“We are not your…” De-essentializing Southeast Asian American Feminism Through Phingbodhipakkiya’s Art Activism.

• In Event: Dek Duu, Hua Kang, Graduk Kang: Reimagining Thai American Women’s Becoming

Abstract

This paper examines how Thai American artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya’s work serves as a disrupture from mainstream #STOPASIANHATE, removing Southeast Asian American women as metaphorical ornament, instead placing her as agentic, embodied. Whereas #STOPASIANHATE social media activism was primarily text heavy, not featuring visuals of Asian Americans, Phingbodhipakkiya places agency in the gaze of her women. Her work asserts that Asian American personhood, and in particular womanhood, refuses to be a “scapegoat” of modernity/coloniality. This de-essentializing works towards unmaking the gendered object of the yellow woman as a key site for violence through Phingbodhipakkiya’s myriad of Southeast Asian American femininities.

Presenter

• Elaine Almeida, University of Wisconsin-Madison