Some other known Studio Ghibli titles include Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke. These movies have fantastical characters and plots but also concern for the world around us. Many of the themes touched on in the movies include nature vs technology, family, the power of dreams, violence vs peace, and the value of artistry. Studio Ghibli impacts an audience of kids all over the globe, because as Entertainment Weekly writes, “Growing up is not just a matter of discovering things about oneself, but also coming to understand one’s place in the larger world.” Each person who watches these movies takes away something different, something personal. When I watch these movies (especially my favorite, Spirited Away) I feel comforted as I resonate with the main character who must solve problems and explore her curiosity independently. She crosses the bridge from childhood to adulthood, which is the place I am at in life right now. 

Studio Ghibli not only has an artistic impact, but also a cultural impact. There is an obvious connection between Japanese culture and Studio Ghibli movies. It helps its audience develop cultural identity and cultural pride. Even if viewers are not specifically Japanese, many Asian Americans appreciate the on screen representation. Coming from a non-western media outlet, it heavily portrays aspects of Asian culture for the rest of the world to consume. This creates a cross-cultural impact effect through cinema. The characters are not static or stereotypical like how Asians have been shown in films such as those created by Disney. They are not boring or flat, they are capable of going on adventures and saving the world. Studio Ghibli continues to shape the world’s perception of Asian culture and affirm Asians’ own identities. 

The post Studio Ghibli’s Impact on the World of Film first appeared on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

The post Studio Ghibli’s Impact on the World of Film appeared first on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

The festival’s origins are rooted in Hindu mythology – the powerful god Lord Brahma blessed a demon, Mahishasura, with the gift of immortality as Mahishasura had remained loyal to him for a long time. Mahishasura’s gift of immortality had one exception, however: the person who would defeat him would be a woman.

Mahishasura, who was cocky, didn’t believe any woman would be strong enough to kill him, and used his immortality viciously to attack the people of Earth. This was until Goddess Durga intervened –  for nine days, Durga fought the demon with strength until she was finally able to defeat Mahishasura. This prevalence of good over evil created the festival of Navratri, celebrating the period over which Durga defeated Mahishasura.

Navaratri, typically celebrated between September to October, celebrates Goddess Durga, the mother goddess, and honors women through this beautiful festival. Over nine days and nights, each day symbolizes a different color that honors a female goddess, and Hindus wear a different coloured traditional outfit to reflect this. The colors are yellow, green, gray, orange, white, red, royal blue, pink, and peacock green, and they represent the nine Navratri goddesses: Shailaputri, Brahmacharini, Chandraghanta, Kushmanda, Skandamata, Katyayani, Kaalarati, Mahagauri, and finally, Durga herself.

The festival involves a lot of different traditions that carried over to the United States as Hindu immigrants sought out opportunity. Today, Hindu-Americans celebrate Navratri vivaciously and extensively, in many different ways, showcasing their culture. For some, the festival is a time for religious reflection and fasting, while for others, it is an occasion to dance, feast, and worship.

One way to celebrate Navratri is by decorating the house. Many South-Indian Americans set up a golu, which is a display of steps that is structured to carry different statues of Hindu deities. Often, mithai (Indian sweets) are made to offer as parshad (sacred food) to the deities, as a form of worship and respect. 

Another way, and perhaps the most famous way to celebrate Navratri, is by dancing in garba and dandiya raas, two forms of folk dance originating in the state of Gujarat, India. These two forms involve dancing in repetitive movements in a circle around a statue of a deity (typically Goddess Durga herself). Often, wooden sticks known as dandiya are used as well to sound out rhythm and help with the dance movements performed in dandiya raas. 

Garba and Dandiya Raas have become such popular forms of dance for Indian-Americans to do during the festival of Navaratri that they have been popularized as forms of friendly competition. Many high schools and universities across the United States have created Raas dance teams and clubs to perform the dance together and compete against other local teams. 

In the United States, where Indian-Americans come together to celebrate Navratri, people can connect with one another in sharing a love for dance and a shared culture. Navaratri is truly a bright and vivacious way to learn about Indian culture and join the celebration. 

The post Navratri: Celebrating the Feminine Divine first appeared on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

The post Navratri: Celebrating the Feminine Divine appeared first on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

Han, who was raised by Korean parents and is Korean-American, first became known around the release of her first novel, Shug, in 2006. Since then, Han has published various book series such as the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy and The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy, which was later adapted into the show on Amazon Prime. Han has also developed multiple shows and movies throughout her career, including the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before adaptation movies and the XO, Kitty series, both debuting on Netflix. Han, who is now regarded as one of the most well-known romance authors, has consistently proven to thrive in her career, shedding light on the successes of Asian-Americans. In fact, Han, who wrote Lara Jean as an explicitly Asian character, and ensured she was cast as such in the To All the Boys movies, revealed that it is important to tell “stories where being Asian isn’t the point” on the Call Your Girlfriend podcast in 2021. Han has connections to her Asian background and supports representation, but clearly has hopes to build characters whose entire background is not solely being Asian, but being themselves.

The actress who plays Belly Conklin on The Summer I Turned Pretty, Lola Tung, also comes from an Asian background, with her mother being of partially Chinese descent. Tung, whose Chinese heritage is often acknowledged in the media, appreciates her heritage and is grateful for her connections to it. In 2022, Tung was interviewed by Teen Vogue, and spoke about Asian representation. She finds it incredible to be working with “other Asian-American actors” and an “Asian-American creator, writer, and showrunner.” Tung finds it “so cool” that the show centers around a family who “happens to be Asian-American.” Tung’s relationship with her Asian background leads her to show support for diversity in the film industry.

Other Asian actors and actresses in The Summer I Turned Pretty series include Sean Kaufmann, who plays Steven, Belly’s brother, and Jackie Chung, who plays Belly’s mother, Laurel Park. Additionally, Minnie Mills, who is also Asian, played Shayla Wang, Steven’s girlfriend, on the show’s first season, but has since left the production. Evidently, Han is extremely passionate about featuring Asian figures throughout her creations, as she included Lana Condor in To All the Boys and Anna Cathcart in XO, Kitty—both actresses are of Vietnamese and Chinese descent, respectively. Additionally, Belly, TSITP’s main character, is white in the novels, but was modified as an on-screen character. On the show, Belly is part of an Asian-American family, which Han spoke to CinemaBlend about in 2022. She wished to “showcase different kinds of talent” by incorporating “diversity of the characters,” changing the TV show adaptation to “reflect the moment.” Throughout her works, Han has casted a significant number of Asian celebrities, revealing that she wishes to bring some of her background into her career. 

Regarding the show itself, The Summer I Turned Pretty series revolves around Isabel “Belly” Conklin, who faces heartbreak, sadness, and anger as she struggles to navigate through a love triangle. This love triangle involves Belly herself and the Fisher brothers—Conrad and Jeremiah—who Belly has grown up with at a beach house every summer. Additionally, the Fishers, Belly, and her family must live through Conrad and Jeremiah’s mother, Susannah’s, cancer diagnosis, which in various moments, brings them both closer together and farther apart. The show’s romance plotline, along with its added emotional issues and constant drama, are surely what attracted millions of teens to their screens every Friday night at 8 p.m. EST. With the ending of Season 2, fans have already begun discussing a Season 3, speculating that it could be released in the summer of 2024 but as late as 2025 due to the WGA strike. 

As the film industry continues to adapt to the present moment, it can only be hoped that Asian representation and more diversity overall is seen in film and TV. Like-minded Asian individuals must contribute to the industry in effective ways, making their opinions known—this is where Jenny Han began, after all. Specifically regarding The Summer I Turned Pretty, the show’s success has been booming, and does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Teenagers globally—whether they have read the books or are solely watching the show—seem to be living for the plot and cannot wait to see what happens next. Hopefully, the show’s extreme success will allow others in the film industry to understand the significance of Asian representation and the comfort it provides to viewers coming from similar backgrounds. It is crucial that teenagers—those who feel that they do not have a say in the introductions of new Asian actors and actresses—are able to have their voices heard through passionate adults. 

The post The Summer I Turned Pretty: A Close Look into Asian Representation first appeared on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

The post The Summer I Turned Pretty: A Close Look into Asian Representation appeared first on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

The post Asian Dreads – A Short Play first appeared on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

The post Asian Dreads – A Short Play appeared first on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

Oftentimes, people that observe celebrities wonder, “Who are they?” While others see a well put-together person, behind them exists someone that has their own individual values and experiences. Similar to how not every hero wears a cape, not every person that has impacted marginalized communities is well known. Someone who affected a community in a positive way is Chella Man. He is an actor, model, filmmaker, artist, youtuber, and LGBTQ+ activist. Chella is known for sharing his experiences as a Chinese, Jewish, deaf, transmasc, and genderqueer individual and has impacted others in a positive way through his multiple careers.

He grew up in a conservative town, Central Pennsylvania in the state of Pennsylvania to a Jewish mother and Chinese father on November 26, 1998. Around the age of four, he began to lose his hearing. During his teenage years, he became profoundly deaf and received two cochlear implants. Throughout his childhood, he experienced gender dysphoria, which affected him in subsequent years of his life.

Towards the start of his life, his grandparents originally tried integrating more into Western culture and disregarding its heritage. Although he experienced parts of his culture through his grandmother’s cooking, he primarily grew up around Christian values. He questions the choices his grandparents made to assimilate with Western culture and the reason for that was the expectation of his family to remove that part of their identity. Growing up, he experienced microaggressions, similar to his father, that made him feel that he truly did not hold a place in the world, where he was always the “Asian best friend,” rather than simply being a best friend. When at gatherings with his Chinese and Jewish sides of the family, Chella realized that he needed to learn how to be comfortable with being himself. His mother encouraged him to wear an androgynous Chinese outfit to avoid feeling pressured to present himself as a girl.

In 2017, Chella created his YouTube channel that focuses on his experiences with gender dysphoria and his identity. In the same year, he began transitioning using masculinizing hormone therapy (testosterone) and top surgery led to him developing his identity further, increasing his self-esteem, and helping him improve his perception of his body image. During May 2018, he presented his TedX Talk Becoming Him to speak about his transition journey and issues that LGBTQ+ youth and ppl with disabilities may experience with gender. He recounts that to “become him,” he had to realize that he was trans, begin to understand proper terminology, and learn the differences between presentation and identification. He realizes that gender identity does not dictate the terminology used, which reiterates the concept of presentation vs identification.In an interview with Teen Vogue, Chella mentioned that he has had to be his own representation due to underrepresentation of marginalized groups. In 2019, he played the role of Jericho, a mute crime fighter, in DC Universe’s Titans. The impact this role has is the reflection of growth from the past, re-emphasize that marginalized communities need to be seen in media, and represents a step forward to the future. Approximately two years ago, he published his book, Continuum, which recounts his experiences with his gender identity, as well as his experiences as a child. That reflects the impact of self-discovery.

By sharing his experiences in that way and demonstrating his story through paintings, film, photography, sketches, and murals, he created a concrete, yet creative method to show who he is to the world.

The post Chella Man: Breaking the Chains of Set Identities and Unveiling the Power Within first appeared on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

The post Chella Man: Breaking the Chains of Set Identities and Unveiling the Power Within appeared first on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

2024, the long-anticipated election year, is approaching fast. Though we are more than a year away from the actual presidential elections, discussion about the primaries and caucuses has begun within public spheres, news platforms, and social media. On the Democratic side, President Biden has announced his intent to run for reelection. The incumbent president is expected to be the party’s 2024 nominee, as the campaigns of his two declared Democratic opponents, RFK Jr. and Marianne Williamson, have failed to pick up steam. “No sitting president in modern American history has been successfully primaried,”  says The Week. More uncertain, however, is the outcome of the Republican primaries. Fourteen total Republicans have declared their candidacy in the 2024 race, and the first Republican primary debate occurred on August 23rd between six of them. Notably, two of them are of Indian descent. Let’s talk about Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley as they vie against each other and twelve other candidates for the position of Republican nominee.

Vivek Ramaswamy is the son of Indian immigrants who came to the U.S. with very little to their name, but made his fortune as a venture capitalist—a fact which Ramaswamy often uses as a main point of his campaign.  “My parents came to this country with no money 40 years ago,” he said during the debate. “I have gone on to found multibillion-dollar companies. I did it while marrying my wife Apoorva, raising our two sons, following our faith in God. That is the American dream.” He presents himself as the model of the ideal Republican American Dream, where anyone, even a poor immigrant, can thrive in the United States if they work hard enough. This is noteworthy considering how Ramaswamy is quite the exception from the average member of the GOP: he is a person of color, the son of immigrants, Hindu, and only 38 years old. Vox calls Ramaswamy a kind of “Trojan horse” who at first glance, appears to symbolize a new, diverse generation, yet embodies the same ideals that older White GOP members support. 

This cycle of presidential elections is Ramaswamy’s first foray into politics. He is primarily an entrepreneur, who initially gained wealth from his business ventures while at Yale Law School, and eventually founded the pharmaceutical company Roivant Sciences. Forbes estimated his net worth at around $950 million as of August this year.

As a newcomer with no political experience, Ramaswamy seeks to win the hearts of Republican voters by branding himself as an outgoing, lively, and unscripted personality. At the primary debate, he commanded center stage, and “hewed closely to Mr. Trump,” says the New York Times. By actively putting himself front and center, and not hesitating to attack or be attacked by his opponents, he gained considerable exposure and shot up to third in opinion polls after the debate, following Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.

Nikki Haley is also the daughter of Indian immigrant parents. Born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa, she grew up Sikh but converted to Christianity in 1997. In 2005, Haley was elected to South Carolina’s House of Representatives, and in 2011, became the state’s governor. She was the first Indian-American in either of these positions, but has been criticized for having an “on-and-off public relationship with her Indian heritage,” according to Insider. Detractors criticize incidents such as her conversion to Christianity and allegedly selecting her race as “White” on a voter registration card in 2001, but then at other times being vocal about her Indian-American identity. Like Ramaswamy, Haley cites her family’s success as immigrants to make a point that systemic racism in America is no longer an issue. Some defend her, saying that to succeed in a White-dominated, Republican system, she had no choice but to sacrifice some aspects of her cultural identity. Critics argue that a flawed system does not excuse politicians from actively supporting it. Near the end of her gubernatorial term, Donald Trump nominated Haley for the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. She was sworn in in 2017 and resigned in 2018. Her 2023 presidential run is her latest political venture.

Many considered Nikki Haley during the primary debate to be the voice of reason. She often leaned more moderate on issues where most other candidates tilted towards the extreme. While Haley is against abortion, she was the only candidate that acknowledged how unlikely getting a federal abortion ban through Congress would realistically be. She called for a stop to the demonization of abortion and the punishment of women who may not have any other choice. Haley was the only woman on the stage that night, which undoubtedly contributes to her views. She used this to her advantage, quoting Margaret Thatcher to say, “If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.” People speculate that Haley might appeal more to female voters, largely because of the male candidates’ ignorance about how their anti-abortion rhetoric might affect women in tough situations.

Her extensive career in politics and the United Nations also gives her an edge, particularly over newcomers like Vivek Ramaswamy. In fact, the two fought during the debate because of their opposing stances on the Russia-Ukraine war. During their contention, Haley told Ramaswamy, “Under your watch, you would make America less safe. You have no foreign policy experience and it shows.” Despite this, she lags behind in opinion polls compared to her Republican peers.

If either Ramaswamy or Haley are voted as Republican nominee, they will be the first Indian-American candidates to make it past the primaries, and one of the few non-White presidential candidates in American history. 

Three months are still left before the Republican primary elections begin. More debates are scheduled to occur in the coming months, and they may help influence the direction of the elections. But for now, it is left to be seen in whose favor Republican voters will be swayed. 

The post Who are Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley? first appeared on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

The post Who are Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley? appeared first on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

Interview highlights with June Chen Ahleman

The post Navigating Art Through Identity: A Conversation with June Chen Ahleman first appeared on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

The post Navigating Art Through Identity: A Conversation with June Chen Ahleman appeared first on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

At 10:44 AM on June 29th, 2023, the Supreme Court overturned race-conscious college admissions in the United States. It marked the end of over fifty years of legal precedent, at once removing the Kennedy-Johnson policy aimed at addressing the centuries-long economic exploitation faced by people of color in the United States. 

Race-conscious admissions were part of a wave of new laws during the civil rights era in the 60’s that helped end legal discrimination, and marked the beginning of attempts to close the racial wealth gap. The policy allowed minority students, who came from predominantly under-funded public schools and disparate socio-economic conditions, a fighting chance to help pull their communities out of poverty by attending elite institutions that were not originally built for them. These admissions policies – dubbed affirmative action –  were transformative for student diversity, as it not only helped create accessibility to prestigious schools, but it allowed for Black, Asian, Latinx, and Indigenous people to have a voice in copious amounts of university-funded research – research that influences laws, policies, and our understanding of society and history. Yet after its implementation, race-conscious admissions was met for decades with vitriol, as it was conveniently framed by its opponents as providing “unfair advantages” to students of color in the college admissions process. But this perspective completely disregards the nuance of the issue that race-conscious admissions tries to address. 

An unfair advantage is being able to retake the SAT as many times as you need until you get the score you want, simply because you can afford to do it. An unfair advantage is the luxury of taking AP classes because your school has the funds to provide them. An unfair advantage is being able to take endless extracurriculars because you aren’t responsible for providing extra income for your family. (Yet the system doesn’t recognize these economical advantages as unfair.)

Most students accepted through race-conscious admissions practices have had to face similar socio-economic struggles, while still performing excellently in the context of their academic environment and the sparse resources they have at their disposal. Affirmative action isn’t just colleges allowing unqualified students of color to walk through their doors as they please. Affirmative action, racially, is universities looking at their applicants from a holistic perspective, and deliberately seeking greater representation in predominantly White institutions. Something that the Supreme Court, by stopping academic institutions from considering race, has ended permanently in the United States.

 But the type of affirmative action with the most impact in elite universities has always been, and still is, legacy students. There has always been a quota of students prioritized in the admissions process, (as revealed by records from the Department of Education during the SCOTUS trial, showing that legacy students are 6 times more likely to get into Harvard) simply because they are a key part of the multi-billion dollar endowments supporting elite universities. In its decision, the Supreme Court, while striking down race-conscious admissions, allowed for the continuation of legacy admissions, which accounts for almost 25% of admitted students (over double the acceptance of the former). 

The movement to end affirmative action, which was predominantly led by White Americans, had been gaining traction for several decades, but it wasn’t until the 2010s that they were able to find an audience as a means to reach their goal: Asian Americans. By the end of the civil rights era, many minority groups championed affirmative action, from Black, Latinx, and Asian American communities, to Indigenous and Arab communities. But during the last decade, East Asian Americans became the face of the anti-race conscious admissions movement, as it allowed for wealthier and White anti-affirmative action activists to claim that this issue was cross-racial. The problem with this is that affirmative action also benefits Asian Americans. The AAPI community is not a monolith, and should not be treated as such. Race-conscious admissions have for the last fifty years helped bring in a more diverse student body that have included underrepresented AAPI groups, such as Vietnamese, Filipino, and Palestinian students (and other various racial and ethnic groups in the AAPI diaspora). 

Certain demographics of the AAPI community such as South Asian, Korean, and Japanese Americans have not benefited from race-conscious admission, simply because they fall under the wealthiest income bracket in the United States. This is not to say that they don’t face socio-political discrimination, but it allows us to recognize how they also benefit from economic privilege through the college admissions process. Even when East Asian American students face rejection from these universities, it isn’t because of race-conscious admissions (which accounts for less than 10% of admitted students). It’s because of the uncomfortable fact that wealthier demographics within the AAPI diaspora have had the economic resources to create extremely competitive applications that have led them to be over-represented in these institutions. In contrast, lower-income demographics who identify as AAPI are underrepresented, and are more in need of race-conscious affirmative action. Because this is not just a racial issue, but a class one as well. 

The recent Supreme Court ruling has incited a larger cultural re-examination of the college admissions process, but there is one critical element that has widely been ignored: the prep-school to elite university pipeline. Attending a prep school can be life-changing, and has widely been described as the entrance ticket to the college of your dreams. As top-notch academics with average prices ranging from $16,000 to over $50,000, they’re often the gateway for wealthy students looking for a way into the Ivies. But prep schools have also been a key tool to cultivate diversity – some of the best prep schools in the nation, such as Andover Academy, have made it their mission to enroll students from lower-income and diverse backgrounds, welcoming them in with full scholarships. While we should praise the rapid diversification within these prep-schools over the last two decades, the issue still lies with the disparate advantages that students who attend these prep schools have over those who attend public schools. Only 14% of high school students in the United States attend a preparatory boarding school, and yet they make up over 35% of the admitted students at Harvard University, with similar percentages at Stanford, UC Berkeley, Duke, and the rest of the Ivies. Students at these schools, in addition to getting a world-class education, have other drastic advantages, like college counselors with connections to elite colleges, or access to exclusive networking opportunities with college admissions officers.

The Supreme Court decision has led to deeply positive and negative reactions within the AAPI diaspora, but one thing is clear: getting rid of race-conscious decisions will not result in an increase in acceptance of Asian Americans. The pipeline of legacy and prep-school students to elite colleges will remain very much intact, creating an overwhelmingly high-income student body. The decision unravels one of the very few efforts made by the United States to recognize and repair the damage made from centuries-long systemic discrimination, and will only exacerbate the class system in the United States.  

Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hear Our Voices Magazine.

The post OP-ED: The Boarding School to Elite University Pipeline: What Legacy Admissions Means for Affirmative Action first appeared on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

The post OP-ED: The Boarding School to Elite University Pipeline: What Legacy Admissions Means for Affirmative Action appeared first on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

The Broad in Los Angeles, The Tate in London, The Art Institute of Chicago, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Visit any one of these reputable museums and you will witness the breadth and ingenuity of Yayoi Kusama’s artwork. A multidisciplinary artist from Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama has worked continuously to create an admirable career that has earned her international recognition and admiration. Her work has inspired other notable artists of the century such as Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg, and she’s followed guidance from Georgia O’Keeffe. 

Despite her extraordinary influence, Kusama is not loved by all as she has sparked intense criticism for racist comments and offensive depictions of the Black community. 

Born on March 22, 1929, Kusama had unsteady relationships with her parents and experienced hallucinations growing up. At 13 years old, she worked in a military factory during World War II. These experiences inspired various aspects of her later artwork and art served as a cathartic outlet for her frustrations. Kusama studied Nihonga, a traditional Japanese painting style, for a year at the Kyoto City University of Arts. She presented six solo exhibitions in Japan before moving to New York. Motivated by the growing amount of American abstract works, she left Japan in 1958 and embraced less conservative art styles of the time, later becoming a leader of the avant-garde movement. 

A pioneer of contemporary compositions, Kusama pushes boundaries for both types of art and the content behind them. Her works explore themes of sexuality, feminism, mental health, surrealism, and more. Some of her most famous pieces are her reflective “Infinity Rooms,” typically filled with her signature polka dots and repetitive patterns. She quickly became a leader and respected figure in the avant-garde movement and has revolutionized the art scene as a whole. Kusama has paved the way for women, especially women of color, in the art world. Her innovative use of various mediums and emphasis on interactive art has inspired other artists to create works that transgress conventional standards. An international sensation, Kusama’s impact is also commemorated in the Yayoi Kusama Museum in Shinjuku, Tokyo, and her work is displayed in notable museums all over the world. 

Along with her contributions to creating gender equity in the art world, some have credited Kusama as a strong advocate for racial solidarity due to her protests against the glorification of White artists in both Japan and the United States. However, many of her actions and writings contradict that title. According to Hyperallergic Magazine, an online publication focused on analyzing modern art, in her 2002 autobiography, Infinity Net, Kusama “consistently wrote about Black people as primitive, hyper-sexualized beings.” She describes her previous neighborhood of residence in New York as a “slum” that continuously lost market value due to “black people shooting each other out front, and homeless people sleeping there.” Her novel, The Hustler’s Grotto of Christopher Street, “is full of grotesque and voyeuristic depictions of Black characters’ smell and genitalia.” In the script for Tokyo Leee, Kusama describes a Black character as a “WILD-looking, hairy, coal-black savage”, but describes a White character simply with “blonde hair and blue eyes.” Her perpetuation of Black stereotypes and dehumanization in her writing limits the extent of her “efforts” to combat racial inequality.  

Despite Kusama’s global fame, she has faced little public criticism for these aspects of her career. In the English translation of Infinity Net, the sentence describing Black people was omitted displaying an effort to purify Kusama’s image. Kusama’s problematic behaviors do not negate the positive influences her work has made and some may argue that people should be able to separate the art from the artist. However consumers and creators themselves have a responsibility to hold other artists accountable for their actions so that their work can be truly appreciated by all audiences. Kusama remains one of the most influential artists of her time, however to accurately portray her legacy, all aspects of her career must be properly addressed by the art world. 

The post The Controversy Behind Yayoi Kusama first appeared on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

The post The Controversy Behind Yayoi Kusama appeared first on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

The post Soaring Bird first appeared on Hear Our Voices Magazine.

The post Soaring Bird appeared first on Hear Our Voices Magazine.