Asian Diaspora Futurities Through Asian Diaspora Music, Visual and Performing Arts, Literature, and Films

• In Event: Asian Diaspora Cultural Studies: Epistemologies of Historical Exclusion, Political Activism, and Curriculum Possibilities

Abstract

Inspired by Afrofuturism (Anderson & Jones, 2016; Dery, 1994; Gipson, 2019; Jackson & Moody-Freeman, 2011; Nelson, 2002; Womack, 2013), Indigenous Futurism (Dillon, 2012; also de Ramírez & Lucero, 2009; Lempert, 2014, 2018; Medak-Saltzman, 2017), and diasporic futurism (He, 2022), I dive into music, visual and performing arts, literature, films, news articles, media reports, and academic scholarship representing Asian diaspora voices, histories, and experiences. I conceptualize Asian diaspora futurities as a multicultural, multilingual, multiracial, and multiethnic aesthetic, philosophy of science, and philosophy of history to explore the intersectionality of language, culture, identity, race, ethnicity, gender, class, power, history, place and space. Asian diaspora futurities address multicultural, multilingual, multiracial, and multiethnic aesthetic diaspora. Such futurities shatter white supremacy, orientalism, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and settler colonialism that perpetuate an emboldened hatred of differences and neglect the existence of Asian diasporas and other minoritized individuals and communities. Such futurities help examine and dislodge dominant and oppressive settler colonial narratives and center Indigenous cosmologies that creatively and aesthetically interrogate histories of settler colonialism, critique contemporary Asian diasporic contexts, and envision decolonized imaginaries.

The cartographies of decolonizing futurities can be traced to such a wide array of works as Inter-Asia cultural studies (Chen, 1998), Asian settler colonialism (Fujikane & Okamura, 2008), Asian diaspora and East-West modernity (Ma, 2012), Asian diasporas (Parreñas & Siu, 2007; Shi & Hazel, 2019), Asia as method (Chen, 2010), AsianCrit (Chang, 1993; Iftikar & Museu, 2018; Museus & Iftikar, 2013; also An, 2016, 2017a, 2017b; Kim & Hsieh, 2022; Liu, 2009; Park & Liu, 2014; Poon & Segoshi, 2018; Rodríguez, 2018, 2019; Rodríguez & Kim, 2018, 2019), feminism without borders (Mohanty, 2003/2006), critical race/third world feminism (Narayan, 1997; Trinh, 1989; Wing, 2000, 2003), decolonization (Lin & Martin, 2005), decolonizing methodologies (Tuhiwai Smith, 1999/2012; Tuhiwai Smith, Tuck, & Yang, 2019; also Chilisa, 2012; Kovach, 2009/2012; Oliveira & Wright, 2016), decolonizing educational research (Patel, 2016), indigenous storywork (Archibald, 2000; Archibald, Xiiem, Lee-Morgan, & Santolo, 2019), endarkened storywork (Toliver, 2022), testimonios, theory in the flesh, and third world women’s writing as self-preservation and revolution (Moraga & Anzaldúa, 1981/1983), mestiza narratives, critical creative perspectives by women of color (Anzaldúa, 1987, 1990), critical race and LatCrit methodology and counter-storytelling (Delgado, 1989; Solorzano, & Yosso, 2001, 2002; Yosso, 2006), and methodology of the oppressed (Sandoval, 2000).

Five renderings have emerged from my inquiry: (1) It is extremely important to invent invigorating curriculum milieu for Asian diasporas to thrive as we fight against all forms of oppression. (2) Asian diasporas need to cultivate spiritual homeplaces/spaces within ourselves where we continuously draw upon sources of self-actualization/self-invigoration for healing and caring. (3) Asian diasporas must examine futurities through multiple Asian diaspora intellectual traditions. (4) Asian diaspora cultural studies must foster creative strategies that transgress colonial/imperial theoretical traditions and methodological boundaries to empower silenced, marginalized, and neglected individuals/groups/communities. (5) To cultivate our thriving existence, Asian diasporas must overcome our ignorance, heal our soul, and create possibilities to reimagine spaces and places for our evolving futurities.

Author

• Ming Fang He, Georgia Southern University