"Is this kind of interculturalism a sophisticated disguise for another installment of Orientalism or worse, of cultural rape?" Una Chaudhuri (qtd in Kim 102) re: Western directors appropriating and incorporating Asian and Asian-American non-realistic theatrical devices.
"I am a white girl." Those words are difficult to write to see. The first time I wrote the sentence it looked like this: "I am a middle-class white girl in the United States." The sentence made me uncomfortable and so I stripped it down to the part that seems most alien to me: "white"
My skin is very, very pale--but it's undertones are olive, not pink, suggesting my eastern European, Ukrainian ethnic heritage. Of course, I am only a quarter Ukrainian, the rest is German, Polish, Scandanavian, English, Danish, Irish. When I was a child, my doctors discovered that I had a blood disorder called Thalassemia Minor. They were very confused and ended up testing my entire family. The disorder is mild and requires no treatment, but it is usually found in people of Middle Eastern, Asian, and African decent. My family jokes about the ancestor I have. I grew up with adopted Hawaiian relatives, Fillipino friends, Korean, Japanese, and Kenyan friends. On class heritage day in Fifth grade, I made perogies and pretended to go through Ellis Island as a Slavic ancestor. I speak intermediate Spanish, broken but working French and Italian (I can find a bathroom), and niceties (hello, thank you, please, you're welcome) in Korean and Arabic. I have traveled to many countries. I attended East West Players and the Stanislavski summer school for my actor training. I love theatre and I love how it makes cultural interactions and traditions and changes tangible. My favorite plays are transcultural plays that show the interactions and blendings and liminal spaces where people live that feel part of and not a part of so many things.
I identify with Diana Taylor when she writes: "I overflowed with identifications, white and brown, English- and Spanish-speaking, Anglican and Catholic, us and them. Mine felt like an entangled surplus subjectivity, full of tugs, pressures, and pleasures. I continue to embody these tugs through a series of conflicting practices and tensions" (xv). I'm with Ping Chong when he says "I began to think of the entire world as my culture. I've developed a commitment to the sense that we are all together on this one little planet. It's more and more important for us not to feel so foreign with one another" (qtd Kim 114).
But when I say this, if I tried to run a multicultural play, I am afraid I will be judged by my skin color: "white girl." I am afraid people will believe that I am appropriating with an underlying, unconscious agenda. One that I cannot get away from because I am part of the privileged, dominant hegemony. But I do not identify completely with that title, it is only a part of who I am and far from definitive.
I find hope and and exciting possibilities for work in the chapter on Diversification of Asian American Theatre in Esther Lee Kim's A History of Asian American Theatre (Cambridge; Cambridge UP, 2006.). I am relieved to find that I am not the only one who feels a part of many cultures. I am relieved that others are blending and showing how the different groups interact and inform and relate and become and differentiate and grow one another.
I hope to join their ranks as I continue to produce, direct, act, and work in the art of Theatre.
"I am a white girl." Those words are difficult to write to see. The first time I wrote the sentence it looked like this: "I am a middle-class white girl in the United States." The sentence made me uncomfortable and so I stripped it down to the part that seems most alien to me: "white"
My skin is very, very pale--but it's undertones are olive, not pink, suggesting my eastern European, Ukrainian ethnic heritage. Of course, I am only a quarter Ukrainian, the rest is German, Polish, Scandanavian, English, Danish, Irish. When I was a child, my doctors discovered that I had a blood disorder called Thalassemia Minor. They were very confused and ended up testing my entire family. The disorder is mild and requires no treatment, but it is usually found in people of Middle Eastern, Asian, and African decent. My family jokes about the ancestor I have. I grew up with adopted Hawaiian relatives, Fillipino friends, Korean, Japanese, and Kenyan friends. On class heritage day in Fifth grade, I made perogies and pretended to go through Ellis Island as a Slavic ancestor. I speak intermediate Spanish, broken but working French and Italian (I can find a bathroom), and niceties (hello, thank you, please, you're welcome) in Korean and Arabic. I have traveled to many countries. I attended East West Players and the Stanislavski summer school for my actor training. I love theatre and I love how it makes cultural interactions and traditions and changes tangible. My favorite plays are transcultural plays that show the interactions and blendings and liminal spaces where people live that feel part of and not a part of so many things.
I identify with Diana Taylor when she writes: "I overflowed with identifications, white and brown, English- and Spanish-speaking, Anglican and Catholic, us and them. Mine felt like an entangled surplus subjectivity, full of tugs, pressures, and pleasures. I continue to embody these tugs through a series of conflicting practices and tensions" (xv). I'm with Ping Chong when he says "I began to think of the entire world as my culture. I've developed a commitment to the sense that we are all together on this one little planet. It's more and more important for us not to feel so foreign with one another" (qtd Kim 114).
But when I say this, if I tried to run a multicultural play, I am afraid I will be judged by my skin color: "white girl." I am afraid people will believe that I am appropriating with an underlying, unconscious agenda. One that I cannot get away from because I am part of the privileged, dominant hegemony. But I do not identify completely with that title, it is only a part of who I am and far from definitive.
I find hope and and exciting possibilities for work in the chapter on Diversification of Asian American Theatre in Esther Lee Kim's A History of Asian American Theatre (Cambridge; Cambridge UP, 2006.). I am relieved to find that I am not the only one who feels a part of many cultures. I am relieved that others are blending and showing how the different groups interact and inform and relate and become and differentiate and grow one another.
I hope to join their ranks as I continue to produce, direct, act, and work in the art of Theatre.
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