I have never been an Identity Politics enthusiast, and I have a lot to say about the popular modern Anglo-American notions of race and racial grouping in general.
I left Taiwan at age 19 to escape conformism, yet I arrived in the US to experience something inheritably unfamiliar to me : being labeled and put into a box β a racial box β by others and the society at large. All I wanted was to be seen, perceived, and evaluated as a multifaceted individual who possesses agency and is free to express it, yet that appears to be an impossible condition for me much of the time while in the US.
Being in a relatively privileged position β no need to work in a dangerous condition, living in a safe neighborhood, living with enough means, associated with mostly civilized people β I am in no way in a vulnerable situation of any immediate concern. Do I need to give examples of this? These pretty much sum up the aforementioned experiences I described: belittling, indifference, fetishization. To compare, when a white European woman expresses her sexuality and sexual desire, and dons a healthy amount of self-objectification, it is considered authentic, romantic, cathartic, and even feminist, and there would be an art house film made after it by Lars von Trier.
The expression is suddenly considered unclean, pornographic, and carrying baggage of other ulterior intentions. Again, the fantasy that every Asian woman is completely straight and has a life goal of getting married. That said, I am persisting in my action of expressing myself as a multifaceted individual who not only is charming but also thinks and feels vigorously. I can be kind, but I do disagree with you if I need to; I can be attractive, but what I do might not please you the same way.
I am not an avatar. I have a life. I have desires and dislikes. I am entitled to give consent and dissent at will. To think of composers of concert music working and functioning differently at the whims of the seasons and the weather and time restriction!!! Unlike many of my composer colleagues, I usually preferred summer festivals over long residencies in the summer, and when I started phasing myself out from summer festival participations these couple years, I still preferred active traveling instead of stationary residencies.
