Photograph by Robert Scheer
Jacqueline Yuke Lan Ford's 'American Stir Fry' is heaped with ads for Asian women seeking American husbands.
By Danthanh Huynh
Flo Oy Wong's once silent world now explodes with voices of conviction. Her artwork includes electrifying elements of her experiences as a Chinese-American woman facing sexism, cultural conflicts and race relations.
A Sunnyvale resident, Wong is one of the many artists examining the meanings of family in "Families: Rebuilding, Reinventing, Re-creating," currently on exhibit at the Euphrat Museum of Art at De Anza College.
"When I began my career as an artist, I didn't plan to concentrate on family," Wong said. "My art career was Eurocentric. I didn't realize, until I met a Filipino art teacher, that I had permission to use non-Western symbols and metaphors and bring both western and eastern worlds together."
Wong, Johnny Coleman, Sara Leith-Tanous, Jacqueline Yuke Lan Ford and Joe Bastida Rodriquez are some of the artists who share intimate experiences of their lives to capture the meaning of family through their work. Through photographs, paintings and installations, they show that the meaning of family is as diverse and passionate as the people who experience it.
Jan Rindfleisch, curator at the Euphrat Museum, said there's no simple way to view the exhibit. "We see that family is not fixed, but fluid and creative," she added.
Rindfleisch came up with the idea to put the exhibit together in June 1996. At that time, Wong invited 11 women artists to a potluck at her Sunnyvale studio. The participants were asked to bring nurturing items symbolic of their ideas and emotions about family. The result was "Art Family/Dinner Party," an installation that reflects the women's thoughts.
Wong sees food as a physical and spiritual symbol. In collaboration with her husband, she used rice sacks and photographs to illustrate the family-like relationships between her husband and his childhood friends in the South.
"Baby Jack Rice Story" looks at segregation during the 1940s in Georgia, where Chinese were considered honorary Caucasians but couldn't live in Caucasian neighborhoods.
Together, Chinese-Americans and African Americans formed a social and economic connection.
"Something happened that segregation was suppose to prevent--friendship," Wong said. "We both needed each other because we were victims of segregation."
Besides racial segregation, Wong examines cultural conflicts. For Wong, life in a Chinese traditional family is one that was loving and supportive, but challenging and different.
"We [children] represented two different social, political and psychological views," Wong said. "The Western-born children were more expressive, and outgoing and developed our voices. But my China-born sisters were not that way."
Wong brings this experience into her piece titled "My Mother's Baggage: Lucky Daughter." In it she looks at the invisibility of Asian-American daughters and their cultural status. Often there are feelings of guilt shattered by silence.
"In the Asian culture, there's an inability to verbalize," Wong said. "I was not allowed to talk back, and I hungered to ask questions. Now, as an artist, I ask a ton of questions."
However, the questions Wong asks don't have simple answers. They provoke people to come to terms with feelings of belonging and isolation. In a global world that's as close as an Internet connection, how do people establish family and relationships?
Rindfleisch and Wong hope the exhibit will broaden people's perspective of this creative and ongoing process of building family.
"I would like young Asian Americans to come see the exhibit," Wong said. "I want them to see that it's okay to be bicultural. ...We are Americans and deserving of life here.
"America is many colors. We all count, and we all deserve respect. By sharing commonality, we will be less afraid of each other."
"Families: Rebuilding, Reinventing, Re-creating" is on display at the Euphrat Museum of Art, De Anza College, 21250 Stevens Creek Blvd., Cupertino, through Jan. 30. Museum hours: Tue-Thu.,11 a.m-4 p.m.; Wed., 6 p.m-8 p.m.; Sat., 11 a.m.--2 p.m. Open to tour groups by appointment.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, January 22, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.