November 29, 2008
Asian American artists’ hidden history (and my claim to almost-fame)
Asian Americans are finally showing up in American pop culture at large, but Asian American fine artists are still mostly invisible. Only a few have had notable -- or rather, noted -- careers in the art world.
When I was an art student, I didn't think much of my heritage. You might say it was my "Banana Period." As an artist, I didn't appreciate my ethnicity, even when I was included in a group show of Japanese artists and my painting was bought by a famous playwright (keep reading below).
I simply didn't identify myself as an Asian American artist. I was simply an artist, and the art I made was informed by my 8th grade art teacher, Julie Maiolo, my high school art teacher, Jay Filson, and all my professors (especially color theorist Mary Buckley), as well as the art history teachers and books I soaked up. Which meant my awareness of art was all Euro-centric.
In all of that art history and theory, what I knew of Asia in art was that calligraphy was beautiful, ink painting was hard but similar in process to watercolor, and that Japanese woodblocks inspired the French Impressionists that I loved so much.
So it's understandable that I assumed any artist with an Asian name was Asian, not Asian American. For instance, for years I thought the sculptor Isamu Noguchi was Japanese, even though he was born in Los Angeles.
But now, the hidden history of Asian American artists is finally getting a jump start, thanks to two projects.
First is the first extensive exhibition of Asian American artists, "Asian/American/Modern Art: Shifting Currents, 1900–1970," curated by the de Young Museum, part of the San Francisco Fine Art Museum (there's a companion book available). The exhibit opened in October, and runs through late January. Then the work moves to the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City near New York.
Second is the publication of "Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970," by Stanford University Press.
Kerrry Hada at the microphone during the dedication of Highway 285 as "Ralph Carr Highway." Carr was the governor of Colorado during World War II who fought the unconstitutional internment of Japanese Americans from the West Coast, and lost his political career for his stand. Hada helped lead the effort to name the highway after Carr.
Congratulations are in order for Kerry Hada, a Colorado-born Japanese American attorney who has just been named by Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper as a Denver County Court Judge.
Erin and I have known Kerry for years, and he's deeply involved in both the Japanese American and wider Asian American Pacific Islander communities. He's a member of the Governor's Asian Pacific American Advisory Council (GAPAAC) and has been a member of many community organizations. He was named this past year to the Board of Directors of the Japanese American National Museum in LA, and he is dedicated to Denver and to the AAPI population.
I'm very glad to see that The Mayor has chosen him from a short list of qualified candidates. (BTW, he'll be replacing a retiring judge, another JA, Mel Okamoto, who's also a great guy... but I doubt the ethnicity had anything to do with Hickenlooper's choice).
Erin and I have great respect for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders' need to preserve our traditional heritages -- they enrich our lives and help give us our sense of identity with the countries of our ancestors. I think too few young Asian Americans hold on to their ethnic heritage.
At the same time, we're not just about kimonos and martial arts and traditional music and dances, and don't appreciate that outsiders (white people, mostly) view us through the exoticized filter of our cultural and social traditions. That's why, during her tenure as editor-in-chief of 
For Veteran's Day, 2008: Hoang Nguyen, 37, knew as a kid that he would join the U.S. military. “I wanted to repay back the United States for helping my family after the fall of Saigon,†he says.
He remembers the chaos of the end of the Vietnam war in the late ‘70s. “We took a boat from Vietnam to Guam, then flew to the U.S. with the help of American troops,†he says. “The military had a big impact on me at a young age.â€
That’s a common feeling among younger Asian Americans, he says, if they came out of the Vietnam War experience.
Hoang attended the Air Force Academy, earned a Bachelors of Arts & Science, and went into pilots training at 22. “My parents were initially slightly cautious†about his decision to join the military, he says. “My father did not want me to go through the rough times he went through. But my mother was elated.†(He's shown above, with his mother, Hanh Ha, at the ceremony when he was promoted to the rank of Major.)
Luckily, the closest he got to combat duty was conducting fly-overs in the Middle East between the two Iraq wars. He left the Air Force in 2000 (the official word is “separatedâ€) and joined American Airlines.
After 9/11, he said, his patriotism led him to join the reserves. He’s now a full-time active guard reservist and reached the rank of Major in 2005.
AAPIs fighting for America
When the subject of Asians fighting in the U.S. military comes up, the first thought is the Japanese American 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II. Many of those soldiers enlisted even though their families were incarcerated in American concentration camps. 
Erin and I have seen 