</a>. <br /><b><u><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCHvxdjywN-9QjliI7Y7NDwdhmwFvX-j5ULbLfbuHzH3-CMn8CZFbihw2h7xwoq9IwOC0euzrPmUrU3GUCxcFLgjwDxorzN0hCIpSTffzWlZ4XDEQ2V9ZuD4LK9VcJ7Z4JD4Wq0-f6U5E/s2048/seattlejacl_community_convos_anti-blackness_2020_FINAL_FB+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCHvxdjywN-9QjliI7Y7NDwdhmwFvX-j5ULbLfbuHzH3-CMn8CZFbihw2h7xwoq9IwOC0euzrPmUrU3GUCxcFLgjwDxorzN0hCIpSTffzWlZ4XDEQ2V9ZuD4LK9VcJ7Z4JD4Wq0-f6U5E/w640-h360/seattlejacl_community_convos_anti-blackness_2020_FINAL_FB+%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Webinar Schedule: <br /></u>Part 1: Origins of racism and anti-Blackness<br /></b>Saturday, Nov. 21, 2-3:30 p.m. (PT)<br /><br /><b>Part 2: Modern anti-Blackness and white privilege<br /></b>Saturday, Dec. 5, 2-3:30 p.m. (PT)<br /><br /><b>Part 3: Weaponization of the “model minority” myth<br /></b>Date forthcoming<br /><br /><b>Part 4: Advancing anti-racism in the JA community, past and present<br /></b>Date forthcoming</div><div><br /></div><div><i><b>Organizing committee includes McKenna Asakawa, Kyle Kinoshita, HyeEun Park, Jess Juanich, Emily Toshie Kawahigashi, Emma Sullivan, and Gabrielle Kazuko Nomura Gainor. </b></i></div><div><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div><i><b>Funding made possible by the Robert Chinn Foundation.</b></i></div><div><b><i><br /></i></b><i><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnWd4zGa8AJU_46BrbJY5r6CYpboMYJ2Ahu-FuB6seNYguxl-2q8gtBka2i2oeGBcPdPkmrY5s732JJ9fEFo7ZdeG4KaLeJuNbA1uE0ttluQjMWo8yfNYo1BPtHLcrNbxWTphyphenhyphenuBGAj7A/s448/download.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="112" data-original-width="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnWd4zGa8AJU_46BrbJY5r6CYpboMYJ2Ahu-FuB6seNYguxl-2q8gtBka2i2oeGBcPdPkmrY5s732JJ9fEFo7ZdeG4KaLeJuNbA1uE0ttluQjMWo8yfNYo1BPtHLcrNbxWTphyphenhyphenuBGAj7A/s320/download.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /></b></i></div></div><div><br /></div></div>Seattle JACLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14195467554355256972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900526403087666299.post-16509085272157509272020-10-15T21:15:00.005-07:002020-10-16T11:46:43.237-07:00Poem: 'Different, but their strengths meet in you'<div><div><b>Audrey Remle is a Mixed Race (Hunkpapa Lakota, Paiute, Japanese and Black) woman from South Seattle. Below is a poem she created for our <a href="https://www.gabriellekazuko.com/upcoming/mixedraceseattle">Mixed Race Seattle webinar series</a>, which Remle helped to co-direct and organize. </b></div></div><div><br /></div>A stranger in the back of the bus<br />Yelled loud questions at the girl<br />trying to guess her ethnicity<br /><br />An inhale<br />An exhale<br />The mountainside steepened <br /><br />She wanted to reply<br />her favorite food growing up<br />was Obaachan’s homemade inari<br /><br />And she’d add, with a smile<br />buffalo were important in her tribe<br />and also quite tasty<br /><br />Home was getting farther away<br /><br />Children pointed, fox smiles wide<br />The God that loved them<br />had never loved her<br /><br />Inhale<br />Exhale<br />The distance was lonely<br /><br />Children learn from their parents<br />Depression is somewhat hereditary<br />The heavier your backpack <br />The slower you move<br /><br />Inhale<br />She was dying<br />Running up the steep mountain<br />Silently screaming<br />Many different looking ancestors chanting <br />All of them pushed her forward<br /><br />Exhale<br /><br />Seattle JACLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14195467554355256972noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5900526403087666299.post-90692622009378132092020-10-13T21:33:00.007-07:002020-10-16T11:37:08.611-07:00'What’s Your Ethnicity?’: The question you don’t actually want the answer to<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRZFzikesUMcsz3qPZDH7BNFgmJa-WoFuTpqQrGknV9qt2mqPOGnVRafUxziCYVts8k-lmVHsaQjvpVIEaoO6H4-y8uC7FgZSUll389D71UUopi8AU14M2P3ZCkpzx4Y1lcNEoOCJf228/s2831/BeFunky-collage+-+2020-10-06T210545.541.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1111" data-original-width="2831" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRZFzikesUMcsz3qPZDH7BNFgmJa-WoFuTpqQrGknV9qt2mqPOGnVRafUxziCYVts8k-lmVHsaQjvpVIEaoO6H4-y8uC7FgZSUll389D71UUopi8AU14M2P3ZCkpzx4Y1lcNEoOCJf228/w640-h252/BeFunky-collage+-+2020-10-06T210545.541.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><b>By Audrey Remle </b><div><br /></div><div>"What is your ethnicity?”<br /><br />I have joked many times that if I received a nickel for every time I’ve been asked this question, I probably could have come out of college debt free. <br /><br /><div>On one hand, I understand their curiosity. Humans have a natural tendency to gravitate towards people who look like them and share any kind of similarity.<br /><br />On the other hand, it’s not easy to be constantly reminded that you don’t look like you belong to the people you come from. <br /><br />If you peruse each feature on my face, you might be able to guess a heritage for each one. But please don’t do that. It’s uncomfortable. My thick curly hair has always been described by non-Black people as “Black hair.” To Black people, it’s not really Black hair. Regardless of what people see it as, my Black ancestry is what makes it what it is. The only times you can see a glimpse of my Japanese features is when my eyes turn into two half moons when I smile. You could probably guess my skin tone was related to either my Asian or Indigenous roots. But some would say I’m "not dark enough." <br /><br />Race allows people to find a sense of community and comfort without having to exchange words. At times we need to challenge those immediate senses of comfort and learn to be more open to differences, but it is also important for BIPOC communities to have that immediate sense of security. We’ve spent generations being severely hurt and oppressed for being different from White people, so it’s no surprise that we feel safe in the presence of people who have shared those generational traumas. But where exactly does that leave someone like me? Where does that leave multiracial people who carry such diverse histories in their body, but do not outwardly present the features of their ancestors? <br /><br />Each time I hear the “what’s your ethnicity?” question, I’m reminded that even my own people see me as an outsider looking in. Another culture vulture trying to steal their way of life. I’m reminded how even some of my own family do not believe I have the right to claim my ancestry because I’m not full blooded. These are things people who are only one race or one-race-passing don’t ever have to think about. <br /><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCpA9SCT8ReuK8peiv96aMUfujmWfTmd208Sw5dnwWTqn1UYqGI9vUmUv7MjIUvZ6AZpu8PMaRox9zE3t_dieNUEsV7Mye0kZdAZ_6bH_4bYJB6bH0gXD7Nx0q-m-UGVLnueUpi9VGego/s852/120343072_396680724672241_1027467342634500617_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="852" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCpA9SCT8ReuK8peiv96aMUfujmWfTmd208Sw5dnwWTqn1UYqGI9vUmUv7MjIUvZ6AZpu8PMaRox9zE3t_dieNUEsV7Mye0kZdAZ_6bH_4bYJB6bH0gXD7Nx0q-m-UGVLnueUpi9VGego/w480-h640/120343072_396680724672241_1027467342634500617_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Young Audrey holding one of her brothers with her great-grandfather. </td></tr></tbody></table><br />I have struggled with my mixed race identity since childhood. I primarily identify as Indigenous, Black, and Japanese. But I have Mayan, Indian, Siberian, and a whole lot of other things in me that I’m not aware of. My highest blood percentage of these races is probably around forty-percent, quite likely to be less if I knew more. So you can see why blood quantum has always been pretty irrelevant in defining who I am. <br /><br />The convenience of giving up a part of who I am to save myself the remorse of being denied my own culture has won countless battles against being able to take pride in my mixed race identity. Despite the memories I had of my Obaachan making me homemade inari or my grandmother waking me up with “ohayou,” I was not Japanese enough to either Japanese nationals or Japanese Americans. I internalized anti-Blackness because of the abusive man who gave me my Black heritage. People can often guess I’m mixed Black, but if I erase it from the narrative, I’m ambiguous enough for it to fly under the radar. I took advantage of this to not associate with a traumatic past associated with my biological father. My family identified primarily as Indigenous and Japanese—I was the only one who was also Black. So I stuck with what my family was in order to avoid standing out.</div><div><br />But I came to realize that my biological father was not the only one my Black blood connected me to. It connected me to a community of powerful and beautiful individuals. It connected me to resilient and strong ancestors. And if you were to go back hundreds of years and view my distant family, they’d be living life in Japan just like the relatives of "full blooded" Japanese people. Somewhere back in time, the people needed to create me are walking on the uncolonized lands of North America, South America, Africa, and probably every other continent besides Antarctica, honestly. For some reason, colonization and White supremacy has made us think we are somehow less connected to these ancestors because of this strange concept of blood quantum. As if you could put my blood into a flask and watch the layers perfectly separate into different races.</div><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZQ8a6HBs_5ttK7YC9wTthDm_kO7_aEKxgfgKMPrKAYrDILL6gE2QOthJjJw2a0rqaFoh-WxdW5NARE26s1jnJeD2lLnaZdO4UQLSjm6cYBtYGXLBaA4axWVF4b5qpVReNfqu3HQdZhyphenhyphen0/s730/120781255_1438483019684134_2701815518000891327_n.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="719" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZQ8a6HBs_5ttK7YC9wTthDm_kO7_aEKxgfgKMPrKAYrDILL6gE2QOthJjJw2a0rqaFoh-WxdW5NARE26s1jnJeD2lLnaZdO4UQLSjm6cYBtYGXLBaA4axWVF4b5qpVReNfqu3HQdZhyphenhyphen0/w630-h640/120781255_1438483019684134_2701815518000891327_n.jpg" width="630" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Young Audrey. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />I am one hundred percent mixed. This all is the answer to your “what’s your ethnicity?” question. It is complex, confusing<span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 16px;">—</span>it is all a beautiful part of me. When you ask that question, you will not get the response you're looking for. You will not get the response to make all the puzzle pieces in your head solve themselves, creating a perfect picture of what I am. How could you ever solve the puzzle when the image you tried to create was not the artwork of its owner? You may see the outside and create assumptions on what you see. You may try to deny me of my identity’s validity. But only I know my history and the deep-rooted connections I feel to all of my cultures. You will never be able to put a percentage or physical attribute on that.</div><div><br /><b><i>Audrey Remle (she/her) is a mixed Native American (Hunkpapa Lakota and Paiute), Japanese American, and African American woman local to South Seattle. She served on the Seattle JACL board from 2016-2020, and currently works as a Professional Mentor for Friends of the Children Seattle, a nonprofit providing long-term mentors to children who need extra support in their lives. Remle is a co-creator of the <a href="https://www.gabriellekazuko.com/upcoming/mixedraceseattle">Mixed Race Seattle </a>conference and webinar series. </i></b></div><div><br /></div></div>Seattle JACLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14195467554355256972noreply@blogger.com0