HILD 12 Individual Medium Post #2
Q: What each of the groups of people that we have discussed thus far share, is being treated with suspicion due to their societal treatment as somehow not fully belonging (here, I am talking about the Chinese in Honolulu, Koreans in Befu, and Okinawans on the battlefront). We have also seen how these people fought back at times, and at others, simply tried to carve out other socialities to survive and to live out their own ideas of abundance. We have not yet discussed place-making in terms of the creation of art, of music, of literature, etc. What place do you think that these things, which we might put together as “cultural productions,” has in analyses of the eruption of political struggle? Your observations do not have to be based on research, per se. Think about how art, music, literature, and other cultural productions have shifted your own understanding of belonging, of community, and of the kind of world you want to bring into being, in meaningful ways.
A: Cultural productions, such as art, music, literature, etc. have always played a role in placemaking, especially amidst political struggles. In many of the cases we’ve discussed so far in class, the displacement of people from their traditional lives and means of production as a result of racial capitalism and imperialism has forced placemaking to occur. In these struggles, people often find ways to express their histories and their present situations via cultural production.
One major example of cultural production as a form of placemaking can be seen through the arrival of Hakka Chinese in Jamaica during the 19th century. Post-World War II allowed the required technology to enter Jamaica and in turn led to the birth of reggae. Reggae represents a form of placemaking for the Hakka Chinese who were forced out of their homeland due to capitalism and imperialism, as well as for the native Jamaicans who also lost their original means of abundance due to British colonization. The music produced effectively showed the breakage of original relationships (ties to the homeland, ties to original means of abundance) as well as the formation of new relationships between the colonized groups (Chinese and native Jamaicans). We can also see the same types of cultural production emerge through the other examples discussed in class.
As an Asian American artist (my media is generally music or dance), art plays an important role in my own placemaking. Being Asian American is a weird and often frustrating world filled with gray areas of “not being Asian enough” or “being too different” from the majority group. Through music and dance, I have been able to create a place to explore what being Asian American means to me. In addition, participating in cultural productions of other Asian Americans has given me more insight on how we (Asian Americans) are all trying to create a space in a society that has not accepted us thus far.
Like reggae, these forms of cultural production can almost exist outside of colonialism. To me, art is a very pure form of self expression and placemaking. This allows placemaking to occur adjacent to our capitalist world as well as within the frame of capitalism and settler colonialism.
