The Silent Unseen Audio Tour traces Asian American histories in the United States, set at the Queens Museum and Flushing Meadows Park. Intended to map untold stories and address issues of invisibility and silence, The Silent Unseen offers a space for reflection on diaspora, building a stronger sense of community and solidarity. 

If you would like to leave a story, please visit: www.thesilentunseenproject.com/tell-your-story

Queens Museum.jpg

The Silent Unseen Audio Tour: An Embodied Introduction to Asian American History

GLOBAL

ayo ohs

Hi, and welcome to The Silent Unseen Audio Tour: An Embodied Introduction to Asian American History.  I’m ayo and I’ll be your guide today.

Today, we’ll be taking a journey through the history of Asian immigration, set at the location of the Queens Museum in New York. Right now, it’s fine to be anywhere outside the museum and in its vicinity, and I’ll give you your next directions shortly. It’s not recommended to do the tour offsite, but if you must, it’s encouraged that you be in motion, or in a place where you can enjoy the scenery around you.

During this tour, I’ll be sharing some of the history of how Asians have come to this nation, and along the way you’ll be invited to ponder, to question, or possibly to reminisce about what the experience of coming to this country was like, in the context of Asian immigration. 

The tour runs about an hour and a half. There are some adult themes and it’s recommended for ages 16 and up. There’s a lot of information, and some of it is thoughtful, reflective, and a little heavy. You can do it all at once, or on separate trips. Whatever helps you take it in. 

The Asian diaspora is huge and diverse. It spans multiple countries, languages, cultures, and yet, when we come here, we are categorized into a single term of “Asian American.” 

The term Asian American was coined by Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee in the late 1960s, as a way to organize and Quote “stand for all of us Americans of Asian descent” end quote. While the term was meant as a reclaiming of agency to move away from terms like Oriental or Asiatic, it’s been slightly contentious in its history, as it generally didn’t include those from South Asia, and even today the US census doesn’t include people from countries west of Pakistan as Asian. 

Today, we’ll look at some of the many waves of Asian immigration, and acknowledge some of the similarities and the diversity in Asian American cultures and histories. 

I myself am a mixed-race Asian, a descendant of European immigrants, and of Japanese-American farmers who were locked away in Internment Camps during WWII. While my family has been here for a long time, a sense of injustice as well as a sense of pride towards the United States, has given us a complex history to make sense of. I hope this tour will help you understand the complexity of what Asian American means, too. 

During this tour, I won’t be asking you to walk, but rather to “move” to different spaces, and wheelchair options will be available. Please move in the way that works for you. (a single bell sounds) That bell sound will be the signal that there are new directions to listen for. 

Before we begin, I invite you to take a moment. Flushing Meadows was once a dump for ashes, before that it was the land of the Munsee Lenape, the Matinecock, the Canarsie, and the Lekawe. 

I invite you to take a deep breath, notice the sky above you, take a moment to ground yourself: maybe that means feeling your feet on the ground, or the parts of you that can soften into gravity. You are here. On this earth. In this place. Lenapehoking, Turtle Island. Flushing Meadows, Queens. Welcome. 

Ok, let’s begin…

anywhere in the park \|||// Hi, and welcome to The Silent Unseen Audio Tour: An Embodied Introduction to Asian American History.  I’m ayo and I’ll be your guide today.

Today, we’ll be taking a journey through the history of Asian immigration, set at the location of the Queens Museum in New York. Right now, it’s fine to be anywhere outside the museum and in its vicinity, and I’ll give you your next directions shortly. It’s not recommended to do the tour offsite, but if you must, it’s encouraged that you be in motion, or in a place where you can enjoy the scenery around you.

During this tour, I’ll be sharing some of the history of how Asians have come to this nation, and along the way you’ll be invited to ponder, to question, or possibly to reminisce about what the experience of coming to this country was like, in the context of Asian immigration. 

The tour runs about an hour and a half. There are some adult themes and it’s recommended for ages 16 and up. There’s a lot of information, and some of it is thoughtful, reflective, and a little heavy. You can do it all at once, or on separate trips. Whatever helps you take it in. 

The Asian diaspora is huge and diverse. It spans multiple countries, languages, cultures, and yet, when we come here, we are categorized into a single term of “Asian American.” 

The term Asian American was coined by Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee in the late 1960s, as a way to organize and Quote “stand for all of us Americans of Asian descent” end quote. While the term was meant as a reclaiming of agency to move away from terms like Oriental or Asiatic, it’s been slightly contentious in its history, as it generally didn’t include those from South Asia, and even today the US census doesn’t include people from countries west of Pakistan as Asian. 

Today, we’ll look at some of the many waves of Asian immigration, and acknowledge some of the similarities and the diversity in Asian American cultures and histories. 

I myself am a mixed-race Asian, a descendant of European immigrants, and of Japanese-American farmers who were locked away in Internment Camps during WWII. While my family has been here for a long time, a sense of injustice as well as a sense of pride towards the United States, has given us a complex history to make sense of. I hope this tour will help you understand the complexity of what Asian American means, too. 

During this tour, I won’t be asking you to walk, but rather to “move” to different spaces, and wheelchair options will be available. Please move in the way that works for you. (a single bell sounds) That bell sound will be the signal that there are new directions to listen for. 

Before we begin, I invite you to take a moment. Flushing Meadows was once a dump for ashes, before that it was the land of the Munsee Lenape, the Matinecock, the Canarsie, and the Lekawe. 

I invite you to take a deep breath, notice the sky above you, take a moment to ground yourself: maybe that means feeling your feet on the ground, or the parts of you that can soften into gravity. You are here. On this earth. In this place. Lenapehoking, Turtle Island. Flushing Meadows, Queens. Welcome. 

Ok, let’s begin…

P1000199.JPG

Intro 

Tour Item

English

TSU_01_INTRO.mp3

(a single bell sounds)

Our journey begins outside the museum, facing the Unisphere, the roughly 12 story high, 7 hundred thousand pound hollow steel globe of the world. If you’re not there yet, you can continue to listen to this track as you head in that direction. If there’s inclement weather, you’re also welcome to stay inside the museum as you listen. 

The Unisphere…was built for the World’s Fair in 1964. Before the Unisphere, another sphere existed here, the Perisphere, which was built for the World’s Fair of 1939, themed the “World of Tomorrow.” Despite the theme, the “World of Tomorrow”, in the United States -at that time- did not include Asian futures, as immigration from Asia had been almost completely stopped, including the Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Korean, and most Pilipinos. Asian immigrants were not eligible for citizenship nor allowed to own property. 

But Asians were already a thriving part of the United States, representing many different countries, and organizing themselves in cultural and political ways. In the early 1900s, Indian, Bengali, and Punjabi men were studying at US universities, many were outspoken about Britain's rule of India, and Koreans were working on sugar plantations in Hawaii and organizing in protest of Japan’s recent colonization of Korea. In 1920, Japanese American and Pilipino American farm workers on the West Coast were organizing and striking together to create more fair working conditions. 

By the way, you’ll hear me refer to Pilipino along the way, though you may be more familiar with Filipino. Here’s Julman Tolentino, son of Filipino immigrants that came to the U.S. in 1968, explaining a little more history behind the naming:


“The Philippines was named after King Philip of Spain. And the name Filipino was originally reserved for the Spanish born on the islands. So, both the name of the Philippines and the term Filipino are symbolic of colonization. 
	
But my people, the natives of the islands, claim the name Filipino to create unity and a national identity. I personally call myself Pilipino. With a P as an act of further decolonization, since the letter F was not used in the language of my ancestors.”



Pilipino farm workers would also join with Mexican laborers in 1936, and Pilipino immigrant, Larry Itliong, would initiate the Grape Strike that Cesear Chavez would later become famous for. A history of struggle, a history of dignity, a history of fighting for the right to exist, of speaking up for one’s beliefs, one’s heritage, one’s rights, had begun. 

(music begins, light synths)

Asian farmers were also doubling as engineers and scientists. In 1875, Ah Bing would invent the Bing Cherry. In 1886, Chinese immigrant Lue (Loo-ey) Gim Gong, or “The Citrus Wizard,” would develop a strain of orange named after him, which made today’s citrus industry possible and which we now refer to as the Valencia Orange. In 1921, Korean brothers Harry and Charles Kim would invent a fuzzless peach, what we now know today as the nectarine. Asian Indians would use expert irrigation methods in Central Californian farming, and in Louisiana, Pilipinos would introduce the practice of sun-drying shrimp. 

My own grandmother, my Bachan, as we called her, was born on a farm in Oregon in 1920. A thriving business that would be taken when my family would be unconstitutionally incarcerated, locked up in Internment Camps during World War II, just a few years after the Perisphere was built. Hence the fair’s theme, “World of Tomorrow,” did not include many Asian immigrants, and even US citizens. 

Based on the axis tilt of the globe, it's actually quite difficult to see Asia. Asia by geography is made up of over 40 countries, but because Asia and Europe share the same landmass, it’s difficult to tell where one continent ends and one begins. Countries in Western Asia are now often referred to as Middle East, with many people identifying as MENA, Middle Eastern and North African, and Central Asia as Middle Asia, which some there take offense to. Depending on what country you’re in, or what time in history, determines whether you might consider this area Asia. Because different racist laws and court cases in the U.S. sometimes included people from this area as white, and sometimes as Asian, and it changed. 	

Today’s tour will be focused from South Asia to East Asia. Still, that area is made up of over 20 countries, with extensive different ethnicities, cultures, histories, languages, religions, and yet, when we come to the United States we are lumped together into a homogenous identity of “Asian American.” Today we’ll look at some of those immigration histories, to both see them distinctly and differently, and understand their interconnectedness in the larger sphere of society. While I hope today offers you a clearer idea of Asian American history, what it cannot do is tell you ALL the history. Because there is just so much of it. 

With this sphere of the world, the Unisphere, in front of you, I invite you to wonder what it might have been like to live, before the internet and telephones, planes and automobiles, to hear simply by word of mouth or through a letter, of this land called America. 

If you are looking to escape hardship, you might think this land will be inviting, a “World of Tomorrow” for you. You might be told about opportunity, gold, better jobs, but you probably weren’t told how the lands were stolen from Indigenous people, or how the country was built through a brutal and violent history of slavery. Perhaps you’re a young man from a wealthy family seeking an American education, or maybe you’re a peasant farmer, and you know this opportunity will be your one and only chance to find a new life. But either way, you know something different is ahead, you just don’t know what it is. The world, and your future is a vast open possibility.

(a single bell sounds)

We’re going to move towards the museum now, but we’ll make one stop along the way… you can face towards the museum and move in the direction. If you can, take the path on the left, but if you take the path on the right, that’s fine too.  

(music fades to sounds of footsteps)

The Unisphere \|||// (a single bell sounds)

Our journey begins outside the museum, facing the Unisphere, the roughly 12 story high, 7 hundred thousand pound hollow steel globe of the world. If you’re not there yet, you can continue to listen to this track as you head in that direction. If there’s inclement weather, you’re also welcome to stay inside the museum as you listen. 

The Unisphere…was built for the World’s Fair in 1964. Before the Unisphere, another sphere existed here, the Perisphere, which was built for the World’s Fair of 1939, themed the “World of Tomorrow.” Despite the theme, the “World of Tomorrow”, in the United States -at that time- did not include Asian futures, as immigration from Asia had been almost completely stopped, including the Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Korean, and most Pilipinos. Asian immigrants were not eligible for citizenship nor allowed to own property. 

But Asians were already a thriving part of the United States, representing many different countries, and organizing themselves in cultural and political ways. In the early 1900s, Indian, Bengali, and Punjabi men were studying at US universities, many were outspoken about Britain's rule of India, and Koreans were working on sugar plantations in Hawaii and organizing in protest of Japan’s recent colonization of Korea. In 1920, Japanese American and Pilipino American farm workers on the West Coast were organizing and striking together to create more fair working conditions. 

By the way, you’ll hear me refer to Pilipino along the way, though you may be more familiar with Filipino. Here’s Julman Tolentino, son of Filipino immigrants that came to the U.S. in 1968, explaining a little more history behind the naming:


“The Philippines was named after King Philip of Spain. And the name Filipino was originally reserved for the Spanish born on the islands. So, both the name of the Philippines and the term Filipino are symbolic of colonization. 
	
But my people, the natives of the islands, claim the name Filipino to create unity and a national identity. I personally call myself Pilipino. With a P as an act of further decolonization, since the letter F was not used in the language of my ancestors.”



Pilipino farm workers would also join with Mexican laborers in 1936, and Pilipino immigrant, Larry Itliong, would initiate the Grape Strike that Cesear Chavez would later become famous for. A history of struggle, a history of dignity, a history of fighting for the right to exist, of speaking up for one’s beliefs, one’s heritage, one’s rights, had begun. 

(music begins, light synths)

Asian farmers were also doubling as engineers and scientists. In 1875, Ah Bing would invent the Bing Cherry. In 1886, Chinese immigrant Lue (Loo-ey) Gim Gong, or “The Citrus Wizard,” would develop a strain of orange named after him, which made today’s citrus industry possible and which we now refer to as the Valencia Orange. In 1921, Korean brothers Harry and Charles Kim would invent a fuzzless peach, what we now know today as the nectarine. Asian Indians would use expert irrigation methods in Central Californian farming, and in Louisiana, Pilipinos would introduce the practice of sun-drying shrimp. 

My own grandmother, my Bachan, as we called her, was born on a farm in Oregon in 1920. A thriving business that would be taken when my family would be unconstitutionally incarcerated, locked up in Internment Camps during World War II, just a few years after the Perisphere was built. Hence the fair’s theme, “World of Tomorrow,” did not include many Asian immigrants, and even US citizens. 

Based on the axis tilt of the globe, it's actually quite difficult to see Asia. Asia by geography is made up of over 40 countries, but because Asia and Europe share the same landmass, it’s difficult to tell where one continent ends and one begins. Countries in Western Asia are now often referred to as Middle East, with many people identifying as MENA, Middle Eastern and North African, and Central Asia as Middle Asia, which some there take offense to. Depending on what country you’re in, or what time in history, determines whether you might consider this area Asia. Because different racist laws and court cases in the U.S. sometimes included people from this area as white, and sometimes as Asian, and it changed. 	

Today’s tour will be focused from South Asia to East Asia. Still, that area is made up of over 20 countries, with extensive different ethnicities, cultures, histories, languages, religions, and yet, when we come to the United States we are lumped together into a homogenous identity of “Asian American.” Today we’ll look at some of those immigration histories, to both see them distinctly and differently, and understand their interconnectedness in the larger sphere of society. While I hope today offers you a clearer idea of Asian American history, what it cannot do is tell you ALL the history. Because there is just so much of it. 

With this sphere of the world, the Unisphere, in front of you, I invite you to wonder what it might have been like to live, before the internet and telephones, planes and automobiles, to hear simply by word of mouth or through a letter, of this land called America. 

If you are looking to escape hardship, you might think this land will be inviting, a “World of Tomorrow” for you. You might be told about opportunity, gold, better jobs, but you probably weren’t told how the lands were stolen from Indigenous people, or how the country was built through a brutal and violent history of slavery. Perhaps you’re a young man from a wealthy family seeking an American education, or maybe you’re a peasant farmer, and you know this opportunity will be your one and only chance to find a new life. But either way, you know something different is ahead, you just don’t know what it is. The world, and your future is a vast open possibility.

(a single bell sounds)

We’re going to move towards the museum now, but we’ll make one stop along the way… you can face towards the museum and move in the direction. If you can, take the path on the left, but if you take the path on the right, that’s fine too.  

(music fades to sounds of footsteps)

eruCL.JPG

World of Tomorrow

TSU_02_1939-UNISPHERE.mp3

(a single bell sounds)
	
Once you’re on one of the pathways towards the museum, the Pavilion will be on your left, with large cement towers with circular, faded-yellow tops. 

(music begins, adante/moderato, sharp synths, and continues throughout)

The Pavilion was built for the World’s Fair in 1964 with a motto of “Peace Through Understanding.” But in the year the fair opened, the United States was promoting anything but peace in Asia. The CIA was backing a  “Secret War”, dropping 2 million tons of bombs on the neutral country of Laos. And in the next year the US would greatly increase the fighting in Vietnam, sending hundreds of thousands of US troops, and would also begin bombing in Cambodia. 

The theme of “Peace Through Understanding” seems like a contradiction. Not only because of the United States involvement in the war in Asia, but also the 1964 fair was not even technically a World’s Fair, according to the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE), the organizing body in Paris, France, who sanctions World’s Fairs. The BIE refused the fair, as it had already been held in Seattle, just 2 years before. 

And there was also the lack of peace here on this ground in New York City. When the fair opened, there were protests against it… But we’ll get more into the details of all this later.

For now, let’s head into the museum. 

(a single bell sounds)

The museum is free, but you will need to make a timed reservation, and stop at the front desk when you enter to check in. You can pause now, and begin once you are checked in.

View of the Pavilion \|||// (a single bell sounds)
	
Once you’re on one of the pathways towards the museum, the Pavilion will be on your left, with large cement towers with circular, faded-yellow tops. 

(music begins, adante/moderato, sharp synths, and continues throughout)

The Pavilion was built for the World’s Fair in 1964 with a motto of “Peace Through Understanding.” But in the year the fair opened, the United States was promoting anything but peace in Asia. The CIA was backing a  “Secret War”, dropping 2 million tons of bombs on the neutral country of Laos. And in the next year the US would greatly increase the fighting in Vietnam, sending hundreds of thousands of US troops, and would also begin bombing in Cambodia. 

The theme of “Peace Through Understanding” seems like a contradiction. Not only because of the United States involvement in the war in Asia, but also the 1964 fair was not even technically a World’s Fair, according to the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE), the organizing body in Paris, France, who sanctions World’s Fairs. The BIE refused the fair, as it had already been held in Seattle, just 2 years before. 

And there was also the lack of peace here on this ground in New York City. When the fair opened, there were protests against it… But we’ll get more into the details of all this later.

For now, let’s head into the museum. 

(a single bell sounds)

The museum is free, but you will need to make a timed reservation, and stop at the front desk when you enter to check in. You can pause now, and begin once you are checked in.

P1000079.JPG

Peace Through Understanding

TSU_03_PEACE-THRU-UNDERSTANDING.mp3

(a single bell sounds)

Once you’ve passed the entrance desk, move forward towards the open space, the lobby of the Museum. We’ll be in here for about 5 minutes, so you can move around a little, but stay nearby, or find a place to sit. No longer outside, you are now protected from the elements, but the space still has an expansiveness in front of you. Both unknown, and focused, as a new immigrant, your path may be becoming clearer. And here is where we begin…

(music begins, a gentle beat on xylophones)

Accounts of Asians living in the continent of the Americas date back to before the United States was established in 1776, when this land, Turtle Island, was stewarded by Indigenous tribes. Pilipino sailors came in 1587 through that Spanish Galleon Trade, 33 years before the arrival of the Pilgrims. There was a bustling Chinatown in Mexico City in the 1600s. And, in the 1800s, Chinese began to immigrate in larger numbers during the Gold Rush, and the early most prominent times of Asian immigration began in the mid-1800s with the end of slavery, when cheap new labor was needed. 

Indeed, Asian immigration is tied closely with the end of slavery, and some ships used during the African Slave Trade were also used for Asian indentured servants, or “coolies.” Coolies is a derogatory word derived from multiple Indian languages, to refer to a day laborer, an indentured servant, or a slave. South Asian coolies were sent to British Guiana, Trinidad, and Jamaica, regulated by Britain, including contracts with Britain’s anti-slavery stance. Chinese coolies were sent to Peru and Cuba on an unregulated market that included 80-90% who were kidnapped or brought against their will, with high mortality rates on the retired slave ships.  Referred to as “slaves all but in name,” Chinese Coolies in Cuba worked alongside slaves, some working for 22 hours a day, from 2 or 4 am until midnight. The death rate was shockingly high. (Lee, page 48-52)

(Music fades)

Asian and Black workers were also sometimes pitted against one another. Like during the strike against The Central Pacific Railroad, when it was joined with its eastern counterpart, the Union Pacific Railroad. (field sounds of railroad work) After most white workers were uninterested in the grueling work of building a railroad, Americans went to China to recruit, and Chinese made up 80-90% of the workforce on the west coast. They received lesser pay than their European counterparts, and they did extensive backbreaking work: blowing up tunnels, climbing mountains, and clearing rock with no heavy machinery, some falling to their deaths or hundreds being crushed by avalanches. To this day, it is unknown how many workers died as the deaths were not documented. 

In 1857, Chinese workers went on strike. But, the railroad company, in anticipation of needing to break the strike, began to amass several thousand Black workers from the eastern side of the rail labor, to replace the Chinese workers on strike. After 9 days and having food rations cut, the Chinese workers were forced to return to the horrendous conditions. And yet in the photograph of the final completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, when the eastbound Chinese crews met with the westbound European crew, not one person of Chinese ancestry is present. They were barred from the photo and from the celebrations. The Chinese were then fired, and forced to walk back to the West Coast, not able to ride the very train tracks that they had built.  

This is a pattern that we’ll see in the history of how Asians are treated in the United States. That our visibility is sometimes non-existent, and in other ways is extremely heightened. 

When it’s convenient to use us as a model minority to frame other ethnic groups as lacking, we’re seen as good upstanding citizens. 

And then there are times when it’s not convenient, and we’re fired, forgotten, made to walk long distances with our heads down. 

(a single bell sounds)

Next, we’re going to head towards the Rubin Gallery hallway. Turn away from the entrance desk by the gift shop and face the opposite entrance desk, the one by the bathrooms and the Grand Central parkway. We’re going to meet next to that desk. As we move, I’ll share a little more about Asian Americans in the 1800s.

Queens Museum Main Lobby \|||// (a single bell sounds)

Once you’ve passed the entrance desk, move forward towards the open space, the lobby of the Museum. We’ll be in here for about 5 minutes, so you can move around a little, but stay nearby, or find a place to sit. No longer outside, you are now protected from the elements, but the space still has an expansiveness in front of you. Both unknown, and focused, as a new immigrant, your path may be becoming clearer. And here is where we begin…

(music begins, a gentle beat on xylophones)

Accounts of Asians living in the continent of the Americas date back to before the United States was established in 1776, when this land, Turtle Island, was stewarded by Indigenous tribes. Pilipino sailors came in 1587 through that Spanish Galleon Trade, 33 years before the arrival of the Pilgrims. There was a bustling Chinatown in Mexico City in the 1600s. And, in the 1800s, Chinese began to immigrate in larger numbers during the Gold Rush, and the early most prominent times of Asian immigration began in the mid-1800s with the end of slavery, when cheap new labor was needed. 

Indeed, Asian immigration is tied closely with the end of slavery, and some ships used during the African Slave Trade were also used for Asian indentured servants, or “coolies.” Coolies is a derogatory word derived from multiple Indian languages, to refer to a day laborer, an indentured servant, or a slave. South Asian coolies were sent to British Guiana, Trinidad, and Jamaica, regulated by Britain, including contracts with Britain’s anti-slavery stance. Chinese coolies were sent to Peru and Cuba on an unregulated market that included 80-90% who were kidnapped or brought against their will, with high mortality rates on the retired slave ships.  Referred to as “slaves all but in name,” Chinese Coolies in Cuba worked alongside slaves, some working for 22 hours a day, from 2 or 4 am until midnight. The death rate was shockingly high. (Lee, page 48-52)

(Music fades)

Asian and Black workers were also sometimes pitted against one another. Like during the strike against The Central Pacific Railroad, when it was joined with its eastern counterpart, the Union Pacific Railroad. (field sounds of railroad work) After most white workers were uninterested in the grueling work of building a railroad, Americans went to China to recruit, and Chinese made up 80-90% of the workforce on the west coast. They received lesser pay than their European counterparts, and they did extensive backbreaking work: blowing up tunnels, climbing mountains, and clearing rock with no heavy machinery, some falling to their deaths or hundreds being crushed by avalanches. To this day, it is unknown how many workers died as the deaths were not documented. 

In 1857, Chinese workers went on strike. But, the railroad company, in anticipation of needing to break the strike, began to amass several thousand Black workers from the eastern side of the rail labor, to replace the Chinese workers on strike. After 9 days and having food rations cut, the Chinese workers were forced to return to the horrendous conditions. And yet in the photograph of the final completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, when the eastbound Chinese crews met with the westbound European crew, not one person of Chinese ancestry is present. They were barred from the photo and from the celebrations. The Chinese were then fired, and forced to walk back to the West Coast, not able to ride the very train tracks that they had built.  

This is a pattern that we’ll see in the history of how Asians are treated in the United States. That our visibility is sometimes non-existent, and in other ways is extremely heightened. 

When it’s convenient to use us as a model minority to frame other ethnic groups as lacking, we’re seen as good upstanding citizens. 

And then there are times when it’s not convenient, and we’re fired, forgotten, made to walk long distances with our heads down. 

(a single bell sounds)

Next, we’re going to head towards the Rubin Gallery hallway. Turn away from the entrance desk by the gift shop and face the opposite entrance desk, the one by the bathrooms and the Grand Central parkway. We’re going to meet next to that desk. As we move, I’ll share a little more about Asian Americans in the 1800s.

P1000164.JPG

Early Immigration

TSU_04_EARLY-IMMIGRATION.mp3

P1000135.JPG

(slow footsteps)

In the late 1870s and 1880s, racism against Chinese laborers became extremely violent. There were mass kidnappings and killings to steal their findings during the Gold Rush, and what’s referred to as “The Driving Out Time,” including multiple riots in cities across the West where Chinese homes were raided, burned, and Chinese murdered or forced to leave. 

Amid what’s referred to as “Yellow Peril”, The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882, the first law ever passed by Congress that restricted immigration based on race (Zia 28). 

(a single bell sounds)
In a moment we’re going to move slowly down the hallway to the Rubin Gallery.  If you’ve moved to the museum entrance by the Grand Central Parkway and face in the direction of the  exit and windows, the Rubin Gallery hallway will be to the right. It’s a narrow hallway between the bathrooms and the main lobby. If you can’t find it, feel free to pause and ask the front desk. Let’s enter slowly. 

As you enter the hallway, the path narrows significantly from the wide open space you were just in. The walls close in, and you feel more constricted. Your body can sense the closure, the shift towards less freedom. The opportunities you thought you had, the vastness of the unknown is no longer. But you continue to move forward. In fact, you can only go in one direction. This was the experience for many Asians living in the US in the 1800s.

(a single bell sounds)
(music begins, piano bass tones) If you’re in the Rubin Gallery, you can look around here, or simply wait to the right as you listen. The walls are tall here, and the ceiling is dark, like being fenced in under a night sky. 

With slavery abolished and the Chinese no longer a source for cheap new labor, the United States began to look elsewhere. This time from Japan. But, eventually the Japanese would fall out of favor as well. Their farming techniques were more advanced than those of white farmers, which created high tensions and competition, and eventually in the 1940s after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the racism against the Japanese became so extreme, that all persons of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast were locked away in camps, regardless of citizenship status. 

My family were Japanese-American farmers, in the country, on a big property, with dogs, and cars, and farm equipment in Washington State. When they were locked away in Internment Camp, they lost it all, or rather, it was taken from them, except their few belongings. As the evacuation proclamation stated, they brought “only what you could carry.” 

(music builds to include low singing) During this time Chinese, Korean, and Pilipino laborers wore buttons that said “I am not Japanese” attempting to promote their own safety, and to make important political distinctions between countries. For instance, in 1913, a group of Korean immigrants were met in Helmet, California by an angry mob of over 100 white men. (music builds with harmonies and eighth notes) In addition to being terrifying, it was insulting that they were mistaken as Japanese, given that at the time Japan was terrorizing Koreans through colonization. 

What we now know is safety in numbers is what helps us fight injustice. A coalition of equality for all, not exclusion of one ethnic group, is what protects us. Because if they come for one group, they might come for you next. 

My Bachan, who I mentioned before, taught me this. She was kibei, or the generation that was born in the United States, but sent back to Japan in her youth. In Japan, she was a servant to her relatives for being considered American, and therefore lesser-than Japanese. (music continues to intensify with higher piano tones, higher harmonies, and belted vocal tones) After begging her father to bring her back, she returned to the United States as a teenager, and was put into Internment Camp, considered Japanese and therefore, lesser-than American. As a result she taught me that culture should be celebrated, but divisions that separate and hurt us should end. That we must speak up, for ourselves and with others, before it’s too late. She chose to live in America, but she felt nationalism itself was a problem that only created bigotry and war. 

So as the Japanese fell out of favor, labor was then brought from India, Korea, and the Philippines. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 continued to renew, and as each ethnic group grew, so did the immigration restrictions against them, until finally by 1924 with the Johnson Reed Act, and the year Indigenous people won the right to vote, Asian immigration was almost completely barred. This was with the exception of certain professionals, family members, and Pilipinos, who were allowed 50 people per year, and only because the United States was forcibly occupying the Philippines. These restrictions would not be fully lifted until the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. 80 years of restrictions. So from 1924 onward, the Asians in the United States were primarily those that had already come. 

(music simplifies to vocals only and begins to slowly fade out til end) Arrived but isolated. No longer a growing population. I wonder how scary that must have been. To know your numbers would only grow from those that were already around you. That no one else was coming. That you are alone, trying to fulfill the American Dream: to work, to live, to love, to own a home, to vote, and to live with peace.  Would you hold tightly to your culture and traditions? Or choose to let them go?

My great grandparents raised 8 children in this country. My great grandmother never learned to speak English. But after the war and being released from Internment Camp, she worked 7 days a week in factories. My great grandparents would take my Bachan to the Methodist church with her siblings and drop them off, and then they themselves would go to Buddhist church because they wanted their children to assimilate. Even if they didn't learn to speak English, even if they continued to practice Buddhism, they wanted their children to live differently and safely. And this was the process for many, to assimilate, to leave behind part of your culture, and your religion, and your way of being, so you would be more safe.

(a single bell sounds)

Okay, next we’re going to head to the Panorama of NYC. From the Rubin Gallery, you’ll take the hallway with the gray floor, either the ramp or the steps, depending where you’re at, and into the next room. In the next room you’ll also see a dark ceiling, and on the floor will be a scale model of NYC.  

(footsteps)

Rubin Gallery \|||// (slow footsteps)

In the late 1870s and 1880s, racism against Chinese laborers became extremely violent. There were mass kidnappings and killings to steal their findings during the Gold Rush, and what’s referred to as “The Driving Out Time,” including multiple riots in cities across the West where Chinese homes were raided, burned, and Chinese murdered or forced to leave. 

Amid what’s referred to as “Yellow Peril”, The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882, the first law ever passed by Congress that restricted immigration based on race (Zia 28). 

(a single bell sounds)
In a moment we’re going to move slowly down the hallway to the Rubin Gallery.  If you’ve moved to the museum entrance by the Grand Central Parkway and face in the direction of the  exit and windows, the Rubin Gallery hallway will be to the right. It’s a narrow hallway between the bathrooms and the main lobby. If you can’t find it, feel free to pause and ask the front desk. Let’s enter slowly. 

As you enter the hallway, the path narrows significantly from the wide open space you were just in. The walls close in, and you feel more constricted. Your body can sense the closure, the shift towards less freedom. The opportunities you thought you had, the vastness of the unknown is no longer. But you continue to move forward. In fact, you can only go in one direction. This was the experience for many Asians living in the US in the 1800s.

(a single bell sounds)
(music begins, piano bass tones) If you’re in the Rubin Gallery, you can look around here, or simply wait to the right as you listen. The walls are tall here, and the ceiling is dark, like being fenced in under a night sky. 

With slavery abolished and the Chinese no longer a source for cheap new labor, the United States began to look elsewhere. This time from Japan. But, eventually the Japanese would fall out of favor as well. Their farming techniques were more advanced than those of white farmers, which created high tensions and competition, and eventually in the 1940s after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the racism against the Japanese became so extreme, that all persons of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast were locked away in camps, regardless of citizenship status. 

My family were Japanese-American farmers, in the country, on a big property, with dogs, and cars, and farm equipment in Washington State. When they were locked away in Internment Camp, they lost it all, or rather, it was taken from them, except their few belongings. As the evacuation proclamation stated, they brought “only what you could carry.” 

(music builds to include low singing) During this time Chinese, Korean, and Pilipino laborers wore buttons that said “I am not Japanese” attempting to promote their own safety, and to make important political distinctions between countries. For instance, in 1913, a group of Korean immigrants were met in Helmet, California by an angry mob of over 100 white men. (music builds with harmonies and eighth notes) In addition to being terrifying, it was insulting that they were mistaken as Japanese, given that at the time Japan was terrorizing Koreans through colonization. 

What we now know is safety in numbers is what helps us fight injustice. A coalition of equality for all, not exclusion of one ethnic group, is what protects us. Because if they come for one group, they might come for you next. 

My Bachan, who I mentioned before, taught me this. She was kibei, or the generation that was born in the United States, but sent back to Japan in her youth. In Japan, she was a servant to her relatives for being considered American, and therefore lesser-than Japanese. (music continues to intensify with higher piano tones, higher harmonies, and belted vocal tones) After begging her father to bring her back, she returned to the United States as a teenager, and was put into Internment Camp, considered Japanese and therefore, lesser-than American. As a result she taught me that culture should be celebrated, but divisions that separate and hurt us should end. That we must speak up, for ourselves and with others, before it’s too late. She chose to live in America, but she felt nationalism itself was a problem that only created bigotry and war. 

So as the Japanese fell out of favor, labor was then brought from India, Korea, and the Philippines. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 continued to renew, and as each ethnic group grew, so did the immigration restrictions against them, until finally by 1924 with the Johnson Reed Act, and the year Indigenous people won the right to vote, Asian immigration was almost completely barred. This was with the exception of certain professionals, family members, and Pilipinos, who were allowed 50 people per year, and only because the United States was forcibly occupying the Philippines. These restrictions would not be fully lifted until the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. 80 years of restrictions. So from 1924 onward, the Asians in the United States were primarily those that had already come. 

(music simplifies to vocals only and begins to slowly fade out til end) Arrived but isolated. No longer a growing population. I wonder how scary that must have been. To know your numbers would only grow from those that were already around you. That no one else was coming. That you are alone, trying to fulfill the American Dream: to work, to live, to love, to own a home, to vote, and to live with peace.  Would you hold tightly to your culture and traditions? Or choose to let them go?

My great grandparents raised 8 children in this country. My great grandmother never learned to speak English. But after the war and being released from Internment Camp, she worked 7 days a week in factories. My great grandparents would take my Bachan to the Methodist church with her siblings and drop them off, and then they themselves would go to Buddhist church because they wanted their children to assimilate. Even if they didn't learn to speak English, even if they continued to practice Buddhism, they wanted their children to live differently and safely. And this was the process for many, to assimilate, to leave behind part of your culture, and your religion, and your way of being, so you would be more safe.

(a single bell sounds)

Okay, next we’re going to head to the Panorama of NYC. From the Rubin Gallery, you’ll take the hallway with the gray floor, either the ramp or the steps, depending where you’re at, and into the next room. In the next room you’ll also see a dark ceiling, and on the floor will be a scale model of NYC.  

(footsteps)

P1000166.JPG

Yellow Peril

TSU_05_YELLOW-PERIL.mp3

Here you are. New York City. Known as a major metropolis in the world. And a major starting place for many immigrants to the United States.  

NYC has the largest Asian population of any city in the United States. The first person of Chinese descent born in the United States is documented as being born here, in NYC, as early as 1825. 

(a single bell sounds)

We'll be in this room for over 5 minutes, so feel free to move at your own pace, stop, or find places that you recognize on this scale model of NYC that was built for the World’s Fair in 1964.

The model was envisioned by Robert Moses, a controversial real estate developer and urban planner of much of New York. Moses was known for cutting across neighborhoods that housed people of color by building freeways through them, among other tactics to create divisiveness and inequality across racial boundaries. 

The 1964 theme was “Peace Through Understanding,” but the Fair was largely controversial in NYC. Many in New York felt that at the height of the Civil Rights movement, New York should have instead been focusing on opportunities and jobs, better housing, and more public programs for neighborhoods in New York, especially in Black communities.

The Civil Rights Movement had been going on for a decade, with Black people leading the demand for equality. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed, outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. And then a year later, and due to the efforts of the Civil Rights movement, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was passed. For the first time since 1882, immigration for Asians was opened. The act was thought of as largely symbolic, and it was not anticipated how Asian immigration would grow. The population of Asian immigrants would double within ten years.   

(Music begins, xylophones and chimes on a beat)

The act had stipulations that favored highly skilled and technical workers, doctors, nurses, engineers, mathematicians, or those already with family in the US. Which led to stereotyping- that all Asians are smart or good at math.

Many Asians who came during this time were not aware that their very ability to immigrate was based on the fight of the Civil Rights movement and the hard work of Black Americans, and those working for equality. They weren’t here to witness the previous subhuman treatment of Black people, or taught the 400 year history of slavery. 

They were taught not to stir the pot, not to take up too much space or upset anyone, or the idea that everyone who works hard makes it. And if it was possible for Asians to be so successful in America, why weren’t other ethnic groups or races? But the high level of Asian professionals, as well as immigrating into already existing family support, created a safety net that other ethnic groups didn’t have. 

The stereotyping of Asians created a false dichotomy that Asians are in competition with Black people, rather than seeing it was the Civil Rights movement itself that opened immigration to Asians, or seeing the solidarity that we might have in our struggles. 

(music builds to include drums, synths, and strings)

There were also those who were able to look past this, like Japanese-American activist Yuri Kochiyama, who held Malcom X’s head as he lay dying, or Chinese American Grace Lee Boggs whose relationship to African-American, James Boggs, included intellectual conversation, activism, and long term marriage. 

But both Kochiyama and Boggs had been born and raised in the United States, and had been able to bear witness to the pre-Civil Rights and Jim Crow era, and understood a longer history of discrimination than what newer immigrants were exposed to. 

One prominent area where Black American and Asian American struggles crossed over was in housing discrimination. For most of the first half of the 20th Century, Asian immigrants were not allowed to own homes. And some Western States prevented anyone of Asian ancestry, including US citizens, from owning land. 

Once that changed, there were still, “Red Line Districts” as they were called. Betty Yu, a socially engaged, multimedia artist, educator, activist, and co-founder of Chinatown Art Brigade in NY, discusses redlining:
(music ends)
“So redlining was a practice created in 1934 by a government agency, The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation or H O L C, that made maps for every part of the country. HOLC evaluated areas based on the quote “threat of infiltration of foreign-born, negro, or lower grade population," end quote,  meaning that green areas on the map were green not just because of the quality of the buildings, but because they basically lacked a single person of color. Neighborhoods with any presence of residents of color, particularly African American, Latinx, Asian, Native American, and even people of Jewish descent were deemed quote “undesirable” and “hazardous,” end quote, and outlined in red, hence the term Redlining. 

Even though the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968, officially outlawing redlining,  these decades-long inequitable policies contributed to the wealth gap between whites and people of color, particularly African Americans in the U.S. And housing discrimination is still a common practice today.”

My grandfather, my Jichan, fought for the United States Army in WWII. He joined the army, as an American citizen while he was in Internment Camp, and then fought in a troop, called the 442nd, made up of Japanese Americans. A troop now known for being sent into some of the most difficult battles of WWII, with the motto of ‘Go For Broke’, and still today the most highly decorated unit in the history of the United States Army.

(music begins to build again with strings only) 

When my Jichan was released from camp to fight for the army, his parents and his new wife, my Bachan, remained locked up in Internment Camp. And then after the war, as a veteran, he was not allowed to buy in the area of Sacramento, CA where he wanted to live due to redlining. 

I can’t imagine what that must have felt like, to fight for a country while it locked up your family, and then not be able to buy property in the place you want. So what did he do? He bought cemetery plots in that neighborhood, so then at least he could be there for the rest of eternity!

The attitude to ‘deal with’ and ‘move forward’ past injustices and hardship, is strong within many Asian families. Japanese Americans have a saying “shikata gai nai.” I have heard other Japanese Americans describe this as “well, it can’t be helped,” but in my family the meaning was closer to “it is as it is.” Less compliant than it can’t be helped, “it is as it is” expresses the resilience, the acceptance, and the forgiveness with which many Asian people have had to live, to survive. 


(a single bell sounds)

I encourage you to move to the side of the Panorama that is opposite the entrance. There’s a landing, like a little balcony, and on the wall is the Panorama’s label and description. Let’s meet there. 

(music)

(a single bell sounds)
Face away from the wall with the Panorama’s title and description, you’ll be facing out towards the Panorama itself, and go towards the right side railing of the landing. 

From the right side railing of the landing, there is a scale model in front you of where you are today. There is the nearby airport which is La Guardia, with its tiny departing and arriving planes, and closer to you some large lakes surrounded by greenery. In between the airport and these lakes, there is a mini version of Flushing Meadows Park with its trees and long walkways, the metal globe of The Unisphere, and a large white building that you are in today. 

This particular area around Flushing Meadows and near its perimeter is where numerous tribal nations' territories overlap. The Munsee, a subtribe of the Lenape nation, the Matinecock, the Lekawe-Rockaway, and Canarsie. I wonder when these overlaps happened and what it was like. What trade, interactions, or ceremonies happened here? And today this land, Queens, has 52% of all Asian immigrants settling on this tribal land. And thanks to the efforts of those who fought for Civil Rights, Asians are now the fastest growing minority in the United States. Speaking different languages and living with different cultural practices, exchanging with each other, learning, and living together. All across this map, all across this city, all across this land that was once cared for by different tribes. 

(a single bell sounds)

Ok, when you are ready, we’ll continue on the walkway towards the exit up the ramp.

The Panorama \|||// Here you are. New York City. Known as a major metropolis in the world. And a major starting place for many immigrants to the United States.  

NYC has the largest Asian population of any city in the United States. The first person of Chinese descent born in the United States is documented as being born here, in NYC, as early as 1825. 

(a single bell sounds)

We'll be in this room for over 5 minutes, so feel free to move at your own pace, stop, or find places that you recognize on this scale model of NYC that was built for the World’s Fair in 1964.

The model was envisioned by Robert Moses, a controversial real estate developer and urban planner of much of New York. Moses was known for cutting across neighborhoods that housed people of color by building freeways through them, among other tactics to create divisiveness and inequality across racial boundaries. 

The 1964 theme was “Peace Through Understanding,” but the Fair was largely controversial in NYC. Many in New York felt that at the height of the Civil Rights movement, New York should have instead been focusing on opportunities and jobs, better housing, and more public programs for neighborhoods in New York, especially in Black communities.

The Civil Rights Movement had been going on for a decade, with Black people leading the demand for equality. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed, outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. And then a year later, and due to the efforts of the Civil Rights movement, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was passed. For the first time since 1882, immigration for Asians was opened. The act was thought of as largely symbolic, and it was not anticipated how Asian immigration would grow. The population of Asian immigrants would double within ten years.   

(Music begins, xylophones and chimes on a beat)

The act had stipulations that favored highly skilled and technical workers, doctors, nurses, engineers, mathematicians, or those already with family in the US. Which led to stereotyping- that all Asians are smart or good at math.

Many Asians who came during this time were not aware that their very ability to immigrate was based on the fight of the Civil Rights movement and the hard work of Black Americans, and those working for equality. They weren’t here to witness the previous subhuman treatment of Black people, or taught the 400 year history of slavery. 

They were taught not to stir the pot, not to take up too much space or upset anyone, or the idea that everyone who works hard makes it. And if it was possible for Asians to be so successful in America, why weren’t other ethnic groups or races? But the high level of Asian professionals, as well as immigrating into already existing family support, created a safety net that other ethnic groups didn’t have. 

The stereotyping of Asians created a false dichotomy that Asians are in competition with Black people, rather than seeing it was the Civil Rights movement itself that opened immigration to Asians, or seeing the solidarity that we might have in our struggles. 

(music builds to include drums, synths, and strings)

There were also those who were able to look past this, like Japanese-American activist Yuri Kochiyama, who held Malcom X’s head as he lay dying, or Chinese American Grace Lee Boggs whose relationship to African-American, James Boggs, included intellectual conversation, activism, and long term marriage. 

But both Kochiyama and Boggs had been born and raised in the United States, and had been able to bear witness to the pre-Civil Rights and Jim Crow era, and understood a longer history of discrimination than what newer immigrants were exposed to. 

One prominent area where Black American and Asian American struggles crossed over was in housing discrimination. For most of the first half of the 20th Century, Asian immigrants were not allowed to own homes. And some Western States prevented anyone of Asian ancestry, including US citizens, from owning land. 

Once that changed, there were still, “Red Line Districts” as they were called. Betty Yu, a socially engaged, multimedia artist, educator, activist, and co-founder of Chinatown Art Brigade in NY, discusses redlining:
(music ends)
“So redlining was a practice created in 1934 by a government agency, The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation or H O L C, that made maps for every part of the country. HOLC evaluated areas based on the quote “threat of infiltration of foreign-born, negro, or lower grade population," end quote,  meaning that green areas on the map were green not just because of the quality of the buildings, but because they basically lacked a single person of color. Neighborhoods with any presence of residents of color, particularly African American, Latinx, Asian, Native American, and even people of Jewish descent were deemed quote “undesirable” and “hazardous,” end quote, and outlined in red, hence the term Redlining. 

Even though the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968, officially outlawing redlining,  these decades-long inequitable policies contributed to the wealth gap between whites and people of color, particularly African Americans in the U.S. And housing discrimination is still a common practice today.”

My grandfather, my Jichan, fought for the United States Army in WWII. He joined the army, as an American citizen while he was in Internment Camp, and then fought in a troop, called the 442nd, made up of Japanese Americans. A troop now known for being sent into some of the most difficult battles of WWII, with the motto of ‘Go For Broke’, and still today the most highly decorated unit in the history of the United States Army.

(music begins to build again with strings only) 

When my Jichan was released from camp to fight for the army, his parents and his new wife, my Bachan, remained locked up in Internment Camp. And then after the war, as a veteran, he was not allowed to buy in the area of Sacramento, CA where he wanted to live due to redlining. 

I can’t imagine what that must have felt like, to fight for a country while it locked up your family, and then not be able to buy property in the place you want. So what did he do? He bought cemetery plots in that neighborhood, so then at least he could be there for the rest of eternity!

The attitude to ‘deal with’ and ‘move forward’ past injustices and hardship, is strong within many Asian families. Japanese Americans have a saying “shikata gai nai.” I have heard other Japanese Americans describe this as “well, it can’t be helped,” but in my family the meaning was closer to “it is as it is.” Less compliant than it can’t be helped, “it is as it is” expresses the resilience, the acceptance, and the forgiveness with which many Asian people have had to live, to survive. 


(a single bell sounds)

I encourage you to move to the side of the Panorama that is opposite the entrance. There’s a landing, like a little balcony, and on the wall is the Panorama’s label and description. Let’s meet there. 

(music)

(a single bell sounds)
Face away from the wall with the Panorama’s title and description, you’ll be facing out towards the Panorama itself, and go towards the right side railing of the landing. 

From the right side railing of the landing, there is a scale model in front you of where you are today. There is the nearby airport which is La Guardia, with its tiny departing and arriving planes, and closer to you some large lakes surrounded by greenery. In between the airport and these lakes, there is a mini version of Flushing Meadows Park with its trees and long walkways, the metal globe of The Unisphere, and a large white building that you are in today. 

This particular area around Flushing Meadows and near its perimeter is where numerous tribal nations' territories overlap. The Munsee, a subtribe of the Lenape nation, the Matinecock, the Lekawe-Rockaway, and Canarsie. I wonder when these overlaps happened and what it was like. What trade, interactions, or ceremonies happened here? And today this land, Queens, has 52% of all Asian immigrants settling on this tribal land. And thanks to the efforts of those who fought for Civil Rights, Asians are now the fastest growing minority in the United States. Speaking different languages and living with different cultural practices, exchanging with each other, learning, and living together. All across this map, all across this city, all across this land that was once cared for by different tribes. 

(a single bell sounds)

Ok, when you are ready, we’ll continue on the walkway towards the exit up the ramp.

P1000108.JPG

Model Minority Myth

TSU_06_MODEL-MINORITY.mp3

(a single bell sounds)

As you exit the Panorama, you’ll enter a room with memorabilia from the past World’s Fairs. You can follow the hallway to the right, and slowly walk along the railing, ahead there will be a corner where the two railings meet. Let’s slowly head in that direction. 

When you’re at the railing, I invite you to imagine it is the railing of a boat, the way early immigrants came here. A boat. On a vast ocean. For many many days. And many many nights. 

Perhaps there is loneliness, perhaps there are others that you speak with. Perhaps you will never see any of them again. 

There are many hidden stories within immigration, many histories that are lost. My own Bachan took the boat at least twice between the US and Japan, somewhere between the ages of 9 and 15, by herself. While stories of internment, or “camp” as she called it, would emerge after a few days of being with her, I never once heard her speak of “the boat.”

What are the stories that have been lost, hidden in shame, or just forgotten, left behind in the process of trying to survive, with no time to tell them. 

(a single bell sounds)

Stop at the railing and peer out. 

Here’s a story from child of the Korean diaspora, Helen Hyun-Kyung Park:

So, in my family I was always a little bit of an outsider. I was really creative, I was really into theater, I wanted to be an artist. And all of those things were scary to my parents, I was the black sheep of my family. 

When I was in high school, I went to Korea for three months. I spent some time with my favorite aunt, Aunt Theresa, her Korean name is __. She was always my favorite because she was veru independent and free spirited. She told me some stories about our extended family. 

She had mentioned that I had a great uncle who was a playwright, he had been going to Japan to study and he met a woman who was a singer. They fell in love, their love was forbidden, and they disappeared. This was the first time that I heard of this great uncle.

(a single bell sounds)

If you’ve reached the corner where the two railings meet, you can turn the corner where the railings meet, continue slowly down the hallway. On your left you will pass the theater and the bathrooms, and you can continue until you reach a spacious area with windows looking back on the Unisphere. Take your time, we’ve got a few more minutes with Helen. 

Many years later, she gave me a pdf of an essay that he wrote. That's when I saw that he was a playwright, a scholar, and a philosopher. And in my own research, I have come to realise that he was actually the first dramaturg ever in Korea. And the woman that he fell in love with, I think my aunt had told me that she was Japanese. But, I actually learned that she was also Korean, the first Korean soprano. So equally in her field she was pioneering. Both of them were incredibly meaningful and important in the history of modern Korean art and performance.

I'm doing the research online, not only learning about who they were in the place of history of modern Korean art and culture. But also that they didn't just disappear, some people thought that had run off to Italy. But actually they had died by suicide, by jumping into the sea in between Japan and Korea. 

I think that it was my mom who told me that when that happened her father paid the media to bury the story, because it would have brought so much shame to the family. So now there are a few movies that have been made. I learned a couple years ago that there was another, more recent, adaptation of the story that was on Netflix. So its strange, there's so much mythology around these two figures. 

I don't know why my parents never talked about him, other than growing up they were just really busy tyring to survive so they didn't talk about Korea, even people who were still living. It's not relevant to the needs of just survive and be in America right now. 

But when I learned about it, it was fascinating first to hear a story about my family. And also to hear that I have artists in my extended family. Suddenly my place in my family made sense, it was really validating.

And, for many immigrants, because something was left behind in the hopes of something new, because of fleeing, or starting anew, or just trying to assimilate- there is a secrecy, a shrouded-ness, or simply a neglect around the stories. 

But if we don’t tell our stories, who will carry them on? And how will we know where we come from?

2nd Floor Railing \|||// (a single bell sounds)

As you exit the Panorama, you’ll enter a room with memorabilia from the past World’s Fairs. You can follow the hallway to the right, and slowly walk along the railing, ahead there will be a corner where the two railings meet. Let’s slowly head in that direction. 

When you’re at the railing, I invite you to imagine it is the railing of a boat, the way early immigrants came here. A boat. On a vast ocean. For many many days. And many many nights. 

Perhaps there is loneliness, perhaps there are others that you speak with. Perhaps you will never see any of them again. 

There are many hidden stories within immigration, many histories that are lost. My own Bachan took the boat at least twice between the US and Japan, somewhere between the ages of 9 and 15, by herself. While stories of internment, or “camp” as she called it, would emerge after a few days of being with her, I never once heard her speak of “the boat.”

What are the stories that have been lost, hidden in shame, or just forgotten, left behind in the process of trying to survive, with no time to tell them. 

(a single bell sounds)

Stop at the railing and peer out. 

Here’s a story from child of the Korean diaspora, Helen Hyun-Kyung Park:

So, in my family I was always a little bit of an outsider. I was really creative, I was really into theater, I wanted to be an artist. And all of those things were scary to my parents, I was the black sheep of my family. 

When I was in high school, I went to Korea for three months. I spent some time with my favorite aunt, Aunt Theresa, her Korean name is __. She was always my favorite because she was veru independent and free spirited. She told me some stories about our extended family. 

She had mentioned that I had a great uncle who was a playwright, he had been going to Japan to study and he met a woman who was a singer. They fell in love, their love was forbidden, and they disappeared. This was the first time that I heard of this great uncle.

(a single bell sounds)

If you’ve reached the corner where the two railings meet, you can turn the corner where the railings meet, continue slowly down the hallway. On your left you will pass the theater and the bathrooms, and you can continue until you reach a spacious area with windows looking back on the Unisphere. Take your time, we’ve got a few more minutes with Helen. 

Many years later, she gave me a pdf of an essay that he wrote. That's when I saw that he was a playwright, a scholar, and a philosopher. And in my own research, I have come to realise that he was actually the first dramaturg ever in Korea. And the woman that he fell in love with, I think my aunt had told me that she was Japanese. But, I actually learned that she was also Korean, the first Korean soprano. So equally in her field she was pioneering. Both of them were incredibly meaningful and important in the history of modern Korean art and performance.

I'm doing the research online, not only learning about who they were in the place of history of modern Korean art and culture. But also that they didn't just disappear, some people thought that had run off to Italy. But actually they had died by suicide, by jumping into the sea in between Japan and Korea. 

I think that it was my mom who told me that when that happened her father paid the media to bury the story, because it would have brought so much shame to the family. So now there are a few movies that have been made. I learned a couple years ago that there was another, more recent, adaptation of the story that was on Netflix. So its strange, there's so much mythology around these two figures. 

I don't know why my parents never talked about him, other than growing up they were just really busy tyring to survive so they didn't talk about Korea, even people who were still living. It's not relevant to the needs of just survive and be in America right now. 

But when I learned about it, it was fascinating first to hear a story about my family. And also to hear that I have artists in my extended family. Suddenly my place in my family made sense, it was really validating.

And, for many immigrants, because something was left behind in the hopes of something new, because of fleeing, or starting anew, or just trying to assimilate- there is a secrecy, a shrouded-ness, or simply a neglect around the stories. 

But if we don’t tell our stories, who will carry them on? And how will we know where we come from?

P1000125.JPG

Stories Untold

TSU_07_STORIES-UNTOLD.mp3

(a single bell sounds)

Once you’ve reached the open area with windows on your left, and a staircase leading to the lobby of the museum on the right, you can approach any of the windows on the left. They look across the courtyard and back on the Unisphere. 

With this large landscape in front of you, perhaps you can imagine the longing to find new land, to discover something new. But if you are an Asian woman, this world is barely accessible to you, and your options to immigrate are slim. The opportunity to marry a young handsome entrepreneur is perhaps wondrous, perhaps a necessity, or perhaps your parents have even already made the decision for you, the dowry has been paid or you have been sold, your picture sent, and you will go, regardless of your wishes. This was the case for many Asian women in early immigration. 

My great grandmother came on a boat after seeing a picture of a man, who she would marry. Or technically my great grandmother was the sister of the first picture bride, but the first wife passed away in childbirth, and it was customary at the time that the sister would marry the brother in law. 

Being the second wife, my great grandmother probably knew a lot more about her future husband than what most picture brides knew. Because the information sent through pictures and letters before their journey on the boat was often, just, not true. 

(a single bell sounds)

Move across the landing that opens onto the lobby, by the glass railing- here you are, on a boat, after a grueling journey. (music begins, solo cello) But the man on the dock below, your new husband, is not the man in the picture. Or, rather, maybe he is, but a toothless version, or a 30 years older version, or perhaps not the rich entrepreneur the letter claimed he was. This was a common experience for picture brides. Old pictures, or letters full of lies and fantasies, tied their fates to men of delusion and dreams. And marriage was primarily the way Asian women were allowed to come. 

In 1875, the Page Act had changed immigration for Asian women, requiring them to be interviewed and questioned, and restricting them from entering “for lewd or immoral purposes”.  

The Page Act limited the freedom and numbers of Asian women who could immigrate, and it subjected them to different screening than European women. It is seen as the precedent to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which would come 7 years later, in 1882, as it used race, national origin, and gender to discriminate against who could enter the country.

Disguised as “protection” for immigrants, the federal statue represented the attitude of the time of seeing Asian women as dirty. In 1870, a senator from California described Chinese women, his own constituents, as “the most undesirable of population, who spread disease and moral death among our white population”.  

The Page Act would frame how Asian women are seen and treated, as needing help, or as being hypersexual, and these ideas would be perpetuated by other US government decisions and practices. Like the War Brides Act, which opened immigration for Asian women again in 1945 only if they married American Military personnel, the women were largely seen as being saved. 

(a single bell sounds)

For this next section, I invite you to be anywhere along the railing, or you can find a seat nearby, or go back towards the windows. This section is personally very resonant for me, and it's one of the more difficult concepts to explain. But to start, here’s a story from sociologist and writer, Grace Cho, explaining a connection between family, survival, and the devastating effects of the United States use of Asian women’s bodies. (music ends)

When I was 15, my mother started to show signs of what Western psychiatry calls schizophrenia. She started to hear voices and started to look at people who previously had been our friends or neighbors with a lot of suspicion. It was sort of a textbook case. 


I spent most of my adolescence and young adulthood really struggling to understand what happened to her. I always had this sense that my mom had experienced a lot of trauma in her life although I didn't really know what those traumas were. I knew that she had been a survivor of the Korean War and that she was a child when that happened. 


I didn't know anything about her life after the war, sometimes I would ask her what she used to do for a living in Korea. She would dissociate, what I now recognize as dissociation. She would stare at the spot on the wall to tune out everything else. That was always the response I would get from her if I asked her what she used to do in Korea before we moved to the US. 


The US occupied the southern half of the Korean peninsula in September 1945. They took over some of the infrastructure that had been set up by the Japanese under Japanese colonization, including some of the brothels that the Japanese had set up in which Korean women were often forced into sexual labor. 


Prostitution flourished around American military bases throughout the 1950s. By the 1960s, it had become formalised by the South Korean government. The women who were working in the brothels around the US bases had to be licensed. It was sort of a secret in the US-Korean relationship. Until recently most Americans didn't know that this practice took place, of providing sexual labor for US troops stationed on Korea. 


By the time the Korean War started, you would hear lots of stories about how American soldiers were threatening to young Korean women and girls. A lot of families would hide their daughters. But then on the other hand, there were also stories of women who participated in sex work for survival. Ironically a lot of these women were the main income providers for their families. 


But, there was an incredible stigma attached to the work that they did. For the most part, these women were considered shameful to South Koreans. Women who were associated with Americans or who married Americans were no longer considered Korean. There was an expression “Korean in body, but no longer Korean in spirit”. 


We know that the US government knew about the establishments catering to the American soldiers, because there are memos. There are memos written by US military officials to owners of these establishments raising concerns about STIs. Sometimes naming the women because they had to be identifiable and traceable. So each of these women had licenses. There were these weekly or monthly reports that the officials would send to the owners of some of these establishments. 


So if a woman was accused of having an STI, then she would be locked up in a facility, colloquially called “The Monkey House”. The reason it was called “The Monkey House” it’s  because the women would be pumped so full of antibiotics that were really strong that they would sort of hang with their arms limp at their sides, so they supposedly looked like monkeys. 


The South Korean Supreme Court recently ruled that that was a human rights abuse and ordered the South Korean government to pay reparations to these women. 


When I was 23, my sister-in-law sort of revealed the family secret as a way to explain my mom’s mental health problems. She said that my mother had been a prostitute in Korea. It was absolutely the sort of earth shattering moment to me, to understand that everything that I had been told had been a lie, a lie of omission, of not telling me of what my mom's past had been. I then spent the rest of my life trying to understand that past. 


Basically, I think this is a group of people who were completely discarded by Korean society and I think that it has not been so different here either. 

(music begins, solo cello) 

It’s commonplace now to see Asian women stereotyped into exotic, sensual, or sexualized caricatures. It's primarily how we’ve been represented in the movie industry and it’s a stereotype deeply ingrained into the implicit bias of Western consciousness. 

It’s okay if you didn’t follow that, here’s an example…

The Atlanta massage parlor shootings in 2021, killed 6 Asian women of the 8 victims. Within a day of the shooting, officials claimed that the murders were not a hate crime, because the suspect had claimed he had a “sex addiction.” 

While there are many ideas about massage parlours, there are many massage parlors that have no connection to sex work AT ALL. I want to repeat that, because many people have very stereotyped ideas about massage parlors and think that they are all the same. There are many massage parlors that have no connection to sex work AT ALL. Some massage parlors offer just that, massage. 

But within 24 hours, the police decided the crime was not racially motivated based on the suspect’s word. And the police officer even went so far as to say that the suspect had been having “a really bad day”. And, technically a hate crime is determined by the intention of the criminal.  (music builds with vocal harmonies)

Georgia has a 4% Asian population, and the suspect had to drive 27 miles, approximately 40 minutes to find his targets. It’s hard to imagine that for 40 minutes the suspect couldn’t find other targets for his sex addiction. Regardless of what services these women were providing, they were clearly sought out based on their race. 

There’s a Catch-22, that Asian women are hypersexualized because of race, but then that very sexualization is used as a way to evade hate crime. Society has stereotyped Asian women so synonymous with sex, that this man, and even law enforcement, could claim that the murders were not racially motivated. It’s difficult for me to wrap my head around, but think about the suspect driving for 40 minutes to find his targets. And when I think about that, it’s clear to me that he wasn’t just motivated by his sex addiction, he was motivated by his addiction to sexualizing Asian women. 

I want to leave you with a last word from Grace, as she describes the meaning of the Korean word han. 

So han is a Korean word that is not very easily translated, but one way to translate it is “that it is noted grief and rage over injustice”, or “an entanglement of the emotional residues of historical oppression. 

I know that my mom had a lot of han passed down to her from my grandmother’s generation, because they were laborers under the Japanese and my mother was born in japan. But then a lot of it comes from her experiences during the war and then after the war in her efforts to survive, provide for her family, and then through her immigration experience in the US. And I think about my own han and I locate it, I locate my awareness of it even before I knew the word back to that moment when I was 15 years old and realized that my mom had schizophrenia and no one was going to help me. 

(music ends, silence, a single bell sounds)

You can begin to descend down the stairs or, to take the elevator, continue on the walkway that’s blind with the glass railing.  

I think about this word han, about what it means to hold the feeling of your family's history without knowing the word or the history itself. I think about it in relationship to my own body and experience, and the bodies of other Asian women. The correlation between histories and physical manifestations, be they schizophrenia, or, in my family generations of reproductive system issues. What stories have made us feel a depth or a weight that maybe we don’t know the words for? As your body descends into gravity, I wonder if you can imagine what this feels like too. (music begins again)

When you’ve reached the ground floor, I invite you to feel or connect with the parts of you touching the earth. While it's gravity that literally makes us heavy, the earth is also what connects us. It is my beginning and my end. It is the realm I share in common with you, and have shared in common with my ancestors. That connection is as weighted as it is freeing.

2nd Floor Mezzanine \|||// (a single bell sounds)

Once you’ve reached the open area with windows on your left, and a staircase leading to the lobby of the museum on the right, you can approach any of the windows on the left. They look across the courtyard and back on the Unisphere. 

With this large landscape in front of you, perhaps you can imagine the longing to find new land, to discover something new. But if you are an Asian woman, this world is barely accessible to you, and your options to immigrate are slim. The opportunity to marry a young handsome entrepreneur is perhaps wondrous, perhaps a necessity, or perhaps your parents have even already made the decision for you, the dowry has been paid or you have been sold, your picture sent, and you will go, regardless of your wishes. This was the case for many Asian women in early immigration. 

My great grandmother came on a boat after seeing a picture of a man, who she would marry. Or technically my great grandmother was the sister of the first picture bride, but the first wife passed away in childbirth, and it was customary at the time that the sister would marry the brother in law. 

Being the second wife, my great grandmother probably knew a lot more about her future husband than what most picture brides knew. Because the information sent through pictures and letters before their journey on the boat was often, just, not true. 

(a single bell sounds)

Move across the landing that opens onto the lobby, by the glass railing- here you are, on a boat, after a grueling journey. (music begins, solo cello) But the man on the dock below, your new husband, is not the man in the picture. Or, rather, maybe he is, but a toothless version, or a 30 years older version, or perhaps not the rich entrepreneur the letter claimed he was. This was a common experience for picture brides. Old pictures, or letters full of lies and fantasies, tied their fates to men of delusion and dreams. And marriage was primarily the way Asian women were allowed to come. 

In 1875, the Page Act had changed immigration for Asian women, requiring them to be interviewed and questioned, and restricting them from entering “for lewd or immoral purposes”.  

The Page Act limited the freedom and numbers of Asian women who could immigrate, and it subjected them to different screening than European women. It is seen as the precedent to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which would come 7 years later, in 1882, as it used race, national origin, and gender to discriminate against who could enter the country.

Disguised as “protection” for immigrants, the federal statue represented the attitude of the time of seeing Asian women as dirty. In 1870, a senator from California described Chinese women, his own constituents, as “the most undesirable of population, who spread disease and moral death among our white population”.  

The Page Act would frame how Asian women are seen and treated, as needing help, or as being hypersexual, and these ideas would be perpetuated by other US government decisions and practices. Like the War Brides Act, which opened immigration for Asian women again in 1945 only if they married American Military personnel, the women were largely seen as being saved. 

(a single bell sounds)

For this next section, I invite you to be anywhere along the railing, or you can find a seat nearby, or go back towards the windows. This section is personally very resonant for me, and it's one of the more difficult concepts to explain. But to start, here’s a story from sociologist and writer, Grace Cho, explaining a connection between family, survival, and the devastating effects of the United States use of Asian women’s bodies. (music ends)

When I was 15, my mother started to show signs of what Western psychiatry calls schizophrenia. She started to hear voices and started to look at people who previously had been our friends or neighbors with a lot of suspicion. It was sort of a textbook case. 


I spent most of my adolescence and young adulthood really struggling to understand what happened to her. I always had this sense that my mom had experienced a lot of trauma in her life although I didn't really know what those traumas were. I knew that she had been a survivor of the Korean War and that she was a child when that happened. 


I didn't know anything about her life after the war, sometimes I would ask her what she used to do for a living in Korea. She would dissociate, what I now recognize as dissociation. She would stare at the spot on the wall to tune out everything else. That was always the response I would get from her if I asked her what she used to do in Korea before we moved to the US. 


The US occupied the southern half of the Korean peninsula in September 1945. They took over some of the infrastructure that had been set up by the Japanese under Japanese colonization, including some of the brothels that the Japanese had set up in which Korean women were often forced into sexual labor. 


Prostitution flourished around American military bases throughout the 1950s. By the 1960s, it had become formalised by the South Korean government. The women who were working in the brothels around the US bases had to be licensed. It was sort of a secret in the US-Korean relationship. Until recently most Americans didn't know that this practice took place, of providing sexual labor for US troops stationed on Korea. 


By the time the Korean War started, you would hear lots of stories about how American soldiers were threatening to young Korean women and girls. A lot of families would hide their daughters. But then on the other hand, there were also stories of women who participated in sex work for survival. Ironically a lot of these women were the main income providers for their families. 


But, there was an incredible stigma attached to the work that they did. For the most part, these women were considered shameful to South Koreans. Women who were associated with Americans or who married Americans were no longer considered Korean. There was an expression “Korean in body, but no longer Korean in spirit”. 


We know that the US government knew about the establishments catering to the American soldiers, because there are memos. There are memos written by US military officials to owners of these establishments raising concerns about STIs. Sometimes naming the women because they had to be identifiable and traceable. So each of these women had licenses. There were these weekly or monthly reports that the officials would send to the owners of some of these establishments. 


So if a woman was accused of having an STI, then she would be locked up in a facility, colloquially called “The Monkey House”. The reason it was called “The Monkey House” it’s  because the women would be pumped so full of antibiotics that were really strong that they would sort of hang with their arms limp at their sides, so they supposedly looked like monkeys. 


The South Korean Supreme Court recently ruled that that was a human rights abuse and ordered the South Korean government to pay reparations to these women. 


When I was 23, my sister-in-law sort of revealed the family secret as a way to explain my mom’s mental health problems. She said that my mother had been a prostitute in Korea. It was absolutely the sort of earth shattering moment to me, to understand that everything that I had been told had been a lie, a lie of omission, of not telling me of what my mom's past had been. I then spent the rest of my life trying to understand that past. 


Basically, I think this is a group of people who were completely discarded by Korean society and I think that it has not been so different here either. 

(music begins, solo cello) 

It’s commonplace now to see Asian women stereotyped into exotic, sensual, or sexualized caricatures. It's primarily how we’ve been represented in the movie industry and it’s a stereotype deeply ingrained into the implicit bias of Western consciousness. 

It’s okay if you didn’t follow that, here’s an example…

The Atlanta massage parlor shootings in 2021, killed 6 Asian women of the 8 victims. Within a day of the shooting, officials claimed that the murders were not a hate crime, because the suspect had claimed he had a “sex addiction.” 

While there are many ideas about massage parlours, there are many massage parlors that have no connection to sex work AT ALL. I want to repeat that, because many people have very stereotyped ideas about massage parlors and think that they are all the same. There are many massage parlors that have no connection to sex work AT ALL. Some massage parlors offer just that, massage. 

But within 24 hours, the police decided the crime was not racially motivated based on the suspect’s word. And the police officer even went so far as to say that the suspect had been having “a really bad day”. And, technically a hate crime is determined by the intention of the criminal.  (music builds with vocal harmonies)

Georgia has a 4% Asian population, and the suspect had to drive 27 miles, approximately 40 minutes to find his targets. It’s hard to imagine that for 40 minutes the suspect couldn’t find other targets for his sex addiction. Regardless of what services these women were providing, they were clearly sought out based on their race. 

There’s a Catch-22, that Asian women are hypersexualized because of race, but then that very sexualization is used as a way to evade hate crime. Society has stereotyped Asian women so synonymous with sex, that this man, and even law enforcement, could claim that the murders were not racially motivated. It’s difficult for me to wrap my head around, but think about the suspect driving for 40 minutes to find his targets. And when I think about that, it’s clear to me that he wasn’t just motivated by his sex addiction, he was motivated by his addiction to sexualizing Asian women. 

I want to leave you with a last word from Grace, as she describes the meaning of the Korean word han. 

So han is a Korean word that is not very easily translated, but one way to translate it is “that it is noted grief and rage over injustice”, or “an entanglement of the emotional residues of historical oppression. 

I know that my mom had a lot of han passed down to her from my grandmother’s generation, because they were laborers under the Japanese and my mother was born in japan. But then a lot of it comes from her experiences during the war and then after the war in her efforts to survive, provide for her family, and then through her immigration experience in the US. And I think about my own han and I locate it, I locate my awareness of it even before I knew the word back to that moment when I was 15 years old and realized that my mom had schizophrenia and no one was going to help me. 

(music ends, silence, a single bell sounds)

You can begin to descend down the stairs or, to take the elevator, continue on the walkway that’s blind with the glass railing.  

I think about this word han, about what it means to hold the feeling of your family's history without knowing the word or the history itself. I think about it in relationship to my own body and experience, and the bodies of other Asian women. The correlation between histories and physical manifestations, be they schizophrenia, or, in my family generations of reproductive system issues. What stories have made us feel a depth or a weight that maybe we don’t know the words for? As your body descends into gravity, I wonder if you can imagine what this feels like too. (music begins again)

When you’ve reached the ground floor, I invite you to feel or connect with the parts of you touching the earth. While it's gravity that literally makes us heavy, the earth is also what connects us. It is my beginning and my end. It is the realm I share in common with you, and have shared in common with my ancestors. That connection is as weighted as it is freeing.

P1000217.JPG

The Page Act

TSU_08_THE-PAGE-ACT.mp3

P1000131.JPG

(a single bell sounds)

So we’re about two thirds through the tour now. But at this point I’d like to invite you to take a moment of rest, a pause, to process some of what you’ve been hearing. During this time, I’m going to offer a somatic, or body related exercise, to process some of what you might be feeling. If you don’t want to participate, you can just pause the track and take a break and meet us by the entrance by the panorama, and on the next track. Whether you do the exercise or not, you could go outside now and take a breather. Or if the benches are still at the bottom of the staircase, you can rest there. Or, find another place to rest.

When we are feeling intense or heavy emotions, it can be helpful to engage in movement that is bilateral, or rather, moves from one side of the body to the other. This could be just as siple as walking, or tapping the right side of your body, then your left. Or moving your eyes from side to side.  I’ll let you decide what action you choose, and as you do it, I’ll offer some thoughts. 

If you’re walking, and the weather is favorable, I suggest going outside. If you're tapping and you are able to use your arms or hands, you could tap on your lap or onto your chest. If you are moving your eyes from side to side, I recommend that you stay seated with your eyes closed for now. 

I’m going to offer a rhythm for us to move on, but if you need to move faster or slower that’s fine too. 

Let’s start just by noticing and feeling the body and the bilateral movement. The right and the left. Maybe you’re feeling your footfalls on the ground, or tapping the right side of your body and then your left side. There’s no right or wrong, we’re just simply paying attention. 

If you are able to look around, I invite you to notice light sources. If you’re inside the building, notice the exits and windows. 

And as you do all of this, remind yourself that you are safe, or you are ok. Whatever words resonate for you. Whatever words will signal ease and letting go. You are safe. You are ok. Ease and letting go.

I invite you to think of a person, place, animal, or object that brings you a sense of safety, or comfort. Imagine it with you now as you move. 

Ok, now let’s just come back to the feeling of the movement, the feeling of your feet, or the parts of your body that might be moving, or your eyes, and then begin and noticing what’s around you. You can stop the movement, and let yourself just take a couple deep breaths. Noticing how you are feeling in your body. Noticing your breath. And when you're ready, we’re going to head back towards the entrance of the museum.

(a single bell sounds)

If you’d like a little more time, please pause the track and take what you need. 

There’s a cafe by the gift shop, and the restroom and water fountains are by the opposite entrance, the one where we’ll be meeting in a moment. 

So we’ll meet toward the entrance of the museum that is near the Panorama and the Grand Central Parkway, the one opposite the gift shop. If you’re outside, you can stay outside and meet by that entrance.

take a break \|||// (a single bell sounds)

So we’re about two thirds through the tour now. But at this point I’d like to invite you to take a moment of rest, a pause, to process some of what you’ve been hearing. During this time, I’m going to offer a somatic, or body related exercise, to process some of what you might be feeling. If you don’t want to participate, you can just pause the track and take a break and meet us by the entrance by the panorama, and on the next track. Whether you do the exercise or not, you could go outside now and take a breather. Or if the benches are still at the bottom of the staircase, you can rest there. Or, find another place to rest.

When we are feeling intense or heavy emotions, it can be helpful to engage in movement that is bilateral, or rather, moves from one side of the body to the other. This could be just as siple as walking, or tapping the right side of your body, then your left. Or moving your eyes from side to side.  I’ll let you decide what action you choose, and as you do it, I’ll offer some thoughts. 

If you’re walking, and the weather is favorable, I suggest going outside. If you're tapping and you are able to use your arms or hands, you could tap on your lap or onto your chest. If you are moving your eyes from side to side, I recommend that you stay seated with your eyes closed for now. 

I’m going to offer a rhythm for us to move on, but if you need to move faster or slower that’s fine too. 

Let’s start just by noticing and feeling the body and the bilateral movement. The right and the left. Maybe you’re feeling your footfalls on the ground, or tapping the right side of your body and then your left side. There’s no right or wrong, we’re just simply paying attention. 

If you are able to look around, I invite you to notice light sources. If you’re inside the building, notice the exits and windows. 

And as you do all of this, remind yourself that you are safe, or you are ok. Whatever words resonate for you. Whatever words will signal ease and letting go. You are safe. You are ok. Ease and letting go.

I invite you to think of a person, place, animal, or object that brings you a sense of safety, or comfort. Imagine it with you now as you move. 

Ok, now let’s just come back to the feeling of the movement, the feeling of your feet, or the parts of your body that might be moving, or your eyes, and then begin and noticing what’s around you. You can stop the movement, and let yourself just take a couple deep breaths. Noticing how you are feeling in your body. Noticing your breath. And when you're ready, we’re going to head back towards the entrance of the museum.

(a single bell sounds)

If you’d like a little more time, please pause the track and take what you need. 

There’s a cafe by the gift shop, and the restroom and water fountains are by the opposite entrance, the one where we’ll be meeting in a moment. 

So we’ll meet toward the entrance of the museum that is near the Panorama and the Grand Central Parkway, the one opposite the gift shop. If you’re outside, you can stay outside and meet by that entrance.

P1000172.JPG

Somatic Interlude

TSU_08A_INTERLUDE.mp3

P1000188.JPG

P1000183.JPG

(a single bell sounds)

For our next stop, we’ll be outside the building. If you haven’t already, you can now go to the exit building closest to the Grand Central Parkway. If you are already outside, you can continue to listen as you head in that direction. 

You can now exit the building, go through any of the doors, onto the concrete sidewalk, facing the Grand Central Parkway.

(sounds of exiting building, entering outside atmosphere and the freeway)

Ah and here we are, outside, with the sky and trees and the fresh air? Sort of?

The Queens Museum is built right along the Grand Central Parkway, the 14.6 mile parkway that runs through the heart of Queens. Connecting the Triborough Bridge to the Northern State Parkway, it’s another controversial project of Robert Moses. Moses built the bridges above the parkway too small to allow buses, therefore restricting transportation to only private users. 

The GCP reminds us how important the identity of car culture is to Americans. Outside of a major metropolis like NYC which has a public transportation system, most cities, towns, and counties rely on the automobile for our connection across the vast United States. We go to work, visit our families, buy our essentials, get a drive-thru meal and sometimes even eat in the car. The 2020 documentary, The Donut King, tells the story of Ted Ngoy, the Cambodian refugee who built the success of Cambodian refugee-owned donut shops all along the West Coast, all because eating breakfast in the car is such an American pastime!

Here in Queens, if you had been at the World’s Fair of 1964, and now you can imagine, was the largest tire, reaching 80 feet high, which was actually a Ferris Wheel made of fiberglass and steel, built by the US Rubber Company. After the fair closed, the tire was dismantled, transported, and reconstructed in Detroit, Michigan, also known as “the motor city,” held a bustling industry for car manufacturers. 

But in the 1970 and 1980s, with gas prices rising and a demand for smaller and more fuel-efficient vehicles, Detroit’s business began to decline, with consumers choosing Japanese made models. Many Asian Americans know and remember that this was a time when racism came out of the cracks and created another wave of discrimination and violence. 

The most memorable act of violence during this time is the murder of Vincent Chin in 1982. 

Just a heads up that further along in this section there is a description of graphic violence and some adult language. 

(music begins, gentle arpeggiato piano) Chin was a 27 year old Chinese American, known for his energetic attitude, outgoing personality, and smile. He was known as an avid reader and a hard worker. Both a student of computing, and a waiter on nights and weekends, and then a draftsman by day at a mechanical engineering firm, where his supervisor described him as “extremely smart and very energetic. He had potential. He was on his way.”

Chin’s life was significant in its own right, but his death is what rocked Asian Americans into a state of awakening. 

On June 19, 1982 Vincent Chin was out with friends to celebrate his bachelor party. Chin was just a little over a week away from his wedding day. Chin was threatened by 2 white men, an employed auto factory superintendent and his stepson, who made anti-Asian statements and said “it’s because of you motherfuckers we’re out of work”. After a short altercation, Chin and his friends left the scene. But the two men hunted him down, even paying an onlooker to help find, quote “the chinese” end quote. And when they did, they held him down, and beat his head with a baseball bat.

The EMS worker who arrived at the scene recalled “I’ve seen a lot of violent death, but none exactly like that. And, it was obvious, you know, that he’d be beaten, beaten…broken bones all over. You know. Collarbone. Ribs. Skull. Brains lying in the street.”

The lead detective, a 19 year veteran with the Police Department, released the main suspect without bond. He would also later fail to seek out witnesses from the location of the crime, and even pose for a photo, holding the bat that killed Chin, with an expression somewhere between seriousness and a smirk. One of the officers, a young Black rookie cop who had been racially profiled as a child, questioned the Lead Detective’s decision. “They pulled up, they hid behind a pole, and they waited with a baseball bat. How was that self-defense?” But the lead detective’s decision would go unquestioned by higher authorities, and the murderers would never spend so much as a night in jail. 

(music builds with bass line and other pianos layered)

Chin’s murderers showed up in court in suits, and were given 3 years of probation, roughly $4,000 in fines, and no jail time. When later questioned about the lenient sentencing, the presiding judge said “these aren’t the kind of men you send to jail.”

Hm, the kind of men? The kind of men who violently beat someone to death with a baseball bat…

It’s hard to imagine that the judge, and law enforcement, didn’t have biases here; that the outcome might have been different if Chin had been a wealthy white businessman or politician, or if the murderers had been people of color and Chin had been white. 

But Chin’s murder, and the lack of a thorough investigation, and the unjust sentencing was also a huge catalyst for change. His murder molded numerous Asian struggles together into one campaign, an Asian American one- knitting the ide n Asian American rights movement was built from NYC to San Francisco. In Detroit, Americans Citizens for Justice, or ACJ, was formed, a non-profit started by Asians for human and civil rights, who pursued the Chin case to the federal level. Here’s Helen Zia, journalist and founder of the Vincent Chin Institute, with thoughts from ACJ:

Though the movement for a federal trial did not gain justice for Vincent Chin, the movement gave a united, resonant, political voice to Asian American communities across the nation. The murder of Vincent Chin was a foundational event that sparked the Asian American civil rights movement. In his death, Vincent Chin is to this day a symbol of the Asian American struggle for acceptance and empowerment.

The murder did not even initially register with the American Civil Liberties Union as a Civil Rights issue and was not seen as a hate crime. Here’s Helen Zia again, with thoughts on how Vincent Chin shaped the future of Civil Rights and Asian America "A lot of people said, ‘it's too bad, it's a tragedy,’ but they didn't know what they could do. And then there were the liberal naysayers, the anti-asian racism deniers, who claimed that civil rights law wasn't created for Asians or for immigrants. But civil rights law changed and Asian Americans came together because of the Vincent Chin movement.”

(music ends, a single bell sounds)

Before you head back into the museum, I invite you to take a moment, maybe look at the sky, take a deep breath, or do whatever you might need in this moment to ground you.

Grand Central Parkway \|||// (a single bell sounds)

For our next stop, we’ll be outside the building. If you haven’t already, you can now go to the exit building closest to the Grand Central Parkway. If you are already outside, you can continue to listen as you head in that direction. 

You can now exit the building, go through any of the doors, onto the concrete sidewalk, facing the Grand Central Parkway.

(sounds of exiting building, entering outside atmosphere and the freeway)

Ah and here we are, outside, with the sky and trees and the fresh air? Sort of?

The Queens Museum is built right along the Grand Central Parkway, the 14.6 mile parkway that runs through the heart of Queens. Connecting the Triborough Bridge to the Northern State Parkway, it’s another controversial project of Robert Moses. Moses built the bridges above the parkway too small to allow buses, therefore restricting transportation to only private users. 

The GCP reminds us how important the identity of car culture is to Americans. Outside of a major metropolis like NYC which has a public transportation system, most cities, towns, and counties rely on the automobile for our connection across the vast United States. We go to work, visit our families, buy our essentials, get a drive-thru meal and sometimes even eat in the car. The 2020 documentary, The Donut King, tells the story of Ted Ngoy, the Cambodian refugee who built the success of Cambodian refugee-owned donut shops all along the West Coast, all because eating breakfast in the car is such an American pastime!

Here in Queens, if you had been at the World’s Fair of 1964, and now you can imagine, was the largest tire, reaching 80 feet high, which was actually a Ferris Wheel made of fiberglass and steel, built by the US Rubber Company. After the fair closed, the tire was dismantled, transported, and reconstructed in Detroit, Michigan, also known as “the motor city,” held a bustling industry for car manufacturers. 

But in the 1970 and 1980s, with gas prices rising and a demand for smaller and more fuel-efficient vehicles, Detroit’s business began to decline, with consumers choosing Japanese made models. Many Asian Americans know and remember that this was a time when racism came out of the cracks and created another wave of discrimination and violence. 

The most memorable act of violence during this time is the murder of Vincent Chin in 1982. 

Just a heads up that further along in this section there is a description of graphic violence and some adult language. 

(music begins, gentle arpeggiato piano) Chin was a 27 year old Chinese American, known for his energetic attitude, outgoing personality, and smile. He was known as an avid reader and a hard worker. Both a student of computing, and a waiter on nights and weekends, and then a draftsman by day at a mechanical engineering firm, where his supervisor described him as “extremely smart and very energetic. He had potential. He was on his way.”

Chin’s life was significant in its own right, but his death is what rocked Asian Americans into a state of awakening. 

On June 19, 1982 Vincent Chin was out with friends to celebrate his bachelor party. Chin was just a little over a week away from his wedding day. Chin was threatened by 2 white men, an employed auto factory superintendent and his stepson, who made anti-Asian statements and said “it’s because of you motherfuckers we’re out of work”. After a short altercation, Chin and his friends left the scene. But the two men hunted him down, even paying an onlooker to help find, quote “the chinese” end quote. And when they did, they held him down, and beat his head with a baseball bat.

The EMS worker who arrived at the scene recalled “I’ve seen a lot of violent death, but none exactly like that. And, it was obvious, you know, that he’d be beaten, beaten…broken bones all over. You know. Collarbone. Ribs. Skull. Brains lying in the street.”

The lead detective, a 19 year veteran with the Police Department, released the main suspect without bond. He would also later fail to seek out witnesses from the location of the crime, and even pose for a photo, holding the bat that killed Chin, with an expression somewhere between seriousness and a smirk. One of the officers, a young Black rookie cop who had been racially profiled as a child, questioned the Lead Detective’s decision. “They pulled up, they hid behind a pole, and they waited with a baseball bat. How was that self-defense?” But the lead detective’s decision would go unquestioned by higher authorities, and the murderers would never spend so much as a night in jail. 

(music builds with bass line and other pianos layered)

Chin’s murderers showed up in court in suits, and were given 3 years of probation, roughly $4,000 in fines, and no jail time. When later questioned about the lenient sentencing, the presiding judge said “these aren’t the kind of men you send to jail.”

Hm, the kind of men? The kind of men who violently beat someone to death with a baseball bat…

It’s hard to imagine that the judge, and law enforcement, didn’t have biases here; that the outcome might have been different if Chin had been a wealthy white businessman or politician, or if the murderers had been people of color and Chin had been white. 

But Chin’s murder, and the lack of a thorough investigation, and the unjust sentencing was also a huge catalyst for change. His murder molded numerous Asian struggles together into one campaign, an Asian American one- knitting the ide n Asian American rights movement was built from NYC to San Francisco. In Detroit, Americans Citizens for Justice, or ACJ, was formed, a non-profit started by Asians for human and civil rights, who pursued the Chin case to the federal level. Here’s Helen Zia, journalist and founder of the Vincent Chin Institute, with thoughts from ACJ:

Though the movement for a federal trial did not gain justice for Vincent Chin, the movement gave a united, resonant, political voice to Asian American communities across the nation. The murder of Vincent Chin was a foundational event that sparked the Asian American civil rights movement. In his death, Vincent Chin is to this day a symbol of the Asian American struggle for acceptance and empowerment.

The murder did not even initially register with the American Civil Liberties Union as a Civil Rights issue and was not seen as a hate crime. Here’s Helen Zia again, with thoughts on how Vincent Chin shaped the future of Civil Rights and Asian America "A lot of people said, ‘it's too bad, it's a tragedy,’ but they didn't know what they could do. And then there were the liberal naysayers, the anti-asian racism deniers, who claimed that civil rights law wasn't created for Asians or for immigrants. But civil rights law changed and Asian Americans came together because of the Vincent Chin movement.”

(music ends, a single bell sounds)

Before you head back into the museum, I invite you to take a moment, maybe look at the sky, take a deep breath, or do whatever you might need in this moment to ground you.

P1000210.JPG

Vincent Chin

TSU_09_VINCENT-CHIN.mp3

P1000192.JPG

(a single bell sounds)

From here, we’ll head back into the museum, just let the front desk staff know you were already admitted. 

(field sounds of movement) 

Once inside, move forward into the lobby, past the entrance desk and the gallery entrance, down the steps or ramp and into the main lobby again. 

Then turn to the right, towards an extension of the lobby, sort of like a second lobby - a large space that acts as a gallery and it may or may not have an exhibit. The area has a few steps down to a wooden floor, but you don’t have to go down the steps. Because for now we’re just going to pass all the way through this area, you can move along either wall to the very far wall. 

Keep going, and behind the far wall at the end of the gallery, you’ll find the Watershed Gallery, the doorways are almost hidden, but it's just behind the wall, and inside you’ll find The Relief Map of the NYC Water Supply System

This exhibit, permanent to the museum, shows the pathways for how water is brought from various locations to our pipes in NYC. While it doesn’t show vegetation or trees, what I love about this exhibit is thinking of these lands before we were here, before waterways were built, or railroads, or laundromats. Before Asian people, before settlers and colonists. When it was the Munsee Lenape, the Matinecock, the Lekawe Rockaway, and the Canarsie. We say America when we usually mean the United States, but the real America is not just the United States, and the landmass was called Turtle Island. 

As you take in the diorama, I invite you to think what it might have been like then, this huge, green, lush resource. What the smell of the earth would be like, or how it might feel beneath your feet. This bountiful land was stewarded, protected, and cared for by Indigenous People for thousands of years. 

And what was it like for those people to be removed, through famine, disease, and genocide. 
And what it might be like if we keep using resources as heavily as we do, that maybe someday it could be as brown and desolate, and lifeless as this diorama. 

We have Indigenous people to thank for preserving this land so we could be here today. Let us honor their memory by being good stewards of the land. And remember that we are settlers here.

The Wet Networks \|||// (a single bell sounds)

From here, we’ll head back into the museum, just let the front desk staff know you were already admitted. 

(field sounds of movement) 

Once inside, move forward into the lobby, past the entrance desk and the gallery entrance, down the steps or ramp and into the main lobby again. 

Then turn to the right, towards an extension of the lobby, sort of like a second lobby - a large space that acts as a gallery and it may or may not have an exhibit. The area has a few steps down to a wooden floor, but you don’t have to go down the steps. Because for now we’re just going to pass all the way through this area, you can move along either wall to the very far wall. 

Keep going, and behind the far wall at the end of the gallery, you’ll find the Watershed Gallery, the doorways are almost hidden, but it's just behind the wall, and inside you’ll find The Relief Map of the NYC Water Supply System

This exhibit, permanent to the museum, shows the pathways for how water is brought from various locations to our pipes in NYC. While it doesn’t show vegetation or trees, what I love about this exhibit is thinking of these lands before we were here, before waterways were built, or railroads, or laundromats. Before Asian people, before settlers and colonists. When it was the Munsee Lenape, the Matinecock, the Lekawe Rockaway, and the Canarsie. We say America when we usually mean the United States, but the real America is not just the United States, and the landmass was called Turtle Island. 

As you take in the diorama, I invite you to think what it might have been like then, this huge, green, lush resource. What the smell of the earth would be like, or how it might feel beneath your feet. This bountiful land was stewarded, protected, and cared for by Indigenous People for thousands of years. 

And what was it like for those people to be removed, through famine, disease, and genocide. 
And what it might be like if we keep using resources as heavily as we do, that maybe someday it could be as brown and desolate, and lifeless as this diorama. 

We have Indigenous people to thank for preserving this land so we could be here today. Let us honor their memory by being good stewards of the land. And remember that we are settlers here.

P1000162.JPG

Land Acknowledgement

TSU_10_WETLANDS.mp3

(a single bell sounds)

Next, we’re going to head back into the open gallery space that we passed through. 

(footsteps)

This time you can move onto the wooden floor, which is down a few steps or a ramp. The ramp may be on the opposite end.  

As you make your way into the space, notice the cage-like structure, made of metal beams and slanted windows, hanging above you. Step underneath and inside. If this structure were to slowly descend, you would be trapped, enclosed, imprisoned. The imminent threat of imprisonment or death was the case for many Asian refugees, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Lao, and Hmong, fleeing in 1975 and beyond. 

And this cage was created by the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War, and the ‘secret war’ in Laos, along with the bombing of Cambodia. From 1964-1975, the US dropped bombs on Cambodia and Laos, using a technique called saturation or ‘carpet bombing’. 2 millions tons of bombs were dropped on Laos alone, equal to a planeload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years and per capita more than any other country in history. (music begins, bass synth in single beat) In Cambodia, approximately 250,000 Cambodians were killed, mostly from US bombs. 

The bombing decimated the land, which then allowed the Khmer Rouge, the communist force to take power when the US pulled out of the area in 1975. Once the Khmer Rouge took power, it’s estimated an additional 1.5 to 3 million people were killed through starvation, execution, and torture.  

(music builds with eighth notes and additional synths, strings, and chimes)

In addition to the bombing, the CIA sponsored a “Secret Army” as well, not made up of US soldiers, but of other ethnic groups, mainly of Hmong tribesmen, a diasporic ethnic group in Northern Laos. When the US pulled out of Northern Laos and Vietnam those who had helped the US as soldiers, interpreters, those like the Secret Army, or simply those who lived sympathetic to Western sentiments - immediately became criminals. Their options were to face certain imprisonment, torture, and death, or flee. Hmong soldiers had been told by CIA personnel that the US would aid them if enemy forces took control, and refer to it as “The promise.” But when the Lao’s People’s Party announced “the Hmong must be exterminated down to the root of the tribe,” only the highest Hmong officials and their families were evacuated, with 10,000 left behind on the airfield. Many of them trekked to Thailand, a journey that included deaths through starvation, gunfire, and exhaustion. One Hmong family recalls finding a baby, crying and trying to nurse from its dead mother’s breast, and having no choice but to continue.

Some refugees did eventually make it to the camps in Thailand, but those who emigrated to the United States, were not met as allies and war heroes. Instead many who helped the US army were met with discrimination and hostile attitudes. 

And for the Hmong Secret Army, who lost tens of thousands in the war and whose men died at a rate 10 times higher than US soldiers in Vietnam, the promise to be taken care of was not met. Because the CIA, and not the Defense Ministry, had arranged the soldiers, they were not considered veterans and they were not thanked or even acknowledged for their service. 

This is another painful reminder of the Catch-22 Asian immigrants can be caught in, wanted when it's convenient, and unacknowledged and forgotten when it is not convenient. 
(music ends)

As Catherine Ceniza Choy, author of Asian American Histories of the United States, says of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian and Hmong refugees, “they were HERE because Americans were THERE.”

And once refugees were able to settle in the United States, hostile anti-Asian sentiments continued. 

In 1990, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 37 year old Cambodian, Heng Lim, was traveling with family and friends when they were approached by a violent white man. The man struck their car multiple times with a piece of lumber, breaking the windshield, and prompting the driver to get out. The man yelled “Come out and get me, you Chink” and hit Heng Lim’s elderly father-in-law. When Heng Lim approached his father-in-law to provide help, the man struck Lim on top of his head so hard that he immediately began seizing. This happened in front of his wife, 6 year old daughter, and other family members.

(music begins, strings only)

Heng Lim was a refugee who had been in medical school, studying to become a doctor when he fled the killing fields of Cambodia. He met his wife, who also escaped Cambodia after 4 years of enslavement, in a refugee camp in Thailand. He had escaped an incredibly violent and traumatic situation, but he was not the person who prompted or provoked the violence. His family was held at the police station for 4 hours after the incident. His father-in-law was denied medical services for a broken arm, and his wife was not permitted to leave for the hospital, where Heng Lim would die later that day. 

The man who killed Heng Lim was identified within days, but it took the police 5 weeks to even attempt to arrest him. And only after significant pressure from the community. 

Heng Lim’s murder was published in a 1993 newsletter printed by the Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence, now known as CAAAV. Unlike the awareness of Vincent Chin’s murder, I found very little information about Heng Lim. I was shocked how difficult it was to find the few references online. I can count the references on one hand. 

So let us remember Heng Lim. Not only for his death, but for his life. Even when we may not know about it. His life was worthy too. 

I invite you to lift your head or gaze upwards towards the cage. There is light that hits the slanted panes. Light coming in through windows. Photons of light that have traveled millions of miles, maybe millions of years from the sun’s core to reach you. There are many that believe there's a connection between the ancestors and light. Or simply a connection between the stars and those that have passed away. Whatever you believe, I invite you to let that light hit your face. It's traveled so far to get here.

(music ends, silence, a single bell sounds)

We’re almost finished with the tour, but there are just a few more stops and things to contemplate.

Skylight Gallery \|||// (a single bell sounds)

Next, we’re going to head back into the open gallery space that we passed through. 

(footsteps)

This time you can move onto the wooden floor, which is down a few steps or a ramp. The ramp may be on the opposite end.  

As you make your way into the space, notice the cage-like structure, made of metal beams and slanted windows, hanging above you. Step underneath and inside. If this structure were to slowly descend, you would be trapped, enclosed, imprisoned. The imminent threat of imprisonment or death was the case for many Asian refugees, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Lao, and Hmong, fleeing in 1975 and beyond. 

And this cage was created by the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War, and the ‘secret war’ in Laos, along with the bombing of Cambodia. From 1964-1975, the US dropped bombs on Cambodia and Laos, using a technique called saturation or ‘carpet bombing’. 2 millions tons of bombs were dropped on Laos alone, equal to a planeload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years and per capita more than any other country in history. (music begins, bass synth in single beat) In Cambodia, approximately 250,000 Cambodians were killed, mostly from US bombs. 

The bombing decimated the land, which then allowed the Khmer Rouge, the communist force to take power when the US pulled out of the area in 1975. Once the Khmer Rouge took power, it’s estimated an additional 1.5 to 3 million people were killed through starvation, execution, and torture.  

(music builds with eighth notes and additional synths, strings, and chimes)

In addition to the bombing, the CIA sponsored a “Secret Army” as well, not made up of US soldiers, but of other ethnic groups, mainly of Hmong tribesmen, a diasporic ethnic group in Northern Laos. When the US pulled out of Northern Laos and Vietnam those who had helped the US as soldiers, interpreters, those like the Secret Army, or simply those who lived sympathetic to Western sentiments - immediately became criminals. Their options were to face certain imprisonment, torture, and death, or flee. Hmong soldiers had been told by CIA personnel that the US would aid them if enemy forces took control, and refer to it as “The promise.” But when the Lao’s People’s Party announced “the Hmong must be exterminated down to the root of the tribe,” only the highest Hmong officials and their families were evacuated, with 10,000 left behind on the airfield. Many of them trekked to Thailand, a journey that included deaths through starvation, gunfire, and exhaustion. One Hmong family recalls finding a baby, crying and trying to nurse from its dead mother’s breast, and having no choice but to continue.

Some refugees did eventually make it to the camps in Thailand, but those who emigrated to the United States, were not met as allies and war heroes. Instead many who helped the US army were met with discrimination and hostile attitudes. 

And for the Hmong Secret Army, who lost tens of thousands in the war and whose men died at a rate 10 times higher than US soldiers in Vietnam, the promise to be taken care of was not met. Because the CIA, and not the Defense Ministry, had arranged the soldiers, they were not considered veterans and they were not thanked or even acknowledged for their service. 

This is another painful reminder of the Catch-22 Asian immigrants can be caught in, wanted when it's convenient, and unacknowledged and forgotten when it is not convenient. 
(music ends)

As Catherine Ceniza Choy, author of Asian American Histories of the United States, says of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian and Hmong refugees, “they were HERE because Americans were THERE.”

And once refugees were able to settle in the United States, hostile anti-Asian sentiments continued. 

In 1990, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 37 year old Cambodian, Heng Lim, was traveling with family and friends when they were approached by a violent white man. The man struck their car multiple times with a piece of lumber, breaking the windshield, and prompting the driver to get out. The man yelled “Come out and get me, you Chink” and hit Heng Lim’s elderly father-in-law. When Heng Lim approached his father-in-law to provide help, the man struck Lim on top of his head so hard that he immediately began seizing. This happened in front of his wife, 6 year old daughter, and other family members.

(music begins, strings only)

Heng Lim was a refugee who had been in medical school, studying to become a doctor when he fled the killing fields of Cambodia. He met his wife, who also escaped Cambodia after 4 years of enslavement, in a refugee camp in Thailand. He had escaped an incredibly violent and traumatic situation, but he was not the person who prompted or provoked the violence. His family was held at the police station for 4 hours after the incident. His father-in-law was denied medical services for a broken arm, and his wife was not permitted to leave for the hospital, where Heng Lim would die later that day. 

The man who killed Heng Lim was identified within days, but it took the police 5 weeks to even attempt to arrest him. And only after significant pressure from the community. 

Heng Lim’s murder was published in a 1993 newsletter printed by the Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence, now known as CAAAV. Unlike the awareness of Vincent Chin’s murder, I found very little information about Heng Lim. I was shocked how difficult it was to find the few references online. I can count the references on one hand. 

So let us remember Heng Lim. Not only for his death, but for his life. Even when we may not know about it. His life was worthy too. 

I invite you to lift your head or gaze upwards towards the cage. There is light that hits the slanted panes. Light coming in through windows. Photons of light that have traveled millions of miles, maybe millions of years from the sun’s core to reach you. There are many that believe there's a connection between the ancestors and light. Or simply a connection between the stars and those that have passed away. Whatever you believe, I invite you to let that light hit your face. It's traveled so far to get here.

(music ends, silence, a single bell sounds)

We’re almost finished with the tour, but there are just a few more stops and things to contemplate.

P1000243.JPG

The Vietnam Years

TSU_11_THE-VIETNAM-YEARS.mp3

To leave your story, go to www.thesilentunseenproject.com/tell-your-story





(a single bell sounds)
Our final stop on this tour is anywhere you would like it to be where you can quietly contemplate for a moment. You could find one of the blue couches in the lobby or by the Grand Central Parkway entrance desk, a bench outside, or simply stay where you are. While you move to your location, I have some last thoughts on where we are today. 

(music begins, slow synth drone into larger strings, expansive, reflective, singing)

Since George Floyd’s murder in 2021, many are considering anti-racism as a more pressing and serious issue of our times. We, the nation of the United States, are still trying to understand and cope with our identity as a nation of many immigrants in a history of global colonization, and in a world of turmoil. 

While anti-racism is something many people claim to be engaged in, it often comes with little knowledge of the history of systemic racism, meaning the laws and the institutions that have supported it, and then how it actually shows up. 

With the 399% increase in attacks against Asian people during  Covid, “Stop Asian Hate” became the moniker for anti-asian racism. But for some, it felt familiar, like it was just a matter of time before Asians would become the target for displaced hatred again. Like those living during the decline of the auto industry and Vincent Chin’s death, or South Asians living in NJ from the 1970s-90s while a group called the ‘dotbusters’ singled them out, or Muslims after September 11th. In order for Stop Asian Hate to be successful we have to address the prevalent, discreet and underlying discriminations Asians have been facing for a long time.

In many Asian cultures Buddhism and other non-violent perspectives are influential, where silence and listening are considered not only helpful, but part of a way of being; and it's possible to be a quiet leader. In the face of Western culture: dominant with laws, and valuing individualism and who speaks the loudest, our demeanor is mistaken for weakness, or submissiveness, helplessness, or lack of vision or leadership. And while we may have been driven into certain roles through the dominance of Western values, our very way of being, our methodologies, our perspectives are valuable, strong, resilient, and worthy of acknowledgement.

Sometimes the discrimination is difficult to pinpoint, because it’s just so slight, presumptions or unrecognized expectations that we’ll fit into stereotypes, like that we won't speak up, like the surprise and shock when we do. Anti-Asian hate acts and hate speech are still prevalent and need to stop, but what is most common for many Asian-American people, is that others don’t see our stories, our lives, and our accomplishments as, well, enough to be paid attention to.   

There aren’t enough studies and scholarship out there yet for the things we know we’ve been experiencing but can’t always name. For instance, a 2015 study in the Bay Area’s tech industry showed that Asians were the largest group of tech professionals of all races. Yet in that category of professionals the least likely to hold executive positions, with Asian women ranking last of all. 

Similarly, a 2018 study found that Asian women had shared experiences in 6 key areas: being perceived as exotic, submissive, not a leader, invisible, cute and small, or assumed to be a service worker. 

I don’t need a study to tell me what my experiences are, but it’s helpful to know others out there share them; so that we can address them, ask for what we might need, all in order to heal and move on. 

My grandparents met and married in Internment Camp. Far from their former homes, they were from different states and would not have met if they weren’t interned, and I wouldn’t be here today if it hadn’t have happened. So injustice, like for many of us in the United States, is an inherent part of how I came to exist. For me, injustice is a source of inspiration. Looking at the past gives us an opportunity to learn, and it also can help us consider the future, and to ask, what are we going to do about it? 

In the 1970s and 1980s, Japanese Americans who were interned fought for reparations, inspired by the leadership they had witnessed during the Civil Right movement. And 1988, more than 40 years after internment and after a federal investigation that found that the decision to incarcerate Japanese Americans was based on race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership- survivors of the camps were issued $20,000 and an apology from the U.S. government. If it’s possible for the U.S. government to admit to unfair treatment and the stripping of constitutional rights from Japanese Americans, to whom else could this be true? Who else has had to bear the brunt of race prejudice and failure of political leadership? Who else has been forcibly removed from land? 

This tour is just a drop in a sea of Asian American histories and stories. . There are so many cultures, countries, and histories not represented here. I hope this tour has given you a respectful, non-voyeuristic curiosity. To research and learn more. And to ask questions, of yourself and of your own history. And to consider the people, places, and histories you may not have paid attention to, that you may not have seen. 

If you are not Asian, I invite you now to ponder, how have you participated in anti-Asian sentiments, or simply assumed Asian people would act a certain way, or have chosen to speak up first, and louder, and faster because your sense of leadership may not include patience, silence, contemplation, and moving slowly.  Have you questioned a qualified Asian woman on her expertise and experience? Have you dismissed someone because you thought they weren’t loud enough? Or who might you have unknowingly silenced? 

And if you are Asian, I want to remind you that as Asian Americans, we can come together. Even with our diverse backgrounds and conflicting political histories, we can come together in this land we mistakenly call America.

We are taught in many ways that we should only be grateful for what we’ve received in America, to put our heads down and not make a scene. To survive and not complain, even if we know we’re getting less than what we deserve or what we’ve earned. We don’t bring it up, we move on.

As the fastest growing minority in the United States, we can set a precedent for what the future looks like. Not just to assimilate, but a future where all races are respected, where all stories are heard. Where differences and culture are seen as equally valuable. Where we don’t ignore the past, but we use it as an opportunity to learn for the future. For ourselves, for our children, and for all those who have struggled in an unfair system. 

And I would like to invite you further into the project, by leaving a recording today, to be witnessed, and possibly used for this project in the future. 

What is the story you carry with you? From immigration, or within your family. Where have you celebrated? What do you want to be remembered for? Where have you found joy in your journey? Or perhaps a pain that you have not been able to share. What do you need to share, in order to move forward? And I invite you to leave your story, just follow the directions below. 

Thank you for listening, contemplating, and being today. And enjoy the rest of your journey. 

“In this light
Of what we know
We can now see the seeds
We sow.”

(music swells then fades)


Main Source Texts

Helen Zia, Asian American Dreams
Catherine Ceniza Choy, Asian American Histories of the United States
Erika Lee, The Making of Asian America: A History

Other referenced texts:
Anne Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
Paula Yoo, From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement

Websites: The History Channel, PBS, CAAAV, Native Land Digital, American Psychological Association, Ascend Leadership Foundation

END \|||// To leave your story, go to www.thesilentunseenproject.com/tell-your-story





(a single bell sounds)
Our final stop on this tour is anywhere you would like it to be where you can quietly contemplate for a moment. You could find one of the blue couches in the lobby or by the Grand Central Parkway entrance desk, a bench outside, or simply stay where you are. While you move to your location, I have some last thoughts on where we are today. 

(music begins, slow synth drone into larger strings, expansive, reflective, singing)

Since George Floyd’s murder in 2021, many are considering anti-racism as a more pressing and serious issue of our times. We, the nation of the United States, are still trying to understand and cope with our identity as a nation of many immigrants in a history of global colonization, and in a world of turmoil. 

While anti-racism is something many people claim to be engaged in, it often comes with little knowledge of the history of systemic racism, meaning the laws and the institutions that have supported it, and then how it actually shows up. 

With the 399% increase in attacks against Asian people during  Covid, “Stop Asian Hate” became the moniker for anti-asian racism. But for some, it felt familiar, like it was just a matter of time before Asians would become the target for displaced hatred again. Like those living during the decline of the auto industry and Vincent Chin’s death, or South Asians living in NJ from the 1970s-90s while a group called the ‘dotbusters’ singled them out, or Muslims after September 11th. In order for Stop Asian Hate to be successful we have to address the prevalent, discreet and underlying discriminations Asians have been facing for a long time.

In many Asian cultures Buddhism and other non-violent perspectives are influential, where silence and listening are considered not only helpful, but part of a way of being; and it's possible to be a quiet leader. In the face of Western culture: dominant with laws, and valuing individualism and who speaks the loudest, our demeanor is mistaken for weakness, or submissiveness, helplessness, or lack of vision or leadership. And while we may have been driven into certain roles through the dominance of Western values, our very way of being, our methodologies, our perspectives are valuable, strong, resilient, and worthy of acknowledgement.

Sometimes the discrimination is difficult to pinpoint, because it’s just so slight, presumptions or unrecognized expectations that we’ll fit into stereotypes, like that we won't speak up, like the surprise and shock when we do. Anti-Asian hate acts and hate speech are still prevalent and need to stop, but what is most common for many Asian-American people, is that others don’t see our stories, our lives, and our accomplishments as, well, enough to be paid attention to.   

There aren’t enough studies and scholarship out there yet for the things we know we’ve been experiencing but can’t always name. For instance, a 2015 study in the Bay Area’s tech industry showed that Asians were the largest group of tech professionals of all races. Yet in that category of professionals the least likely to hold executive positions, with Asian women ranking last of all. 

Similarly, a 2018 study found that Asian women had shared experiences in 6 key areas: being perceived as exotic, submissive, not a leader, invisible, cute and small, or assumed to be a service worker. 

I don’t need a study to tell me what my experiences are, but it’s helpful to know others out there share them; so that we can address them, ask for what we might need, all in order to heal and move on. 

My grandparents met and married in Internment Camp. Far from their former homes, they were from different states and would not have met if they weren’t interned, and I wouldn’t be here today if it hadn’t have happened. So injustice, like for many of us in the United States, is an inherent part of how I came to exist. For me, injustice is a source of inspiration. Looking at the past gives us an opportunity to learn, and it also can help us consider the future, and to ask, what are we going to do about it? 

In the 1970s and 1980s, Japanese Americans who were interned fought for reparations, inspired by the leadership they had witnessed during the Civil Right movement. And 1988, more than 40 years after internment and after a federal investigation that found that the decision to incarcerate Japanese Americans was based on race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership- survivors of the camps were issued $20,000 and an apology from the U.S. government. If it’s possible for the U.S. government to admit to unfair treatment and the stripping of constitutional rights from Japanese Americans, to whom else could this be true? Who else has had to bear the brunt of race prejudice and failure of political leadership? Who else has been forcibly removed from land? 

This tour is just a drop in a sea of Asian American histories and stories. . There are so many cultures, countries, and histories not represented here. I hope this tour has given you a respectful, non-voyeuristic curiosity. To research and learn more. And to ask questions, of yourself and of your own history. And to consider the people, places, and histories you may not have paid attention to, that you may not have seen. 

If you are not Asian, I invite you now to ponder, how have you participated in anti-Asian sentiments, or simply assumed Asian people would act a certain way, or have chosen to speak up first, and louder, and faster because your sense of leadership may not include patience, silence, contemplation, and moving slowly.  Have you questioned a qualified Asian woman on her expertise and experience? Have you dismissed someone because you thought they weren’t loud enough? Or who might you have unknowingly silenced? 

And if you are Asian, I want to remind you that as Asian Americans, we can come together. Even with our diverse backgrounds and conflicting political histories, we can come together in this land we mistakenly call America.

We are taught in many ways that we should only be grateful for what we’ve received in America, to put our heads down and not make a scene. To survive and not complain, even if we know we’re getting less than what we deserve or what we’ve earned. We don’t bring it up, we move on.

As the fastest growing minority in the United States, we can set a precedent for what the future looks like. Not just to assimilate, but a future where all races are respected, where all stories are heard. Where differences and culture are seen as equally valuable. Where we don’t ignore the past, but we use it as an opportunity to learn for the future. For ourselves, for our children, and for all those who have struggled in an unfair system. 

And I would like to invite you further into the project, by leaving a recording today, to be witnessed, and possibly used for this project in the future. 

What is the story you carry with you? From immigration, or within your family. Where have you celebrated? What do you want to be remembered for? Where have you found joy in your journey? Or perhaps a pain that you have not been able to share. What do you need to share, in order to move forward? And I invite you to leave your story, just follow the directions below. 

Thank you for listening, contemplating, and being today. And enjoy the rest of your journey. 

“In this light
Of what we know
We can now see the seeds
We sow.”

(music swells then fades)


Main Source Texts

Helen Zia, Asian American Dreams
Catherine Ceniza Choy, Asian American Histories of the United States
Erika Lee, The Making of Asian America: A History

Other referenced texts:
Anne Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
Paula Yoo, From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement

Websites: The History Channel, PBS, CAAAV, Native Land Digital, American Psychological Association, Ascend Leadership Foundation

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The Silent Unseen Audio Tour: An Embodied Introduction to Asian American History

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