Placemat: Where is Sam Wo? Mixed media collection, 2022

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Artist Statement

Using gouache and gold leaf, this work reimagines the paper placemats once ubiquitous in Chinese American restaurants designed for white diners. In place of zodiac animals: anti-Asian and broader discriminatory legislation spanning 1882 to 2017. In place of personality traits: slurs and hate speech collected through a public social media call, a flood of lived experience and accumulated fury. At the center, the U.S. government's official definition of "Asian."

Resting on the placemat is a Colt "Peacemaker" revolver, flocked in glittery Hello Kitty pink. Five bullets lie nearby, their rounds tipped with hand-painted acrylic nails.

The work reclaims and subverts the Kung Fu and Samurai films I grew up loving—those same films where white saviors vanquished the sinister Chinese restaurant opium den, or humbly received wisdom from the secret-ninja-sushi-master, always accompanied by the sultry Asian femme. These narratives shaped how others saw us, and how we learned to see ourselves. The pink velvet gun is campy, feminine, and unambiguous: this time, we're the hero.

When I immigrated from Japan to rural Washington in 1979, the only culturally proximate food was the Golden Wheel Chinese Buffet—neon sauces, thickly breaded meats, pupu platters. Not Chinese food, not really. But it had soy sauce, so we made do. I remember studying those placemats, which purported to teach white diners about "the Orient." To access anything resembling home, I had to absorb this exoticized reflection of my own culture.

Power—its presence, its absence, its negotiation—structures everything. As an Asian American queer femme immigrant, I move through these dynamics daily. Anti-Asian violence and discrimination have always existed; the current moment makes them harder to ignore. The well-intentioned slogan Stop Anti-Asian Hate still reads to me as rooted in respectability politics—a plea for permission. This work refuses that posture.