Tributaries: Volume Four by UBC Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies

1 TRIBUTARIES VOLUME FOUR

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We are mindful that the Tributaries publication takes place on the unced ed and ancestral lands of the xwməθk wəýəm (Musqueam), skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and seĺíĺwitulh (Tsleil-Wau tuth) peoples. Therefore, our editorial team would like to acknowledge that the critical, theoretical frameworks of Indigenous and POC thinkers are foundational to the work of Tributar ies. More broadly, the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies (ACAM) program recognizes that much of our work on migrations, communities, and relationship-building is possible be cause of our presence on this land. In doing so, we remain critical of both UBC and settler complicity in the con tinued displacement of Indigenous Peoples.

3 VOLUME FOUR UBC Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program 2022

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VOLUME FOUR

When the Tributaries team and I first gathered to discuss the theme for this issue of the jour nal back in January 2022, a few ideas kept circulating, namely intergenerational experiences in the Asian diaspora; anti-Asian racism especially over the past few years of the pandemic; con ceiving and evolving identities within Eurocentric societies; and creating communities and heal ing within them.

But how could we separate any of these things from each other? How could we talk about intergenerational experiences without talking about anti-Asian racism or growing up in places that actively attempted to sepa rate us from our heritages? How could we talk about healing and shaping our evolving identities without talking about the trauma that led us to require healing in the first place? I realized quickly that I didn’t want to separate these issues but wanted to find a theme that could unite them. It was Olivia, one of the co-ed itors-in-chief from a previous issue of Tributaries and whose advice I sought incessantly, that suggested the theme of Thevirtuality.fourth edition of Tributaries asks how virtuality influences, continues, transforms, and cre ates conceptions of Asian and Asian Canadian diasporic iden tities and communities. Within these pages, you will find stories of connection and disconnection across the Asian diaspora, of how we encounter mirror versions of ourselves on the Internet, of how

Kailey Tam 譚慧義 CONTENTSOFTABLE

we mediate and craft our iden tities, and how our identities are mediated and crafted in return. You’ll feel the aching loneliness that accompanies the rise of the Internet age, the hope that results from a broadened virtual horizon, the exhaustion of per petually encountering spaces that were not built for us, and the determination to craft these safe spaces for our selves in our entireties anyway.

Many of you will be encountering this journal in a virtual format— how fortunate that this virtual space has connected us. Read slow and read steady, and you may find yourself reflected in the vulnerability and art and words of our writers, artists, and poets.

Letter from the Editor-in-Chief

I must thank each editor–An, Olivia, Emily, Gurnoor, Naomi, amanda–for their hard work on this journal, for being patient with me as I sent spread designs back and forth with one comma added or a line slightly moved over. Thank you to the contrib utors for entrusting us with your art, your words, and your time–you all are the heart of this journal. Thank you to every one whose advice I solicited, for keeping me sane throughout the design process. Thank you to the amazing team at ACAM, especially our program manager Szu Shen, whose leadership keeps us afloat. And thank you to the Chan Fam ily Foundation, whose generous support makes this journal possible.

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01 VOLUME FOUR 23andnotme Jessamine Kara Liu 02 下一世見 (See You In Our Next Life) Emily Law 06 Inside Jenica Pong and Michelle Fong 14 How to be sansei Vanessa Matsubara 22 ਗੁਰਦਿਆਲ ਿਸੰਘ (Gurdial Singh) Gurnoor Powar 10 an oriental girl / like me Vanessa Matsubara 24 The Performance of the Digital Self through Social Media Productions Victoria Sin 46 Calling Home Fyonna Laddaran 40 BANGKOK James Albers and Alger Liang 56 ACAM ForumDialogues 68 List Contributorsof 74 List of Editors 76 Navigating Gold Mountain with Subtle Asian Networking Jennifer Szutu 26

Illustration by Jessamine Kara Liu

Jessamine writes about disconnection and navigating "incomplete" identities.In a world where technology is utilized for several purposes including finding lost connec tions,she writes about the difficulties of being a person of colour accessing systems not built for her cultures or histories.Through poetry,Jessamine hopes to learn more about herself,connect with others,and create space for judgment-free questioning and self-loving.

Jessamine Kara Liu (柳垂萱)

03 VOLUME FOUR 03 03 23andnotme

running algorithms that list “Mary Chinese” and “Unknown Chinese” as people

I wish I could say that I found my history in the subtext of Google searches, that my great-grandmother was hidden on page 34 and if I hadn’t clicked Next i never would’ve learned of her life

I wish I could say that I traced my roots in ancestry.com found second cousins still living from where we came, became Facebook friends and committed to being travel guides for when we visit post-pandemic

but how do you access a database that does not know the difference between 柳 and 劉

but even in our diaspora, our histories never migrated to the immortality of the internet

report records that Chinese ancestors were 100%

Illustration by Jessamine Kara Liu

laundrymanyoudon’t

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i wouldn’t even know where to begin when my book of ancestry on my father’s side deems women unnecessary to document when the family tree on my mother’s is inaccessible when i’ve never met three-fourths of my grandparents when the story of dis

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i do not find belonging in 23 chromosomes, but

i wish and i search and i wish and i wish i wait

connection is rooted in my family history languagefromleveleveryat to s.p.i.t.e.

until i wish turns into i will, turns into we will and into we know, into we have—

i build my home in this wish and pour gold into the bones of bro ken family trees, chisel my way into the bedrock of living memory, and find survival in loss

06 TRIBUTARIES 下一世見 See You In Our Next Life Emily Law (羅穎賢) #

• • •

07 VOLUME FOUR 07 07

兒子,do you like this coat?

April 9,2011

I scroll through her Facebook profile, desperate to find some thing I can’t put into words. I ignore the messages of condo lences that I had seen numerous times before, enough to perhaps even recite, but there’s still this curiosity within that I desper ately want to satisfy. There she is, my aunt smiling happily in her profile picture.

1 like. I hover over to see who it was.Aname I do not recognize.

The cycle would repeat with each new package. In that moment, captivated by the plethora of new clothes, I wanted to know everything about her. But as the excitement died down and the clothes were eventually put away, so too was the desire to know her. I would tuck her away in the back of my mind, a faint yet lingering presence in my life. When the packages suddenly stopped coming, I didn’t notice until one day, the phone rang.

I remember when her packages would appear on my kitchen counter. Clothes of various styles and for various seasons would arrive once every couple of months. It was like Christmas morning each time; the excite ment would be overwhelming, and I would scramble to open and try everything on.

媽咪，我很掛住你。生日快樂。

There is nothing there but text. No picture, no emoji, just raw words of mourning.

January 16,2011

was. He told me that she was my relative living in New York, and I asked why she would send such a generous package unannounced.

“喂?” I said, picking up the phone. There was silence, one that I could identify as hesitation in the caller’s voice, as if they were trying to figure out who I was, or perhaps ask how I was. An oppor tunity to establish a relationship with me, but ultimately deciding against it.

0 likes. 0 comments.

“爹哋 , who sent this?” I asked, surrounded by a heaping pile of clothes on the floor. It was a routine every time: my father would tell me it was from my 阿姨 and I would ask him who that

Her last post is to her son: a link to a jacket from Abercrombie that was on sale. I continue scrolling through more posts like these— clothes she thought her family members would like.

“Is 姨丈 there?” said a deep voice I didn’t recognize.

I nodded with hesitation, recog nizing that now wasn’t the time to admit to my forgetfulness.

He knelt down in front of me and placed his hand on my shoulder. He offered me a pained smile while I continued to stare at him “Sometimes,”confused. he began, “people are really sad. And sometimes, when that sadness gets so over whelming, they decide it’s time to go. It’s confusing now, but one day you’ll understand why 阿姨 Sheleft.”never left my mind after that. My father’s explanation didn’t satisfy the curiosity I now had about her and her life and for the years that followed, I tried to learn more. But my mother was gone and none of my paternal relatives knew any more than my father did. It was all they knew, and for many years afterwards, that was all I knew.

“阿姨

? Who was that? Are you “Itokay?”was your cousin. 阿姨 passed away.”

“Was 阿姨 sick?”

“She’s your mother’s younger sister.” I felt my stomach drop at the mention of my mother. “I met her when I was still in Hong Kong, when I first got married to your mother. But then she moved to New York to start a family.”

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Taking that as my cue to leave, I went back into the living room to play, but I couldn’t concentrate on my toys. All I could think about was the man on the other side of the phone and what he had said to my father to make him so sad.

“Like you and mom did? When you moved to Vancouver.”

Without responding, I ran into the kitchen and handed the phone to my father. When he mouthed asking me who it was, I shrugged in reply. He cautiously took the phone, and the skepticism in his eyes was replaced by surprise, then shock, and then a sadness that I had never seen before. He sat himself down at the dining table, rubbed his eyes, and let out a heavy sigh.

“She’s?”the nice lady who kept sending you packages from New York. You remember, right? The big packages with lots and lots of clothes?”

“爹哋

When the phone hit the receiver, I ran back inside.

“No,“ my father replied with hes itancy.

“Yes, exactly like that. You have two older cousins that live there. One of them even has children of their own.”

It wasn’t until years later when I found her name in my father’s friends list on Facebook, that my

“Then what happened to her? Why did she pass away?”

April

• • • December 8,2010 他們現在長大了。聖誕節快樂！ 5 likes. 3 comments. She stands with

The more I scroll through, the more I stop trying to figure out the timeline of her life and the events that took place before she passed. Perhaps the sequence of her life isn’t what’s important, rather how she lived it.

in front

15 comments.

媽咪，生日快樂！祝您身體健康！ 25 likes. 14 comments.

curiosity was reignited. When ever I thought of her, I would scroll through her page. The more I scrolled, the more I found myself immersed in her life. Var ious posts that I read blended together and blurred into a time line of moments in her life. her grand children of an array of Christmas decorations. the middle of New York, so lively and festive, you can see the joy radi ating from their smiles. caption.An album full of pic cousin’s likes.

媽咪，我很掛住你。生日快樂。 Mom, I miss you so much. Happy birthday. 他們現在長大了。聖誕節快樂！ They are all grown up now. Merry Christmas! 媽咪，生日快樂！祝您身體健康！ Mom, happy birthday! Wishing you good health!

tures of my

I look over at the sweater sitting on my bed and smile. It’s the last piece of clothing she had sent me, hoping that I would grow into it. Picking it up, I run my fingers over the note attached to the tag: Happy birthday.I hope you like it.

Each time I go back to her Face book profile, I’m met with the same words of mourning and am reminded that she is no longer here. But the further I scroll, the more I am reminded of the little joys she carried and how car ing and loving of a person she was. Perhaps that’s how I should remember her instead.••• 9,2005

The entire day is captured in the album, from the preparation to the ceremony to the reception. She appears to be so happy in each picture. The wedding looks so lively with everyone being engaged with one another in conversation and celebration.

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• • • November 22,2008 No

wedding. 20

阿姨 was so invested in her fam ily’s life. When her grandchildren were born, she put in so much time and care into making sure that they were taken care of, and that her daughter was recovering well. When she posted about her hobbies, she invited her friends to join her: offering to teach them how to crochet, organizing walks around Central Park, getting together with friends and family for dim sum every weekend…

10 TRIBUTARIES The above photo of Gurdial Singh, scanned personally by the author, is the same photo on display in the Reach Gallery Museum. The description below is taken from the Reach Gallery Museum’s website. Catalog Number P11888 Description Head and shoulders portrait of Gurdial Singh Powar. Photo appears to have been taken in Jullinder, Punjab, but on a post-migration visit. Date 1965 Object Name Negative Source Powar, Gurdial Powar, G. (1965). GurdialSingh Powar [Photograph]. The Reach Gallery Museum, Abbotsford, BC. to/06BF7DFD-506C-4F28-BA3A-385263832970https://thereach.pastperfectonline.com/Pho The district of Jalandhar in the above description taken from the Reach Gallery Museum is misspelled as “Jullinder.”

Gurdial Singh

“GurdialSingh” is a poem about the ways virtuality has the power to blur,weaken,or change rela tionships as they exist in our minds.The face of someone you know can become a stranger in the online world.The close rela tionship you used to have with another can be obscured even in a hyper-connected world.While a chance encounter with an online photo of my grandfather and his misspelled name was the inspi ration for this work,he isn’t the focus of this poem.Rather,it’s who

Gurnoor Powar

11 VOLUME FOUR 11 11 ਗੁਰਦਿਆਲ ਿਸੰਘ

he becomes to the speaker and who he becomes as a digital idea that is central to the poem.As the poem plays out,I hope readers will attend to the folly in the speaker, the grasp their screen has on their psyche,and the effects of this interplay between the digital world and reality—namely,accurate and inaccurate depictions of the real world from the digital.Adding my grandfather’s name as the title of this poem is my way of restoring the name that his virtual represen tation online took from him.

inching closer to the bright white light looking at him my eyes dilate until they’re black

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Today 2:18 a.m.

a green dot reminds me I’m alive eager and pliant in a recommendingthatnetworkkeeps me friends Isoofimagesmyselfhappycan’tdelete them.

my dadaji without a name the picture of his face the same one above my desk that looks over me his birthplace is misspelled. he lacks the smile I always loved but his eyes take me home and his presence reminds me of love

we’re floating faces among thousands of others labeled Indian and Canadian our faces tattooed into the seams of the web we take up such a minuscule space

I google my family name there he is

13 VOLUME FOUR 13 13 the longer I stare the more I realize I don’t know who he was DID HE LOVE ME? I scream at the screen DID HE LOVE ME? Today 3:01 a.m. ANSWER MY QUESTION! I glaringbeg at my screen Iplease…can’tlet him become a stranger in my mind I claw I atyellthe quiet screen and under my hands his face breaks the glass it separates into fine grains thetheIcryingwithcoagulatingmybloodpickatwoundglassembedded forever in my continuingskin to stare where the glass once laid a black screen, theempty.picture gone forever Delivered

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Scan this QR code for the song “peas” by boylife!

all the time,scrolling,feeling like the world was moving on without

During the pandemic lockdown, the majority of people were accessible online all the time, but for us,virtual communica tion often took away a personal aspect that allowed for mean ingful conversations and the full expression of emotions.It was isolating to be at home,online Jenica Pong and Michelle Fong

Inyou.our particular households,it is a norm to express feelings through actions rather than words.The piece was heavily inspired by the song “peas” by Korean artist boylife,drawing on themes of a mother’s love shown through cut fruit,freedom found outside,and thoughts left unex pressed.Although the pandemic has placed many limitations in our lives,it has also forced us to be creative and explore alter native means of communica tion in efforts to adapt to these changes.We hope to depict the duality of virtuality as both a place for discovery as we adapt the ways we communicate,yet still a restriction to the human experience.

Despite the virtual means of communication during COVID-19, the lack of in-person interactions with friends took away our main outlet for vocalizing emotions.

This work depicts the two cre ators’ struggle with heightened tension in an Asian household brought on by the socially isolat ing COVID-19 pandemic.“Inside“ was collaboratively conceptu alized by director and videogra pher Jenica Pong and features the choreography and improvisa tion of dancer Michelle Fong.

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J: And we found out—sorry, Michelle, tell the story. It’s too good.

K: How did you meet each other?

M: We were on the same floor for our first-year residence. We were actually next-door neighbours.

I heard the song. And then I called Michelle. And it was very close to the dead line. Like I’m not gonna lie. I was like, ‘I want to make something,’ but I had no idea what I was gonna do. I called Michelle, ‘We have to make something right now because it’s due basically tomorrow.’ And I think the ini tial motif we were feeling was cut fruit because of the song and [because of] how love is expressed through actions, rather than verbally, especially in Asian families.

Michelle: Hi, I’m Michelle. I go by she/her. I also grew up in Van couver and was born here as well. And for dance, I have also danced competitively for like thirteen years up until the end of high school. I’ve also continued it through clubs in uni. I don’t have a background making projects with dance really, but I’m kind of getting into it and hoping to continue with that.

Kailey: Could you introduce your selves and your pronouns?

J: This is a great story.

K:situation.That’sso

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around them. I feel like everyone kind of felt that—it was just very odd. This odd sense of isolation.

J: I have a really big extended family here in Burnaby and Van couver. Not seeing them was a massive thing. It was really hard for my family because [we’re all about] intergenerational fami lies—like me, my grandparents, all my cousins, there’s so many of us. We didn’t get to see our grandparents, which never hap pened. I’ve never gone a week without seeing my grandparents. So, I think that was something that definitely hit my family and probably a lot of other Asian families very hard during the K:pandemic.Andhow did these themes manifest as you created the film

M: We specifically met in the washroom. [We] introduced ourselves. And we realized we were living the same lives—both from Burnaby, both danced, both went to schools very close to each other.

J: Like our families—like it’s just, it’s crazy. It’s too much. Same

I think we had different pan demic experiences. But the similar thing was that dance stopped. And it stopped when we were at our busiest. Grade 11 for the both of us was crazy— we were doing so many things, competing, all that kind of stuff. And then it stopped, and we were doing nothing. We were in our basements, dancing in these tiny little rooms. Michelle has an ellip tical in her dance room. So, she was hitting it like every time. It was just such a tight space, very constricting.

Selections from an Interview of Jenica Pong and Michelle Fong, conducted by Kailey Tam

J:communities?

cute. In your artist statement, you mentioned that this piece was in some ways a response to the social isolation of the pandemic. Can you talk about your own experiences and how you saw the pandemic affecting and impacting Asian

J:itself?Sobasically,

Jenica: My name is Jenica, I use she/her pronouns. I’m currently in Vancouver, on Musqueam, Squa mish, and Tsleil-Waututh lands. I grew up here, I’ve been here my whole life.Let’s see. I grew up danc ing competitively my whole life, and I kind of fell in and out of love with dance. It became a complicated relationship. I love it now. I started doing separate personal projects at school with my friends. And that’s how I’ve landed here.

M: It was just very odd, because we’re usually in the studio almost everyday. But now we were just in our basements on Zoom in tight spots, wherever we could find in our house that we could just try. Also, the social isola tion of not being around people everyday, just at school or dance or wherever. Even if you’re not talking to [people], just being

M: Any time. But yeah, Jenica literally called me up one day and was like, ‘This song, you have to listen to it.’ And I did. And then we were just randomly trying to brainstorm thoughts of what we could do.Right after that, we tried to organize—it was very fast. We tried to pull this together in a week or two. But once she

They come [to] pick you up right on time, they drive you to all your things, they get you to school on time, they pack lunch es—it’s very action based. We were talking about how you don’t really express how you feel out wardly to people in your family. And that is very challenging.

It was very isolating during the pandemic because we were not able to see the people we usually talk to and gossip with. And I think that was like the main idea when we came in to make this. Michelle, do you have anything that I missed?

So that was how it felt physically when we were filming it.

J: Yeah, there’s videos of elbows.

M: I think you said that perfectly.

K: Right, and that plays into that sense of suffocation and that sense of confined space. The scenes in your living room and the hallway especially—it always felt really confined. Like the camera was so tight on you. How does the sense of space play into the way you filmed inside versus

showed me the song, I was like, ‘Yeah this is a great idea.’

J: Thanks, friend.

I was definitely trying to feel like I was isolated in a room. Also, we were doing this in my bedroom, in my living room. There’s a lot of hazards that I was trying to avoid. It was definitely a restricted space I was trying to do it in versus the outside, where I could just be more free.

M: I hit Jenica a few times too.

I kept telling [Michelle] to have bigger, open movement when we were outside. But we were also trying to repeat the movement that was done inside on the out side as well to show a contrast between how it was done.

The song is so true to both of us. We both can relate so strongly to the song and the lyrics—it was just very easy to come up with this.

M: When we were filming it, we decided pretty early on that there was going to be a con trast between scenes that were indoors and scenes that were outdoors. The indoor ones repre sent the isolation, and we tried to express that through the dance—like having more awkward movement during [the indoor scenes]. And that was the prompt that I was dancing to.

[J brings hands right to her face]

J:outside?

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K: How do you see your song and your dance connect to the social isolation part of the pandemic?

J: Michelle is also really tall. I have to put that out there. We’re in her bedroom, and we both don’t fit. So, from my end, our arms were really close to the camera.

J: I mentioned earlier not seeing my family during the pandemic, or your friends are always acces sible on Zoom during that time in 2020, but it felt like such a dis connect.It’s like, you’re on Zoom, you’re speaking to people, but it doesn’t really feel like you’re having any sort of conversa tions with people because it’s not physical, you’re not like with them. And so, maybe you’ve got to express your emotions through Zoom. But it’s weird. It’s like speaking to yourself, rather than having a conversation with another person.

experience when you’re raised, and then you grow up to be someone who doesn’t normally [share verbally], you don’t really feel comfortable doing that any more when you’re older.

M: It was really, really fun because there was definitely a lot of freedom but also a good amount of direction for just what energy was trying to be por

K: There’s this one particular shot where you see the whole park and Michelle is this tiny figure dancing in the middle. And there’s still this big sense of iso lation even outside. Can you talk about that choice?

M: I think we decided—for the inside—to keep the camera on a tripod, because that also gives more of an artificial awkward feeling to it versus outside. Sometimes Jenica took shots where she was literally running around me and doing circles her self, just to get that movement in the camera and to give out that energy of freedom.

K: Michelle, what was it like to be directed by Jenica?

M: That’s the whole theme in the song—like cutting up fruit as like a mother’s love to their child versus verbal communication and talking about emotions, or whatever. When you have that

J: Yes that’s the vibe.

[M and J laugh]

K: It’s kind of like you feel this almost overwhelming sense of isolation even on the outside, because you’re so used to not verbally expressing how you feel on the inside. And that carries through. Is that the vibe?

M: For me, I’m just thinking of dance. I’ve danced with other people for so long, I’ve known people for such a long time, and you are in such an intimate set ting at dance when you’re just expressing raw emotion through movement.Sothat versus having to do it on Zoom was just such a big gap. Because, as Jenica was say ing, it’s kind of like speaking to yourself. It’s just very, very odd.

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J: For sure. [Michelle and I are] not the most open people to begin with. And there’s like a difference between us and a lot of our friends who I feel like are very, very open about their emotions. I think that comes through the way you’re raised. It’s just difficult sometimes to be vulnerable if you aren’t taught it or learn how to do it when you’re at home.

When you have that experience when you’re raised, and then you grow up to be someone who doesn’t normally [share verbally], you don’t really feel comfortable doing that anymore when you’re older.

K: So how do you see “Inside” relating to and resonating with this volume’s theme of virtuality?

trayed. Honestly, I think we had a lot of fun. We were like, running outside. It was raining that day too, I think.Butof course, Vancouver weather—it rains for 10 minutes, and then it’s fine. So we’re driving around to random parks and just like doing whatever. And it was just very fun because I haven’t done improv in a while. It was just very freeing, and it was nice to have that freedom to do what I wanted while still portraying Jen ica’s vision of the video.

J: Within the song, there’s men tion of peaches. Even in the artist’s description, he was like, ‘This is what it’s about. It’s a

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M: I also feel like it’s very nice being directed by someone who has also danced, because it’s clear that Jenica understands.

K: I want to ask about that last scene. Because it’s the last thing a viewer comes off with. It’s where Michelle is kind of in a fetal position and there’s peaches or something in a bowl.

J: Going through the entire day, it was just so fun. Michelle is a fluid line, start to end. She knows where she’s going with the move ment. And I think as a dancer filming, being able to see that and start to understand where she starts and ends and where she picks her places to hit—it was just very exciting. So very fun.

mother cutting fruit for you. That’s how she shows her love.’

M: That’s how our families show love and appreciation. It’s more through actions than socializing. And this is a tangent, but imme diately when I heard the song, [I] understood what it was about.

So, we totally appreciate everything that’s been done for us and how love is shown. But there’s also like this whole other side, which is the internal/exter nal isolation.

J: Incredible. Amazing. No, it was super awesome. I think we start ed at like 7am. And we finished around 4pm. It was one day of filming, right?

M: Yeah, we started really early because we wanted to do it all in one take.

K: And Jenica, what was it like to direct Michelle?

And I sort of wanted it to end in kind of an uplifting way, like an appreciation. Like we’ve gone through this journey of this video of us explaining how isolat ing it is to be inside. But it’s also about who we are as people—this is who has raised us, this is what we’ve grown up with. And there’s an appreciation for it. It’s just from a different perspective.

Or at night after dinner, there’s just a bowl of fruit. But no one’s there. That’s just how the dynamic is in our family.

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K: What were some of your favourite sequences or moments from the film?

But you forget who it is sometimes. When you don’t see your family for some time, you forget. All this stuff is going on and they’re still doing stuff for you.

Because that’s how you explore and learn your ranges. So trying to hit stuff, which I don’t usually do—that was fun for me because that’s something new and a little bit scary. But also just going for it, you know?There are so many bloop ers of me hitting furniture or me hitting the camera out of Jenica’s hands. It was so funny.

J: It was so good. One of my favourite moments was when I ran around Michelle, and she pushes with her foot, and that’s the sequence. She moves around, and then I move. It was raining, so the rain was kind of on my camera, and it looked very dis oriented. That was one of my favourite parts. I just thought it looked cool.

K: Was there a reason behind Michelle being asleep in that shot and the disembodied bowl of peaches? There’s no one and no hand. There’s no showing who brought that. It’s just there. Is there a reason behind that?

M: For me, I would say I enjoy being outside. I feel like outside is closer to my natural improv movement. Being inside was defi nitely challenging my movement and what I like to do. But I also love doing that. Through improv, I always try to change up my movement, to challenge myself and do what feels unnatural.

J: I think I have had experiences, and I think Michelle relates to this, but sometimes there’s fruit in the fridge. They’ll mention it, like ‘Oh, I cut fruit in the fridge. I left fruit in the fridge for you.’

M: That was also one of my favourite parts because when we were doing that, Jenica was also moving a lot and trying to get these cool camera movements. And so, even though I’m the subject of it and you’re seeing my creative expression, it’s also a lot—a lot—of Jenica experiment ing herself and trying to make it artsy.

When you don’t see your family for some time, you forget. All this stuff is going on and they’re still doing stuff for you.

M: I feel like it’s just, again, that connection that me and Jenica have—it’s like this shared expe rience, even though we’re not related, and we have just met like a year ago. We kind of connect so strongly to that point. And we both feel that isolating factor that we’ve kind of grown up with.

It’s not seen as an action of love. Even though it is love. It doesn’t register. But actions are serv ing other people and they’re a connection I have to my family.

M: I think we were both imagining the same thing [for the film]. Like it would just be me and then the bowl of peaches. Again, shared experiences. That is literally what happens.Like you wake up and there’s a bowl of fruit on the table because your parents have gone to work or something.

My parents—they’re love ly—they’ll bring fruit for me when I’m studying. That’s a very com mon thing when I’m home. There’s a lot of cut fruit.

J: It’s not seen as an action of love. Even though it is love. It doesn’t register. But actions are serving other people and they’re a connection I have to my family.

Like too many people feel that way, and then, ‘Is it not unique? Is it stereotypical that people are showing love through action in Asian families rather than verbally?’

K: What do you want to leave the viewers with?

J: I was just gonna say that. Something that I was fighting with when I first heard this song was, ‘Is this too relatable?’

But then you realize that it’s meaningful to a lot of people, to me and Michelle for example. It is relatable and so it is something that you want to share. •

M: I feel like it’s just showing the shared experiences. Letting others know that this is relatable. There are other people that feel what you feel. And even if you feel like you’re going through it individually, we all can relate.

21 VOLUME FOUR 21 21

Make sure you’re actually sansei.

Don’t speak your mother tongue—

Take it from me and save yourself the embarrassment of being corrected by a stran ger. Even if they’re misinformed, the shame will linger over your head like a misty cloud of miso. I’m sansei one way, yonsei another, and 2nd generation Canadian on my mom’s side. But I call myself sansei because it’s more of a lifestyle than an iden tity. Others won’t understand and will probably give you a hard time about all of it. So, best advice is just to unseason your story until it’s plain enough for them to swallow.

or in this case, your father’s mother tongue. This is an integral part of being sansei. There are stages of wanting to learn, trying to learn, and then rejecting the language altogether. Make sure you go through all of these by the time you’re 16. Although, I have found that it’s embarrassing not to know any Japanese when you’re at a sushi restaurant, so maybe memorize your order ahead of time. When in doubt, order a cali fornia roll or potstickers. And even though I don’t watch anime, I have absorbed some of my language through movies such as Ghost in a Shell and the classic Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Vanessa Matsubara

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How to be sansei

Sansei

: 3rd generation Japanese living in another country Yonsei: 4th generation Japanese living in another country

References

Pretend you’re not Japanese, at least in your formative years.

Use terms such as moved and relocated when speaking about our history. We wouldn’t want Canadians to “remember” a time when they didn’t like us! Learn what you can from broad Google searches and the tiny blurb in history textbooks. We usu ally get an eighth of a page during the WWII section. The rest of the chapter is Canada stroking their own ego for being such great allies and peacekeepers of the world. Don’t worry, there won’t be a question about internment on your quiz; those fun facts are just for you.

View internment as a word from the past and not a crime that continues to disturb generations of your family.

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Levins Morales, A. (1981). “...And Even Fidel Can’t Change That!” In This Bridge CalledMyBack (p. 52). Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.

Author’s Note

Asian people are lame, not very pretty, and are never the final love interest. So try hoops and dark lipstick, braid your hair every night and dye it red. Levi jeans, lash extensions, cowboy boots, eat noodles and butter instead of rice and nori. If you want brownie points from your white friends, pick on other kids who you deem “too Asian.” Just remember, that if there’s a disconnect behind your eyes, they look a tiny bit rounder.

I use sansei to identify myself as third generation Japanese-Canadian.

Over time, the title has adopted more colloquial definitions. Sansei means not foreign enough to be a fetish, but doesn’t mean people won’t try. It means the fighters. After internment, they were the ones on the frontlines, pushing for redress. Being sansei is something I want to have pride in, no matter how bad I am at it. Writer Aurora Levins Morales says it takes three generations to change and “in the third generation the daughters are free.” I don’t know if that means I’m the one who’s free or the one who starts the fight. I don’t know which I want to be either.

So I buried myself in the prairie snow / hoping the illuminating glow / would penetrate past my skinto my surname / phonetic in frame / but still they manage to butcher it every goddamn time.

I felt out of place in the crowd / of honey-haired / green stares / and the last name Smith.

an oriental girl / like me

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What remains / I’ll gobble down in shame / because is there any other way?

So they call me a bitch / and I’ll never get hitched because it’s impossible to love an oriental girl like me.

I’m not Mitski enough for you because I’m a different brand / but still a yellow hand at my grandma’s chin / hoping to catch some foreign wisdom.

A way of making you stronger / not the fear-monger / I now know it to be.

They were an accepted exotic / oh, so hypnotic / not the rowdy neurotic / I was raised to be.

I’ve tried erasing history / pretended to be another ethnicity / but it always seems to end the same.

I worry whatever I birth / will come from the earth / already doubting herself. Never have I been proud / even still I speak too loud.

I grew up believing that hatred / was sacred.

I watch the fog / and wonder how long / it would take for you to love an oriental girl like me.

Because even they knew our language / and spoke with proper cadence.

I’ve never been complete / there always felt like a leak / in my confidence. The rug pulled from under my feet.

Words from Vanessa Matsubara

Being Japanese came with pain, confusion and a target on your back. It wasn’t what all the white kids thought it was. I have dis appointed every weeaboo I’ve met, and after a while I started to relish it. I wanted to shun them,

to make them feel how I did, to look them in the face and say, “If you want the culture so badly, I’m gonna make sure you get the ostracization too.” In seventh grade, a kid told me he’d kill him self if he was Asian. I remember it made my insides curl into them selves. I couldn’t stand the stares of my peers as they waited in anticipation to see how I’d react. The shame I had only felt abstractly until then was finally put into words.

to discover. I used to feel sad when this happened—now, it makes me eager.

During WWII, my family was taken from their home in Steveston, BC and moved to a sugar beet farm in Homewood, Manitoba. My grandfather, who was 14 when he was displaced, never lived in his hometown again. I learned all of this throughout my childhood in bits and pieces, usually after much prying. Internment was a touchy subject in our family, just like microaggressions and forget ting to make rice when you got home; but the voice in the back of my mind never stopped tell ing me that I wasn’t really Japa nese. And honestly, it kind of had a point. Japanese culture was never encouraged in my family, partly because it wasn’t ours anymore, and partly because being Japanese had never made my father’s life easier.

Over the years, I’ve tried to learn about the past with a clean slate. I tried to feel what my relatives were telling me instead of only hearing them. I started to ask myself what it meant to be Jap anese and if there were multiple ways. I began to accept that I might never fully know how I should carry myself, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try and learn. Now, every couple months I have a new revelation regarding the intricacies of my racial iden tity. Each time I think I’ve cracked the code, I find that there’s more

I spent a good portion of my life being embarrassed of my com munity, upset that they didn’t fight harder. That they weren’t louder, angrier, sometimes even happier. I was angry that we weren’t demanding better for ourselves. Now I realize that my family had done the best they could. Sometimes surviving is all you can do. I try not to blame my family for not fighting because they did. But that doesn’t mean the battle’s over.

Since being a part of the Jap anese Canadian community in Vancouver, I’ve met other nikkei who work to heal themselves and those around them. I’m in awe of their compassion and I hope to learn more from them. Some thing I love about our community is that we aren’t static. We are people who are constantly grow ing and learning and loving, and that’s reflected in our culture. •

25 VOLUME FOUR 25 25

Exploring Asian diasporic workers’ use of online ethnic networks

Navigating Gold Mountain with Subtle NetworkingAsian

as well as details regarding the literature review,findings and implications were omit ted from this edition.

This research paper is an excerpt of a longer paper,originally written in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the UBC Commerce Scholars Program.For the purposes of publi cation,this research paper has been altered from its original version to highlight reso nances withTributaries’ theme of virtuality. As such,several parts of the research paper, such as the abstract,methodology,code book,theoretical model,and ethics process,

Jennifer Szutu

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The original paper explored two Facebook groups,RYSE–ProfessionalAsian Network ingandSubtleAsianTraits(SAT).Forbrevity, findingsregardingRYSEunderitscorre sponding themes,Exchanging Information and NetworkSharing,were removed.

• • •

of globalization, changes in legis lative policy, immigrant mobility, and the rise of social media, the ways Asians rely on their ethnic networks have changed. Thus, this paper explores how Asian American workers, in the modern context, use their ethnic net works to navigate present-day Gold Mountain in response to the barriers they face.

Literature Review

The majority of the first Asian labourers to North America were the Chinese, who were attracted to the promise of making a for tune in the gold rush and later in the construction of the rail roads in the United States and Canada. The Chinese moniker for North America, Gold Mountain (gam saan; 金山), was coined by these migrants as they were sold the dream that North America was a land of opportunity and prosperity. For Asian migrants, Gold Mountain quickly became a symbol of disillusionment. Euro pean migrants’ perceived threat of Asian workers contributed to the rise of Yellow Peril discourse, i.e., the demonization of Asians in the West (Ngai, 2021). For instance, out of fear that they were taking jobs away from Euro peans, Asian migrants were met with an onslaught of legislation to disenfranchise and exclude them from North America, like the Chinese Head Tax and the Chinese Exclusion Act (Canadian Museum for Human Rights, n.d.). Likewise, South Asian immigrants, who were enticed by the eco nomic opportunity of the West, were faced with exclusionary employment policies because of

In present day North America, discriminatory policies explicitly barring Asians from employ ment equity are illegal. As such, Asian Americans’ ability to par ticipate in the workforce has improved significantly since they first arrived in Gold Mountain. However, although Asians have been allowed to achieve, they are only able to advance so far (Hirschman & Wong, 1981). With their success “dependent on the goodwill of the dominant group” (Woo, 2000), they continue to face barriers that cause them to encounter a glass ceiling, also referred to as a “bamboo ceiling,” in terms of leadership attainment and compensation

the belief that they were tak ing white jobs (Tran et al., 2005; Kim, 2017). Until 1947, all Asians in Canada were banned from professions in law, medicine, pharmacy, and accounting (CBC Radio Canada, n.d.). In response to this racial discrimination, Asian migrant groups turned to their co-ethnic networks for job-re lated support, formed co-ethnic economies, and engaged in com munity activism against discrim inatory labour policies (Cheung & Gomez, 2012; Burnaby Village Museum, 2020).

While explicit policies discrim inating against Asians in the workforce have become less common, systemic racism against Asian Americans continues to create barriers to their equal participation in the economy. Research has shown that Asian American workers face a glass ceiling (Yu, 2020) and are under represented in certain indus tries (Min, 1995). Considering the structural and societal barriers they face (Woo, 2000), ethnic networks remain a key resiliency strategy for Asians as they navi gate work and employment in the West. However, due to the impact

27 VOLUME FOUR

(Yu, 2020). One such barrier is structural barriers, whereby Asian Americans’ lack of network connections inhibits their occu pational success. For instance, Asian Americans have fewer industry connections than their white counterparts, have more difficulty finding mentors, and are excluded from white informal networks (Woo, 2000). As such, even when no overt discrimina tion is at play, structural issues like weaker networks may create barriers to Asian American eco nomic success (Gornall & Strebu laev, Another2020).type

of barrier that sup presses Asian American occupa tional success is societal barriers like negative stereotyping (Woo, 2000). There is a significant body of research studying how Asians are stereotyped in the West ern workplace, especially East Asians workers. Organizational behaviour research has found that East Asian workers are per ceived as more competent, less socially warm, and less dominant than white workers (Berdahl & Min, 2012). When their behaviour diverged from these stereotypes by being dominant or warm, East

Asian workers were more disliked. In workplace settings, non-con forming East Asians were also racially harassed more often than East Asians who fit racial stereo types and employees of other races. The punishment for acting contrary to expected stereo types of being cold and sub missive is even harsher for Asian women (Rosette et al., 2016). These prescriptive stereotypes translate into prescriptive jobs for Asians, leading to them being perceived as good fits for roles that align with these stereo types, like engineering, and poor fits for roles that are perceived to contradict their prescriptive stereotypes, like sales. Percep tions of leadership ability are also lower for Asians than for white people (Sy et al., 2010), partially due to the prescriptive stereo type of Asians being submissive.

The model minority myth is another common stereotype against Asian Americans. Defined as the notion that Asian Amer icans are unscathed by dis crimination and thus broadly able to achieve academic and occupational success equal to or greater than that of white

people, the model minority myth is used to support the idea that racial discrimination no longer exists, and thus, minorities can achieve success through meri tocracy (Museus & Kiang, 2009). This misconception is one of the contributors to the major lack of business research on Asian Americans (Museus, 2009 as cited in Museus & Kiang, 2009). The idea that Asian Americans are unscathed by discrimina tion decreases research interest on the group, creating a cycle whereby the lack of research on Asian American experiences in turn allows the model minority myth to be upheld.

TRIBUTARIES

The model minority myth was not developed in isolation. Born out of Yellow Peril narratives, the fear that Asians are forever foreigners who “would eventually overtake the nation and wreak social and economic havoc” (Fong, 2002, p. 189), the model minority myth stems from the perception of Asian Americans as a “threat to the success, status or welfare of other groups” (Maddux et al., 2008). As such, not only does the model minority myth have real negative consequences on

Although the validity of the model minority myth has been disputed, some research on Asian Americans continues to espouse its harmful narratives. Research like Chung-Herrera and Lankau’s (2005) positions Asians as a model minority in contrast to Black and Hispanic Americans, without addressing the reasons behind differences in economic success among minority groups like chattel slavery (Black Amer icans) and involuntary immigra tion, immigration policy, and legal status (Hispanic Americans), which have been well explored in other bodies of research, like immigrant literature (Zhou, 1997; Zhou et al., 2008). Studies have shown that aggregating Asian groups together inaccurately overstates their economic suc cess due to the effect of the aggregation bias (Luthra & Soehl, 2014; Museus & Kiang, 2009).

Moreover, aggregating different ethnic groups under the Asian American racial umbrella ignores the disparity in income among the different groups (Museus & Kiang, 2009). Nevertheless, research, like Zeng and Xie’s (2004), that uses aggregate data to inaccurately ‘prove’ the model

Thus,narratives.there

29 VOLUME FOUR

to disprove the model minority myth includes both qualitative research exam ining the lived experiences of Asian American workers (Ho, 2003; Kim et al., 2010) and quantitative research conclud ing that discrimination against Asian Americans has led to their underrepresentation in a variety of industries and management positions (Kennelly et al., 1999 as cited in Kim et al., 2010; Wong & Wong, 2006). Several stud ies have also found that Asian Americans receive lower pay and fewer leadership positions com pared to their non-Asian peers with the same level of education (Duleep and Sanders, 1992; Wong and Nagasawa, 1991; O’Hare and Felt, 1991; Woo, 1994 as cited in Museus & Kiang, 2009).

Asian Americans in obscuring the effects of racism against the group, it has also been weapon ized against Black and Hispanic Americans to suggest that their disadvantaged economic posi tioning is an outcome of inherent deficiency, rather than systemic racism in the West (Museus & Kiang, Research2009).done

minority myth is still used in a damaging way against the Asian American community by perpet uating harmful stereotypes and

is a need for more business research on Asian Amer icans that is contextualized in historical and sociological under standings of Asian American race relations, in order to empower the community rather than per petuate further harm. Museus’ book Asian American Students in Higher Education (2014) provides a prime example of how research can combine historical and socio logical approaches with critical race theory’s analysis of Asian race relations to create research that is nuanced, insightful, and beneficial to the Asian American community. Moreover, existing research on Asian Americans has largely focused on the forms and effects of racial discrimination, often in comparison to other groups, rather than centering Asian American experiences and practices of resiliency against said discrimination.

As Asian Americans continue to face many structural and socie tal barriers in the workforce, the core need for resiliency and sup port from their ethnic networks remains vital. Although racial dis crimination continues in the pres ent day, there are several ways that Asian diasporic interaction with their ethnic networks has evolved relative to the co-ethnic networks formed by early Asian immigrant groups. With the pop ularization of a pan-ethnic Asian American identity in the past 50 years, a coalition among Asian diasporas in North America has emerged in the face of com mon obstacles in the workplace and beyond (Espiritu, 1992; Lien, 2001). Thus, the construction of Asian American identity presents an opportunity to move beyond studying co-ethnic networks to examining pan-ethnic net works. While use of the umbrella term “Asian American” is always fraught with the risk of homoge nizing the diverse experiences of Asian communities, a pan-ethnic approach helps us better under stand the shared experiences of

focuses on the Asian diasporic Facebook group called Subtle Asian Traits (SAT). With 2 million members, SAT is one of the largest general online Asian diasporic communities and has attracted research interest for its influential mark on the Asian diasporic community (Wong, 2020; Abidin & Zeng, 2021; Abidin & Zeng, 2020; Koh, 2020). SAT explores a wide range of topics and is a place where Asian iden tity is celebrated, negotiated, and circulated via the exchange of memes, stories, and resources (Abidin & Zeng, 2021).

Data and Methodology

and comments were collected in a systematic way, then analyzed using applied thematic analysis (Guest et al., 2012). I then used structured topic modelling to identify the themes, insights, and patterns that emerged from the

To collect the data for this study’s digital ethnography, I searched for relevant Facebook posts in SAT with the platform’s keyword search function. Exam ples of keywords used include “work,” “networking,” and “bam boo ceiling.” Only posts with

Thisdata.paper

Overall, there is a research gap surrounding how present-day Asian American workers use their pan-ethnic networks to navigate their workplace experiences, especially considering global ization and the rise of social media. To better understand the narrative of modern Asian Amer ican resilience against employ ment-related discrimination, my main research question asks how present-day Asian American workers navigate the workplace as minorities using their online ethnic networks.

Asian minorities in the West and their common struggles against anti-Asian discrimination. Social media’s influence in mediating digital diasporic networks means it is also vital to study ethnic networks beyond traditional co-ethnic networks that are con fined to geographical proximity.

To centre Asian American commu nity voices, I conducted a digital ethnography of prominent Asian diasporic Facebook groups. Posts

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Question to be Explored

31 VOLUME FOUR

Victim blaming, gaslighting, and failure to acknowledge micro aggressions are responses to racism that cause psychological harm to the victim (Johnson et al., 2021). Validating comments from other SAT members, like “you’re definitely not imagining things though,” acknowledge and empathize with the poster’s

For the purposes of brevity, findings related to the second Facebook group included in my study (RYSE - Professional Asian Networking) are omit ted from this edition of the paper.

“degraded,” “distressed,” “break ing down,” “panicked,” and “dis turbed.” Anti-Asian discrimination in the workplace increases feel ings of anger, frustration, shock, and inadequacy, which nega tively impact work engagement and increase emotional exhaus tion (Jun & Wu, 2021). With the “need to vent” and being “unsure how to respond,” members of SAT turn to their online ethnic community to receive “love and support” and advice on how to navigate workplace racism. Post ers noted how they looked to this community to be comforted and “empowered”: “SAT is one of the few places I feel safe saying this.” Comments like these sug gest Asian Americans use SAT to mitigate the negative emotional impacts of racial harassment they face at work.

Quotes extracted from posts in these Facebook groups form the basis of my analysis and are included throughout this paper. Following UBC BREB guidelines (UBC Office of Research Ethics, 2012), quotes are anonymized and paraphrased to protect poster privacy.

Findings

Venting About Racial Discrimination

As explored by Abidin and Zeng (2020), SAT is used by the Asian diaspora to cope with COVID-19related racism, Likewise, I find that it is also a place to dialogue about workplace discrimination. From lamenting about being called “Ching Chong” or “Ling Ling,” to being told by recruit ers they “don’t hire immigrants like you,” to hearing that Asians cannot be good at certain jobs because of their culture, group members share stories of overt workplace racism as a way to cope with their experiences.

content related to work, careers, or employment were selected. To focus on the most prominent conversations in the community, I looked for posts that received the most attention. As such, only posts that received over 1000 reactions were collected for analysis.

Theme 1: Dealing With Discrimination

Multiple posts by Asian women also highlighted their intersec tional struggle with more covert forms of racism. Observing that they are interrupted more fre quently and receive “dispropor tionately negative responses” or “snide remarks” for sharing opinions, they express their frus tration with feeling punished for being “assertive” and defying the “quiet” Asian stereotype. Their statements support previous findings that Asian women face harsh penalties at work for acting outside their prescribed stereo types (Rosette et al., 2016). In the posts collected in this study, there were 2.6 times more posts discussing racism by women than men, supporting previous research determining that Asian American women experience a compounded effect of racism due to being a double minority in terms of both race and gender (Rosette et al., 2016; Kim et al., Posts2010).

complaining about work place racism expressed a variety of negative emotions includ ing feeling “angry,” “furious,” “shaking,” “depressed,” hopeless (“nothing I can do”), “isolated,”

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“Has anyone else lied to their parents about their job because they know their parents will disapprove?”

Overall, the comment sections of SAT posts allowed the ethnic network to share similar experi ences, give practical advice and emotional validation, or even offer divergent opinions to the major ity of other community members. In this way, SAT enables various perspectives on racial issues and how they should be handled to be dynamically shared and dis coursed. In this way, SAT mem bers use this virtual community as a form of resiliency against the societal barriers and discrim ination faced by the Asian dis apora.

negative experience. This serves to mitigate some of the emo tional distress while empowering the community overall to take racial discrimination at work seri ously. Not only are community members able to oppose or agree with other commenters’ ideas by replying to other comments directly, but Facebook’s reaction function also allows comment ers and more passive readers to agree with a like or to disagree with an angry react. For exam ple, a comment arguing that the poster should have a “tougher skin” in response to workplace racism received twenty-three angry reactions and seventeen likes. A response telling this com menter to “please stop gaslight ing and just validate their feelings of anger” received thirty-one likes and four heart reactions. Thus, in addition to providing validation, the comment section allows SAT members to confront sentiments that negate or min imize the poster’s experience. Corroborating with past findings regarding SAT comments and COVID-19 racism (Abidin and Zeng, 2020), commenters on posts about workplace discrimination often encouraged escalation to

HR and offered problem-solv ing techniques. In this sense, posters were able to receive a diverse range of opinions based on the commenters’ different experiences. For instance, opin ions on reporting to HR ranged from “definitely and immediately report to HR” to “HR protects the company, not the staff. You need to talk to the coworker directly.”

Theme 2: Defining Career Success

As Abidin and Zeng identify (2021), family pressures are key elements that are frequently discussed in SAT. Diving deeper into posts reflecting on family pressures related to work gives insight into how contemporary young adults navigate their offline ethnic pressures virtually with their peers. Past research has looked at the tendency for Asian immigrant parents to place high expectations onto their children, partially due to a familial loss of social status upon immigration to the West (Moon & Ruiz-Casares, 2019). As a result, Asian diasporic youth may experience parental alienation and mental health challenges (Moon & Ruiz-Casares, 2019). Due to pressure from their ethnic community, second-generation Asian immigrants who achieve occupational success are prone to feeling perpetually unsuc cessful as a result of comparing

Alongside these stories of alter native career success, posters also shared stories about achiev ing traditional forms of success like getting a prestigious intern ship or becoming a doctor or law yer. These stories about “bringing honour to the family” reinforce the stereotypical definition of

Commiserating Over Pressures and Disappointment

Admitting that “pursuing a cre ative dream is definitely not part of our culture” and noting that Asians are “raised to think a creative career would not be financially sustainable,” mem bers brought to light tensions in career expectations that are often experienced by the Asian diaspora. Posts poking fun at “stereotypical Asian degrees and career paths” like being a doctor, engineer or lawyer highlight a shared community understand ing regarding their ethnic com munity’s narrow definition of career success. Similarly, jokes about parental disappointment are a way for the community to commiserate and cope with career expectations. Members also noted that the pressure extends beyond their family to

Posters shared stories of them defying parental expectations by pursuing a career that did not align with their community’s prescribed narrow definition of success. By sharing personal stories of opposing their parents’ wishes, posters provided SAT readers with examples of Asian Americans pursuing alternative pathways to success. Some post ers cited happy endings, in which their parents came around and accepted their child’s uncon ventional career paths. In doing so, they encouraged SAT mem bers to “go after [their] dreams,”

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their achievements to their even higher-achieving siblings and co-ethnics (Zhou et al., 2008). SAT provides space for these second-generation immigrants to dialogue on how to navigate the career pressure they face from their in-group.

other members of their ethnic community, lamenting about experiences in which other Asians looked down on their career choices. As the younger Asian diaspora discussed dis approval, disappointment, pride, and honour with respect to their career decisions, they nego tiated prescriptive definitions of success by reinforcing or challenging the idea of success constructed by their ethnic com munity and culture.

Reinforcing the Prescribed Definition of Success

citing that their “parents may be more supportive than you think.” Remarking that these stories gave them hope that “one day [their] parents’ acceptance of [their] unconventional career could happen to [them],” this category of posts gave readers encouragement as they navigate choosing careers that might not follow their in-group’s definition of success. While some of the stories that were shared did not include these happy endings of parental approval, such posts still challenge readers to rethink the options available to them in their own career paths. This is shown in commenters tagging their friends in these types of stories with comments like “inspo” and “dream job.”

Challenging the Prescribed Defi nition of Success

“Parents who failed to respect their kid’s artistic endeavors are partially to blame for the lack representation.”of

Confronting the Prescribed Defi nition of Success

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online groups like SAT, they find representations of unconven tional career paths in which the poster expresses their happiness with their career choice and the comment section praises the poster for their decision. With Asians underrepresented in cre ative fields, conversations and stories challenging traditional definitions of success not only encourage choosing career paths for fulfilment rather than just stability, but also address the societal barriers that contribute to the Asian underrepresentation in certain fields.

Together, the act of defying traditional definitions of suc cess and the act of reinforcing traditional definitions of suc cess shows that, for the Asian diaspora, the definition of suc cess can be both the ability to achieve despite immigrant and minority hardships and the ability to pursue one’s career passions. SAT provides a platform for the Asian diaspora to negotiate these seemingly opposing ideas and the tensions between achiev ing success on behalf of their immigrant families and finding

“rigid worldview” and just “want bragging rights,” members con fronted the traditions they were raised with through dialogue with each other. Several posts acknowledged the mental health ramifications (“depression and no life”) of pursuing an unfulfilling but seemingly successful career to appease their ethnic commu nity’s expectations. Commiser ating over parents who “refuse to see what makes their chil dren happy,” posters generally encouraged each other to pursue their personal “happiness” over that of their parents.

In addition to sharing stories that questioned the idealized defi nition of occupational success prescribed to them, SAT members discussed the reasons for these parental expectations. Members exchanged conversations over the traditional versions of suc cess. With perspectives ranging from parents just “want what is best for you,” to obeying par ents is important because of “filial piety,” to parents have a

success for the Asian diaspora. They also point to how success for the Asian community is still defined by milestones like being “first in the family to earn a uni versity degree” or making one’s family “proud” by “achieving a dream for a parent.” Group mem bers also shared career-related stories of their parents over coming hardship as immigrants. Celebrating their parents’ “grit, brilliance, and determination,” posters highlight how the mere act of “survival and thriving in the face of challenges” is success for the Asian community.

For many members of Asian diasporas, examples of alternate pathways to success may not be favourably portrayed in their offline ethnic networks. But in

Addressing Barriers

success for themselves. SAT as a virtual platform enables the Asian diaspora to see representations of alternate career pathways and career philosophies that may not be represented in their offline ethnic networks. The inherent benefit of SAT being a large, online international group means Asian diasporic members can access a diverse range of sto ries and people that they might not otherwise encounter in their offline lives.

This excerpt from a SAT post reinforces the traditional defini tion of success, but also high lights how the pressure to excel in all areas of life is imposed not only by the parents and ethnic networks of the Asian diaspora, but also out of survival. A long history of structural barriers, racial discrimination, and other obstacles required the Asian diasporic community to empha size excellence, sacrifice, and over-achievement as survival methods. So, while in-group pres sures are not explicitly a form of discrimination, they are a survival technique that is partially borne out of a long history of discrimi nation.

Forms of discrimination, struc tural barriers (knowledge barriers and network barriers), and soci etal barriers (out-group dis crimination and model minority pressure) contribute to the effects of discrimination Asian

Thematic Intersections

Some posts in this study met the criteria for both the Dealing With Discrimination theme and the Defining Career Success theme, which suggests that these two Asian diasporic career experi ences are intertwined. One post shared how a white man at a networking event told a poster, “you must be such a disappoint ment to your Asian parents” because the poster was not good at math or science. The expe rience recounted in this post exemplifies how the underlying issues behind the pressures for

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Discussion Implications

success in the Asian community are not built in isolation, but are reinforced by the out-group through the model minority myth and weaponized by the outgroup as a form of racial harass ment. This post, representing both the Defining Career Success and Dealing With Discrimination themes, coincides with prior findings on how the pervasive stereotype of Asians as a model minority causes Asians to feel constrained to certain career paths and perpetually feel like a failure (Zhou et al., 2008).

“As immigrants, we have very small margins for failure, the world doesn’t allow us to be ‘just good enough’ to deserve our spot at school, at work, in society. We must be exceptional all of the time, and sometimes at the expense of our health, happiness, and relationships.”

Ultimately, this study fills a gap in understanding regard ing how the Asian diaspora uses their online ethnic networks as a resiliency tactic against the discrimination they face in the Western workplace. Moreover, with consideration to how Asian ethnic networks have evolved in the modern, globalized, digitized context, this study bridges our understanding of how histori cal Asian ethnic networks have evolved into the present.

By analyzing Asian diasporic groups in the virtual spaces of social media platforms, this study

Further ContributionsTheoretical

reveals how the introduction of virtuality to ethnic networks not only enables and amplifies the existing offline resiliency tactics employed by Asian American workers, like knowledge sharing and network sharing, but also allows for novel discussions and exchanges that were previously unavailable to the Asian diaspora offline. The nature of digitized spaces allows networks to be far-reaching. One SAT member now has access to the opinions, experiences and knowledge of significantly more people from across the world. With ethnic networks no longer confined to geographically-proximate offline communities, there is greater opportunity for the exchange of ideas and representation. As seen in the Defining Career Success theme, SAT stories showcased alternate pathways to success and enabled conversations chal lenging the members’ offline ethnic networks’ definitions of success. Thus, the virtual space empowers a diverse range of stories and thoughts that help address societal barriers like the model minority myth.

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American workers face in the workplace like the glass ceil ing, underrepresentation, lower wages, and fewer promotions. The findings showed how SAT, a non-work-specific group, is used by the Asian diasporic commu nity to address societal barriers. On the other hand, work-specific Facebook groups are places of knowledge exchange and net work exchange, which address the structural barriers Asian diasporic workers face. Alto gether, online ethnic networks like SAT provide a place for Asian diasporic workers to support one another in navigating Gold Moun tain, a place that, for the Asian diaspora, is characterized by both its economic opportunity and its discriminatory workplace barriers. Whether it is through functional support, emotional support, advice sharing, or dia loguing on issues the community faces, Asian diasporic members are able to use their virtual ethnic networks as a resiliency tactic in their unique experience of navi gating the Western workplace.

Preeminent perspectives on gen erational mobility and immigrant acculturation argue that upward social class movement is stron gest when parental authority is preserved (Portes & Rumbaut, 2001 as cited by Waters et al., 2010). Moreover, case studies have shown how ethnic social control, in the form of disapproval for failing to achieve a respected occupation, supports upward mobility for Asian immigrants (Min, 1995). These case studies have also shown how close ethnic networks reinforced

parental expectations for suc cess. As such, it has been previ ously argued that the pressure to succeed imposed by Asian ethnic networks has positive outcomes in terms of social mobility.

(Day, 2016). Thus, this study argues that the common notion of using level of education, occupational prestige, and salary as the sole measures of success for the Asian diasporic community is limiting. These traditional markers of success and their derivative conclusions reinforce the model minority myth by overlooking the ways in which Asian workers are unable to achieve career fulfilment due to stereotypes and social pres sure. Overall, this study provides the foundation for further busi ness research that centres Asian American experiences. •

Findings from this study pro vide an alternate perspective that there are some detriments to pressure from occupational expectations in the form of mental health ramifications and sacrifices to personal fulfilment. While Portes & Rumabut (2001) argue that dissonance between an immigrant child’s ideals and an immigrant parent’s ideals is negative because it can lead to downward social class movement, the subject-centred definition of success provided by the infor mants of this study challenges this idea. SAT informants revealed how challenging traditional defi nitions of success imposed by their parents was positive, not because it increased their salary, but because it increased their career fulfilment. In this way, the colonial mindset that measures non-white achievement, specif ically Asian achievement, as the value and product of their labour is challenged by SAT members

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This series of postcards,titled Calling Home,depicts a slight twist on four iconic Filipinx food

Prior to social media platforms, prepaid phone cards were a frequent method of international communication for diasporic Fil ipinx people.These phone cards were often purchased in Filip inx-owned convenience stores, calledSari-Sari stores,adjacent to imported snacks and condi ments.The combined aesthetics of these nostalgic technologies and food brands recalls the ways we keep in touch with our cul tural identity across oceans while alluding to the complex dynam ics of family separation and the Philippines’ labour export prac tices.Although these postcards acknowledge the problematic implications of prepaid phone cards,they also celebrate the joy,resilience,and liveliness of Filipinx people and food culture. Through vibrant colours and Tagalog text which translates to “Let’s call” in English,we are reminded that the complications of virtuality can exist alongside beautiful forms of community care and familial connection.

midst of a global pandemic.My desire is to create safe spaces and meaningful work that facili tates and enables conversations around the multiplicity,ambigu ity,and beauty of diverse cultural identities.

Puti(whitevinegar),andJollibee.Thesepostcardswereprintedusingacrossbetweenscreenprintingandphotocopying,whichisalsoknownasRisographprinting.RisographprintingrevealsadeeperconnectiontocommonlyusedprintingmethodsinthePhilippinesasitprovideslow-costandbrightlycolouredreproducibleprints.

Fyonna Laddaran

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Part of the Filipinx experience is an intricate layering of stories and intersecting identities.Using art and creativity as a mode of expression,I wanted to explore and demonstrate what it means to navigate my Chinese-CanadianFilipinx-identity in the

HomeCalling

Mangbranding:SkyflakesCrackers,Tomas(lechonsauce),Datu

Fyonna: I grew up in the Philip pines, in Manila, and I moved to Canada when I was about seven. I started taking art classes when I was five years old, but I never really took it seriously until I was 13 because that was the year I sold my first painting. It was kind of like this realization that ‘oh, people will actually value my art enough to want to buy it.’

In terms of my artistic practice, it’s definitely evolved

I saw art as a way to put out into the world the joy that I wanted to feel for myself.

I saw art as a way to put out into the world the joy that I wanted to feel for Thatmyself.sounds so sad, but that’s how I kind of saw it.

Selections from an interview of Fyonna Laddaran, conducted by Gurnoor Gurnoor:PowarCanyou

over time. When I was younger, it started with a lot of visual arts, like drawing, painting, sketch ing—a lot of fine arts materials. As I got older and eventually started going to an art univer sity, I expanded that to include more digital art—so more illus tration-based things and more designI’mwork.an illustrator and designer. So a lot of my work lives on digital platforms or digital tools, but I find that I always try to incorporate some handdrawn work if I can—whether that’s watercolour or using a pen and paper. But it gets to a point where sometimes I get con fused–I’ve literally tried to zoom into paper before.

tell us a bit about yourself and your artistic practice? What has been your experience as an artist of colour? How did you get into making art?

I remember during the pandemic, I experienced a lot of depressive episodes and I just wanted to feel more joyful, but couldn’t experience it for myself.

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For me, art has always just been an expression of a lot

of things that I don’t know how to express verbally. As I’ve got ten older, it’s become a way to create things that I want to see more of in the world as well.

G: How do you see the series relating to the journal’s theme of virtuality? Can you talk about the significance of prepaid phone cards in the Filipinx diaspora?

I remember growing up in the Philippines. [Phone cards] were one of the ways that we could call friends and fami ly abroad. And I think it still is for many people nowadays because it’s more accessible for series

TRIBUTARIES

This

F: I guess for the first part— relating to the journal theme of virtuality—I kind of speak to this in my artistPhonestatement.cardswere like the primary means of communication for people to communicate with their loved ones across different countries, prior to platforms like Skype, or Zoom, or FaceTiming, anything like that.

visual materials—helped me explore the connection between communication across the Phil ippines’ diaspora and the idea of food and gifts and how they kind of facilitate connection. And so, Calling Home was the beginnings of Bahay Natin

G: Calling Home comes out of a larger project called Bahay Natin. Could you tell us about that project? What motivated you to create this series Calling Home? How does it fit into Bahay Natin?

F: So Bahay Natin means “our house” in Tagalog, which is a pop ular language in the Philippines. Bahay Natin was for my under graduate capstone project which celebrates Filipinx stories, cul ture, creativity and community. It was a collaborative project with my teammate, Kin Chua, and you can find out more about it on Emily Carr’s art show website. Essentially, it began with an interest in discerning a connection between food and Filipinx resilience. Then, as the year went on, it really evolved into an exploration of this one question: how do we begin to understand our place in the world as Filipinx-Canadians?I’mFilipino-Chinese, but in this project, I really wanted to focus on my Filipino heritage specifically. The Calling Home postcard series was an early design exercise that—through

collaboradesignspostcardofispartofa tive project called Natin.BahayScanthisQR code to view it online.

low income folks, and it’s been around for so long.

I feel like with things like Zoom and Facetime and Skype and Messenger and WhatsApp and Viber and all these different tools—Instagram, Facebook—you can stay connected 24/7. So in that way, I guess we’ve evolved into a hyper-connected world.

G: How has virtuality changed the ways we think about connection across distance?

G: Do you have a lot of memories of going to these stores?

I think there’s something about how communication is instant nowadays. We take for granted what it means to actually meaningfully connect with someone. We lose out on trying to be intentional about those moments when we can when we try to connect with someone.

Sometimes, we forget to be intentional about those moments we try to connect with someone because they’re just a brief message or phone call away.

F: Well, I think nowadays we have so many different platforms and tools that allow us to facilitate connections around the world which can be both amazing and also sometimes dilute the signifi cance of that connection.

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At the same time though, I feel like it can dilute the sig nificance of connecting with one another in the sense of like “distance makes the heart grow fonder.” Space apart allows you to value and miss the person that you want to be connected with.

G: That makes total sense. There’s pros and cons to the way virtu ality has changed connection. And how do you think this series thinks through migration and care? Particularly the difficulties of maintaining kinship and carry ing networks across distance?

I think its significance is really just being able to have the touch point to reach your loved ones. So, talking about the sig nificance of prepaid phone cards and the Filipinx diaspora, it’s very nostalgic, because I feel like prepaid phone cards—you would buy them at these convenience stores called sari-sari stores. You could buy snacks there. You could buy a lot of random little trinkets, little toys. You could buy toothpaste. Essential needs. And so that’s what I’m reminded of when I think of prepaid phone cards. It’s not an isolated item.

I grew up in an upper middle class family. So I would see a sari-sari store, but I would never go into one really because my parents didn’t need pre-paid phone cards to contact fami ly back in the Philippines. But I say it’s nostalgic and [part of a] collective memory because a lot of those scenes appear in Filipino media and it’s always presented as a nostalgic thing, at least in my experience, in my memory.

I think there’s something about how communication is instant nowadays. We take for granted what it means to actually meaningfully connect with some one.

F: Well, the thing is, I don’t have a specific memory of going to a sari-sari store to buy one. It’s just that idea. I feel like it’s kind of embedded into a collective mem ory for a lot of Filipinx folks.

Bahay Natin was real ly a project that was based out of this desire to care for ourselves, our fellow Filipinx community, but also a lot of first generation immigrants who are experiencing the things that me and my teammate experi ence with navigating our complex cultur al identities of being displaced.

F: Have you heard of the term “third culture”?

F: The thing I can think of, in terms of answering this question, is connection. The Calling Home series is just a small part of the Bahay Natin project, which I think addresses this question of migra tion andBahaycare.Natin was really a project that was based out of this desire to care for ourselves, our fellow Filipinx community, but also a lot of first generation immigrants who are experiencing the things that me and my team mate experience with navigating our complex cultural identities of being displaced.

F: “Third culture” is the new cul ture you create out of where you come from and then the place that you currently inhabit, if they’re different.

G: No, I haven’t.

TRIBUTARIES

Filipino, you’re expected to be separated from your family in hopes of bettering your future. Or the goal is to get out of the country, which never clicked for me until he said it in that way. It’s nice that these things exist where we can send gifts back home to our family, but why do they even exist in the first place? That was really eye opening for me. •

So, for [Kin and I], it would be Filipinx Canadian. For some people, it’s a third, fourth, or fifth culture, so it’s really complicated.

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...while these gift boxes facilitate a means of connection and love and care and maintaining kinship across distance, the fact that they exist reveals a deeper implication of the Filipino experience in that there’s an expectation of family separation.

Why Bahay Natin relates more to the idea of care is because, alongside the idea of prepaid phone cards, the project was really centered on the idea of gifting. It was centered around this Filipino artifact called the balikbayan“Balik”box.means “to return” and “bayan” means “country” in Tagalog. A lot of Filipinx people in the diaspora use these boxes to send food and different types of gifts. They take this box and then they ship it back to the Philip pines to wherever their family is. It’s this thing that people use to care for their loved ones.

One thing that I’ll never forget I learned from Dr. JP Catungal, ACAM’s interim program director: he said some thing along the lines of like, while these gift boxes facilitate a means of connection and love and care and maintaining kinship across distance, the fact that they exist reveals a deeper impli cation of the Filipino experience in that there’s an expectation of family separation. And that’s just part ofBeingit.

Annotations on illustra tions by author

From this monetization model, we might explore how one’s identity can be at the very core of their success on social media plat forms such as YouTube. Without a clear, consistent, and identifiable persona, it can be difficult for an individual to gain support from their audience members. Social media production can be a form of labour, as these creators work to understand the preferences of their audience in order to then create content that caters to them. In this essay, I refer to this strong identity often harboured by creators on social media as a “personal brand”—“personal”

The Performance of the Digital Self through Social Media Productions

Victoria Sin

A Study of Authenticity in YouTube

Vlogs by “bestdressed” in relation to Gender and Labour

To better understand the signif icance of this investigation, it is important to first understand the basics of the monetization model of YouTube. YouTube allows audience members to show their support through engagement actions with the

Other brands and companies pay great amounts in order to be fea tured on the platform due to its high exposure and influence to a broader range of viewers. You Tube allows individuals with over 1,000 subscribers (among other criteria) to receive ad revenue from the advertisements that are placed on their channels (How to make money onYouTube–YouTube creators , n.d.). This has allowed individuals to generate substantial amounts of income and gain exposure to further expand their fanbase, through conferences, brand partner ships, and merchandise (YouTube

))

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Social media has become a digital space in which any individual can candidly share details of their lives with the world. As the line between recre ation and work becomes increas ingly blurred on platforms such as YouTube, the question of whether authenticity in social media content productions is truly candid, or simply staged to cater to viewers, emerges.

BrandConnect Overview - You Tube help, n.d.).

video, such as likes and com ments (How engagement metrics are counted-Youtube Help, n.d.).

47 VOLUME FOUR 47 47 Videotitle:atourofmyslightlymediocreanimalcrossingisland(0:27)Gamingvideo-October2020

because it is unique to the indi vidual and “brand” because the process of monetization and generating monetary gain from one’s identity and social media productions is much akin to corporations generating profit from their strong presence in the Basedmarket.on

this, we can see how the discussion of authenticity in social media productions is so important. Social media produc tion is no longer merely a form of self-expression or a creative out let, but a means for individuals to independently generate income, or even make a living. In this case, does it matter whether the con tent being posted is genuine or manufactured? If monetary gain

For example, popular YouTuber Ashley (surname undisclosed, widely known by her channel name “bestdressed”) is at the forefront of creators who par take in racialized and gendered labour. Ashley is a Burmese-Brit ish cisgender woman who was raised in Maryland (bestdressed, 2019), attended college in Cali fornia (bestdressed, 2019), and at the time of writing, resides in New York (bestdressed, 2020). She identifies as “half Asian and half white” (bestdressed, 2019). Ashley’s channel was created in 2015 when she posted her first video, a fashion video titled

How toStyle aT-shirt Dress 5 Ways(OriginalVersion). Since then, she has posted many vid eos covering various themes, including fashion (in particular, sustainable fashion), her college experience, home improvement, Q&As, and more. As of the time of writing (2022), she has been on a two-year hiatus, with her most recent video being from Decem ber of 2020. Despite this, she remains active on the photo-shar ing social media platform Insta gram, where she posts photos on a regular basis and occasionally branded content as well. She has also designed two jewellery col lections in collaboration with En Route Jewelry, a New York-based jewellery brand.

is at the centre of social media production, how big of a role does authenticity actually play?

In this essay, I take a close look at some of Ashley’s more recent social media productions—You Tube videos during the peak of her internet fame. In particular, I conduct a close reading of a Q&A video titled real talk about breakups,boys,and blowjobs lol posted in August 2019. Through this, I argue that authenticity in YouTube vlogs is a performance of the digital self. This investi gation places an emphasis on the act of “performing,” which is typically connoted with notions of rehearsal, syntheticism, and crafting an image of the self. By exploring the degree to which the authenticity of the digital self is performed in vlogs and what part the vlogger’s identity plays in said performance, the gendered nature of producing content on social media as a form of labour can be revealed and evaluated. Through evalu ating different aspects of Ash ley’s content—setting, voice, post-production elements, and portrayal of the self—I investi gate the ways in which authen ticity is crafted in her vlogs, and how this relates to the commodi fication of her identity. By inves tigating these questions, I argue that it is impossible for social media productions to be com pletely authentic, and I explore what this means in a broader sense for other forms of social media productions.

Observably, Ashley’s living space is exposed to the masses. Her viewers can see the spaces in which she sleeps, eats, and spends her time. The act of showcasing intimate living spaces links her labour, produc ing YouTube videos, with her private life, her home, thereby creating a sense of intimacy and authenticity as she acts casual and natural in these spaces. This broadcasting of her private space allows the audience to feel like they know Ashley, as if they

48 TRIBUTARIES )) Videotitle:let’sgetpersonal…mentalhealth,sexuality,andlove”(8:09)Q&Avideo-June2020

are her friends, thus bridging the gap between the two and man ufacturing a sense of intimacy. Much like blogs in Pham’s study (2011), vlogs can also be imagined as feminine due to their associa tions with the private and domes tic sphere, thereby reinforcing the gendered nature of vlogging, which is a type of cultural and intimate labour.

It must be acknowledged that the deliberate act of selecting such settings in which to film cre ates “authenticity” which in itself, as I will argue, is a construct. Ashley often shares the behindthe-scenes of her filming videos: cleaning up her space before shooting, having many piles of clothes on the floor behind the camera, and even placing her tri pod in her bathroom so that she can capture wide-angle shots. This corresponds with the notion of performance. Although a sense of authenticity and intimacy is perceived by the audience, it is manufactured by strategically utilizing settings and the framing of settings in a certain way, all of

The association of the blogo sphere (and broadly, social media productions) with femininity is not novel—Minh-Ha Pham (2011) remarks, “not only is the political work of culture (or, for that mat ter, the cultural work of politics) unintelligible in the popular and scholarly discourse about blogs;

culture is also linked to the pri vate and domestic spheres of life and thereby imagined as femi nine” (pp. 7-8). The same can be said about vlogs: most YouTubers create content from their bed rooms, which are typically private and intimate environments of one’s life, thus creating a sense of intimacy. Examples of this can be seen in many of Ashley’s vid eos: those about fashion, gaming, and home improvement as well as “day in my life” vlogs and “sitdown” type videos are all shot in her apartment/bedroom.

Setting

which are intentionally designed to create a sense of intimacy.

work can be clas sified as caring labour because she serves as a source of enter tainment, or even emotional con nection, for many. Her “big sister” persona adds on to this: viewers may turn to her content as a source of mentorship, wisdom, or even comfort.

As for disembodiment, Shome (2006) discusses this con cept when notions of race are anchored in the aurality of one’s existence. This idea of disembod iment is interesting in the con text of social media productions, as the social media creator’s voice is very much attached to their visual identity. However, the fact that they exist only within a

There are a number of implica tions and consequences of this performed authenticity by social media content creators such as Ashley. Traditional brands and brand marketing are more easily identifiable by consum ers, as they have a long history and distinct genre within soci ety. However, connections with internet figures that feel deeply personal are much harder to see and understand from an analyt ical perspective. The setting and framing of a video may go unno ticed by the average audience member, which leaves them more susceptible to the influence of social media creators.

such as putting her tripod in her bathroom or storing makeup in her bathroom sink (bestdressed, 2020). Ultimately, this contrib utes to the performance aspect of her content and her labour as she is consciously manufacturing the way her background looks in order to fit a visual identity that viewers associate with her per sonal brand.

Taking a closer look at the sleepover-themed video, Ash ley manipulates her own body language to complement the setting that she has created in order to create a sense of close ness with the audience. In this screenshot, her bed and her room in the background are relatively clean and tidy, and she has adjusted the lighting to be dark and ambient. She places herself in the foreground by using soft and comfortable body language, leaning forward to the camera as if talking to a friend or a sister at a sleepover, instead of sitting upright. It is also noteworthy that she is wearing minimal makeup and wearing clothing that appears to be pyjamas, adding to the casual sleepover motif that she is trying to create in the video—ultimately, constructing a sense of intimacy and performed authenticity. The act of deliber ately creating these settings cre ates a strong divide between the clean background in front of the camera and the mess behind it,

Voice & Language

Although the aural and visual components of a video are often experienced simultaneously, it is especially important to inves tigate the aurality of vlogs as it plays a significant part in authen ticity. Raka Shome (2011) dis cusses the role that one’s voice plays in caring labour, using the example of call centre service workers. She highlights important themes such as disembodiment, diasporic memory, and the con trol of language/accent training (Shome, 2006, p. 108), linking the concept of caring labour with race and political economy. Borrowing from Shome, I argue that the use of voice in caring labour—namely social media production—plays a significant part in manufacturing a persona in order to provide services to the customer, regardless of the kind of disembodiment involved in the scenario. This can be decon structed by focusing on two areas: caring labour and disem Firstly,bodiment.Ashley’s

49 VOLUME FOUR 49 49 Videotitle:realtalkaboutbreakups,boys,andblowjobslol(0:20)Q&Avideo-August2019

Interestingly, Ashley’s aware ness of manufactured authen ticity almost makes her seem more genuine to the audience.

two-dimensional medium on their audience’s screen can also be a kind of disembodiment. In the instance of vlogs, for example, aurality plays an important role alongside visuality in the embod iment of one’s racial and gender identity, thus creating a sense of authenticity in intimate and caring Shomelabour.(2006)

“It is nearly mid night on a Monday and I thought you know it is finally time to sit down and chat with you guys. I honestly feel like over the past maybe even like three months it’s been a long ass time since I’ve been able to sit down in front of a camera and talk genuinely and openly in the way that I used to. My plan for this video is, in classic sleepover style, to film it very late so that I am more emotion ally vulnerable than usual, to sit in my bed and chat with you guys…” (bestdressed,2019)

starts off the video by making a joke about looking like she is in a “very artsy porno.” She says this in a casual, matter-of-fact but humorous tone, which is in line with her usual image: funny, witty, candid and often making suggestive jokes or openly jok ing about sexuality. She then moves on to give the audience an “update on her life,” similar to what old friends would do after reuniting for the first time in a while. A close reading into the way she shares this brings to light a number of techniques she uses to add on to her “personal brand”:

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“I was so willing in my previous videos to show those super romantic lovey-dovey moments and show the perfect side of our relationship.

Again, her self-awareness about creating a fake image of perfec tion makes the audience sym pathize with her. She builds a connection with them by admit ting to this truth and sharing her newfound realizations about relationships. By doing so, she successfully secures a support

Circling back to sleepover-themedAshley’svideo, we see the importance of voice and language in constructing her “internet big sister” brand: she

I am complicit in pro ducing a(n) image of a perfect couple online that… wasn’t perfect. But for some reason it feels easy to share the good parts of your life and the good parts of a relationship but it is much harder to share your struggle…” (best dressed, 2019)

She admits to creating a certain ambience to make herself more emotionally vulnerable, such that she can share her thoughts and feelings with her audience. By being candid about this instead of hiding it, she forms a connec tion with the audience because both now share this “secret” between them. She also opts for casual and colloquial language, directly addressing the audi ence as “you guys” as if they are close friends, strengthening the sense of intimacy and friendly connection she has established. She also speaks openly about her past relationship in a sombre and reflective tone:

discusses the use of voice and language in a cus tomer service context—extend ing intimacy and genuinity to the customer in order to create a sense of care, such that they feel like they are being under stood and cared for (p. 112). In Ashley’s case, her audience is her customer, and by presenting her voice in a certain way, she adopts the persona of an “internet big sister” or “internet friend.” By manipulating her intonation, pace, and wording, Ashley is able to come across as the witty and funny “big sister” that her audience wants to connect with and befriend. This strengthens her “internet big sister” persona that makes her content more palatable and therefore, more profitable. Over time, this persona has become her very own brand. Ashley’s personal brand is inte gral to her success because the audience feels like they know her as if they are friends in real life, and is therefore more inclined to support her as a friend by sup porting her monetarily, whether it be by liking her YouTube vid eos, subscribing to her channel, or purchasing products from her jewellery line.

Post-Production

effort is made to create a pol ished end-product. In the case of Ashley post-production plays a significant part in creating a sense of authenticity.

In the final product, Ashley sounds like she is making a light hearted joke, like conversing with a friend. In reality, the same sentence has been repeated numerous times for it to come across perfectly. Ashley puts in an immense amount of physical and emotional labour to create a sense of care, understanding, and closeness with her audience. Although the visual component of the vlog remains more or less the same, the aural component completely alters how the audi

Posted on her second channel instead of her “main” channel, this video is essentially a com pilation of outtakes from a vlog. In the outtakes, she repeats the same joke about 10 times until she finds the perfect tone, pace, and wording for it to come across as humorous yet inoffensive. She even adds text to the video to explain what she is trying to do: “trying to figure out the right intonation for this part,” “doing a take while the car isn’t moving so the audio is crisper” (best dressed, 2019). Intonation deter mines how words are perceived; by altering her intonation, Ashley changes her viewers’ perception of her.

ive fanbase that feels as though they know her as a friend, and are therefore more inclined to con tribute their time and money to support her, and ultimately, her personal brand.

In her essay, BlogAmbition: Fashion,Feelings,and the Political Economy of the Digi tal Raced Body, Minh-Ha Pham (2011) discusses fashion blogs as a gendered genre within the blogosphere. She argues how the democracy of “popularity rather than equitability” or the “logic of capitalism” (p. 6), such as systemic features of the blogo sphere that position men as the default, prioritize male bloggers when it comes to topics such as politics, leaving women with a genre that is much less pre ferred by men: culture-themed blogs. According to Pham (2011), culture is “linked to the private and domestic spheres of life and thereby imagined as feminine” (p. 8). Though this argument was made based on the context of blogging in the 2000s, it very

51 VOLUME FOUR 51 51 Stillfromvideo“30BACKTOSCHOOLOUTFITStohelpyousurvivetheschoolyear”August2019(0:04)

Whether this authenticity is performed or genuine, however, is a more complicated question with no discrete answer. A closer look at Ashley’s other video titled a terrifying and cringey look into how i sound when i vlog (2019) provides us with useful insight into ideas of authenticity from a behind-the-scenes perspective.

ence may receive her joke. Ulti mately, this approachable quality of an “internet big sister” that she has manufactured strength ens her personal brand that she consistently puts out into cyber Thisspace.example, again, places emphasis on the idea of per formed authenticity: Ashley is known for her humour and can dour. However, if a seemingly lighthearted joke goes through a process of rehearsal in order for it to come across perfectly, is her identity truly authentic or more so manufactured?

Though some more than oth ers, all YouTube creators engage in some form of post-produc tion process in creating a vlog. Whether it be simply trimming and combining video clips or adding elements such as cap tions, music, and overlays, some

bers to associate such styles with Ashley herself. By creating this strong visual identity, Ash ley successfully feeds into her well-known “big sister” identity and feigns a sense of personal connection with each viewer, thus influencing their desire to support her both socially and monetarily.

ScreenshotfromAshley’sYouTubechannel“bestdressed”showcasingtheplaylistswhichsheusestocategorizehercontent(2022)

much still proves to be true in the 2010-era of social media pro ductions. Political commentary videos and vlogs continue to be dominated by men, while popu lar culture-themed videos such as fashion videos are primarily created by women. Because this genre of social media production is imagined to be more feminine, creators must play into the fem inine standard in order to gener ate the most engagement they can, so as to succeed in the mon etization system of social media.

Portrayal of the self is also a significant aspect of vlogs. In the case of Ashley, I focus specifi cally on her conscious efforts to present herself as a “big sister” figure, as well as the choice to not disclose her last name. Of the 208 public videos on her YouTube channel, she has over 20 “chatty,” “sit-down” type videos in which she gives advice on college, career, fashion, romance, and sex, as well as instructional (“how-to” / “101”) videos on styling and

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Within the context of post-pro duction, it is impossible to reach a level of true authenticity since any sort of post-production effort distorts the truth. Even though Ashley’s choice to pursue a more casual style of editing, every line, shape, and colour has been deliberately chosen. By making these conscious stylistic choices, it can be argued that Ashley is making her productions more inauthentic by manufactur ing these elements of authentic ity. Ashley’s identity as a femme creator also plays a role in her stylistic choices when it comes to post-production. Her unique style can be found across all of her videos, both personal and for brand partnerships, and helps strengthen her personal brand as a sister and a friend. It becomes instinctive for audience mem

Ashley’s videos are marked by her overlays of handwritten captions and drawings, reminiscent of the doodles one would see in a sketchbook. To the viewer, this could be perceived as authen tic—the choice of using elements drawn free-hand gives a sense of casualness, almost as if reading a friend’s journal. From time to time, she also uses creative typed fonts in her captions, instead of writing them by hand. Regardless,

Portrayal of the Self

the deliberate choice to create such overlays may be an effort to make the videos more creative, relatable, or palatable to viewers.

Concluding Remarks

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Through investigating Ashley’s YouTube content, it is clearly seen that it is impossible for social media productions to be truly authentic. Instead, instances of authenticity are more likely to be a performance of the digital self. The very act of filming one’s life on a camera and uploading it to YouTube strips the experience of genuine authen ticity because the content being viewed by the audience is only an amalgamation of the creator’s deliberate actions to perform in a certain way in order to be per ceived in a certain light.

sister” identity she tries to portray also speaks to the gendered nature of her labour. The image of the “big sister” is often associated with maternal qualities such as being caring and wise—the intimate quality of this type of caring labour speaks to the gendered nature of the work performed by Asian femme YouTubers in this genre.

The recognizability of her brand has driven her success on social media because it bridges the gap between Ashley and her audi ence from “creator and viewer” to “big sister and younger sibling” or even simply friends. This man ufactured intimate relationship helps drive audience members towards supporting her and her channel in a multitude of ways. Once again, Ashley’s creative decisions have allowed her to succeed in the heavily political and economic ecosystem of social media.

Ashley has also never disclosed her last name publicly, instead going by “Ashley aka best dressed” or simply “Ashley.” By making viewers refer to her on a first-name basis, a sense of intimacy is established as calling someone by their first name is generally perceived to be affec tionate. Conversely, the omission of personal details could also be seen as a barrier to intimacy as the audience only knows so much about her, despite the casual and candid nature of her content. Regardless, this again empha sizes the quality of performed authenticity in Ashley’s work as what she decides to publish is solely up to her—her image is an amalgamation of her choices,

Ashley herself seems to be aware of this, as she states in her video titled reading people’s assumptions about me *sPicY*, in response to the assumption of being the exact same person online and in-person:

“thrift flipping” clothes.

Although she is conscientious of performing authenticity, it is uncertain whether her audience does. Considering how accessible vlogs are on the internet, this per formed authenticity may be dan gerous to impressionable viewers as they may be led to believe that creators like Ashley are the stan dard for natural beauty, humour, or intellect. Through this investi gation of performed authenticity, it has been established that such performances ultimately con tribute to a creator’s “internet persona” and “personal brand” due to a multitude of reasons, one of which being the inherently political nature of cyberspace that privileges certain creators within certain genres. As a “big sister” persona for millions of viewers on the internet, it is likely that Ashley’s audience looks up to her as an aspirational person to be, whether it be because of her sense of style, her humour, her intellect, her education, or her entire existence. Although setting, voice and language, post-production, and portrayal of oneself are discussed in isolation from one another in this essay, in practice, they overlap with one another and together, create an

Attempts to portray herself as a “big sister” figure to viewers by giving advice candidly and teach ing viewers in casual instructional videos create a sense of intimacy and relatability so that the audi ence feels a personal connec tion to her. Although the act of sharing personal experiences and advice is truly authentic, this authenticity is only to some extent genuine. The curation of certain topics to construct a certain image of herself already removes authenticity from the Thecontent.“big

“I’m flattered by this, I try to be really close to the same per son. I feel like I spend so much fucking time with myself, I had to film this, I have to spend 20 hours editing this, I have to watch it online, and read your guys’ comments about it”2019)(bestdressed,

and her identity, as perceived by viewers, is very much deliberately manufactured.

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almost three-dimensional per sona for social media creators.

The commonality amongst cre ators who have fallen out of creative spaces such as YouTube is that they have taken on a new direction. It seems as though over time, one’s “personal brand” has become a barrier, rather than an opportunity, for creativity in social media productions. As social media content creation gains a longer history over time, it will certainly be interesting to investigate in more depth the long-term effects of performed authenticity and rigid “personal brands” on those who pursue content creation as a full-time Ascareer.afast-changing, dynamic platform, social media continues to be a site where the meanings of race, gender, and authen ticity continue to shift every day. Over time, authenticity and performance have created both opportunities and constraints for creators as well as audiences. As media platforms and social media trends continue to evolve along side technology, it is imperative for us, as consumers of digital media, to continue to critically analyze instances of performed authenticity and understand its possible implications on our own lives.

Life After YouTube

Since her last video in Decem ber 2020, Ashley has not posted any content to YouTube. She remains active on Instagram, usually posting personal photos with little additional commentary, sometimes promoting her jewel lery collection, and occasionally putting out branded partner ships. Using the large following that she has built, Ashley is able to continue to have a solid con sumer base for her own products because she is still viewed as a “big sister” and role model.

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It is noteworthy that Ashley has commented the following about being an Asian American creator: “I think on social media there have been so many girls before me who had set a precedent that paved the way for me. I grew up watching Jenn Im and Michelle Phan, so it was accepted that people who looked like me were already dominating the space” (Delgado, 2019). Though she dismisses race as an integral part of her identity and her labour, we know that throughout his tory, race has played a sizable role in the way labour is shaped for women. Lisa Nakamura, in her essay Indigenous Circuits (2014) wrote that “Latinas and Asian, African American, and, later, Indian women were all viewed as having ‘nimble fingers and passive personalities’”(p. 933).

Besides Ashley, another key example is Michelle Phan, an early Asian-American YouTuber who was known to many as a trail blazer for lifestyle and beauty vloggers. She stepped away from YouTube in 2015, but returned to the platform in 2019 to con tinue creating makeup tutorials and beauty videos, albeit in a much more sporadic and infre quent manner. Since her hiatus, her videos have also taken on a distinctly different style, eliciting questions of which version of her is truly authentic. Throughout Phan’s hiatus, she built a mil lion-dollar beauty brand Ipsy as well as her own brand, Em Cos metics (Dickson, 2022).

For decades, Asian women as a collective group were considered to be “nimble.” It was imagined that their race and gender, rather than their individual attributes, were the reasons behind the behaviours and traits they har boured. When we consider the popularization of an Asian-Amer ican beauty and fashion influ encer cohort, consisting of but certainly not limited to, best dressed (Ashley), Jenn Im, and Michelle Phan, the intersectional nature of gendered labour sug gests that even in present-day, with newer forms of labour such

as social media creation, race might also play an important part in ideas of authenticity and branding—certainly an interest ing area for further research.

55 VOLUME FOUR 55 55 References “bestdressed”. YouTube, 2021, www.youtube.com/c/bestdressedhttps:// bestdressed. (2019, February 3). reading people’sassumptionsaboutme*sPicY* [Video]. YouTube. com/watch?v=tAe2CaBO3hI&ab_chanhttps://www.youtube. bestdressed.nel=bestdressed.(2019, August 15). what i wishi’dknownaboutcollege… [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/ besdressed.watch?v=-Rw53sVhkTg&t=13s(2019,August22). 30 BACK theTOSCHOOLOUTFITStohelpyousurviveschoolyear [Video]. YouTube. sqys&ab_channel=bestdressedwww.youtube.com/watch?v=PlBaIvxhttps:// bestdressed. (2019, August 29). real talk about breakups,boys,and blow jobs lol [Video]. YouTube. k&t=20s&ab_channel=bestdresseyoutube.com/watch?v=U4mQQc2XUOhttps://www.d. bestdressed. (2019, December 5). holiday partyoutfitideas ��(foralltherealpar tiesi’lldefinitelybeinvitedto…right?)[Video].YouTube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ4QdG_SLK0&ab_chan bestdressed.nel=bestdressed.(2019, December 12). why i’mleavingLA+wherei’mmovingnext![Video].YouTube.https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=kkmnKE4YHN0 bestdressed. (2019, December 23). THE ULTIMATE APARTMENT MAKEOVER + apartmenttour! [Video]. YouTube. ncNic&t=33s&ab_channel=bestdressed.www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hKTaDhttps:// bestdressed. (2020, June 25). let’s get personal…mental health,sexual ity,and love [Video]. YouTube. j4L8Sk&t=568s&ab_channel=bestwww.youtube.com/watch?v=22CZdhttps:// bestdressed.dressed (2020, October 16). a tour of my slightly mediocre animal crossing island [Video]. YouTube. QI&t=28s&ab_channel=bestdressedyoutube.com/watch?v=yW3My_aJNhttps://www. bestdressed. (2020, December 18). MY NYCAPARTMENTTOUR//$1800studioinmanhattan[Video].YouTube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRnnAAU JB3o&t=9s Delgado, M. (2019, February 13). 9th theannualGenerasianConferenceempowersFemmeAPICommunity.Highlander. Retrieved August 5, 2022, from www.highlandernews.org/34691/34691/https:// Google. (n.d.). How engagement met rics are counted-youtube help. Goo gle. Retrieved August 5, 2022, from answer/2991785?hl=enhttps://support.google.com/youtube/ Google. (n.d.). YouTube BrandCon nectOverview-YouTubehelp. Goo gle. Retrieved August 5, 2022, from answer/9385307?hl=en#:~:text=Youhttps://support.google.com/youtube/ Tube%20BrandConnect%20is%20a%20 monetization,choose%20who%20you%20 Nakamura,work%20with.L.(2014). Indigenous circuits: Navajo Women and the racialization of early electronic manufacture. American Quarterly, 66(4), 919–941. https://doi. Pham,org/10.1353/aq.2014.0070Minh-HaT.“BlogAmbition: Fashion, Feelings, And The Political Economy Of The Digital Raced Body”. Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, And Media Studies, vol 26, no. 1, 2011, pp. 1-37. Duke University Press, https://doi.org/10.1215/02705346Shome,2010-013.Raka. “Thinking Through The Diaspora”. International Journal Of Cultural Studies, vol 9, no. 1, 2006, pp. 105-124. SAGE Publications, org/10.1177/1367877906061167.https://doi. YouTube. (n.d.). How to make money on YouTube – YouTube creators. YouTube. Retrieved August 5, 2022, from how-things-work/video-monetization/www.youtube.com/intl/en_ca/creators/https:// ScreenshotofendingcardfromAshley’sYouTubechannel“bestdressed.”

James Albers and Alger Liang

56 TRIBUTARIES BANGKOK

BANGKOK is a photo series emerged from community collaboration through photography, (drag) performance, world-building and fashion styling.

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Words from (photographer)Alger

I’ve been friends with James for six years and he has always been someone who expresses openly without apology. When James asked me to photograph him as Bangkok, I knew we would make magic. Working on the BANGKOK shoot is an extension of who he already is. To me, this work represents his personally realized growth that has been cultivated with love alongside his friends, peers, and communi ty. We didn’t realize it until after, but when we sequenced the im ages together, we noticed how the contrast of dark and light reflects the space of duality and contrast—a state James is in a lot of the time.

Ambitious, full of clashing ideas, and eager to explore his multitude of selves, James stays true to himself. Using photography, (drag) performance, and fashion styling, we created a world where James is reborn as Bangkok. A renaissance birth where they can exist in their fully-fledged glory.

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Words from James (AKA Bangkok, artistic director)

Dear reader,

VOLUME FOUR

Beginning my journey as a drag artist seems to have been written in the stars before I even knew it. Once I decided to make my debut and have serious conversations with friends about it, they all responded with dif ferent ways of saying, “Well, it’s about time!” or, “I was waiting for you to say that,” and even, “We always knew you would.” Thinking back about it now, the last time I really felt this way was when I was just 14, when I first came out as bisexual—because don’t all queer people at least try to hold onto any assemblage of heteronormativity until they realize that it won’t serve them? The first person I uttered these words to was my older sister. I remember after finally having admitted my romantic/sexual attraction to the same sex as me, I couldn’t talk to her for a week.

“You’re making me feel weird about it,” I told her, breaking the extended silence.

“I’m not doing anything, YOU’RE the one who is making this weird!” And of course, she was right. My fears didn’t come from her—they were all within me. And I had to sit with that. “Nothing has changed, James, I’ve always known.” When I told her I was starting drag, she always knew I would. It was—always—about time.

By now I’ve completed my un dergrad with a double major in Visual Art and Art History, lived on my own for six years in a new city, have had multiple cycles of friends, lovers, jobs, apartments. As I look back at the works I made in school, I realized that drag was always there.

In my first ever performance art work, I undressed in front of my classmates, put on a skirt, tied my hair back, and scrubbed the floors with soapy water. I didn’t think of that as drag at the time, but this was definitely the be ginning of a journey I had no idea would take me to where I am now.

I think we all realized a lot about ourselves during the time we spent away from each other, our communities, most of our loved ones, banging pots and pans at 7pm daily during the early days of the pandemic in the spring and summer of 2020. I think we all realized how important virtuality was during this time, becoming the only way we could main tain relationships, finish classes, entertain, forget, dream, etc. Political and social unrest was at an alltime high. The largest, most widespread, and socially impactful movement began to shed light on the power that institutions held in society. Whiteness, particularly, was finally being put on trial. And all of this occurred online. Instagram stories and Twitter threads became primary sources. TikToks were tik toking. I was falling in and out of love simultaneously, and this was the context in which Bangkok was first named. I was on a trip in an almost mystical land tucked within the heart of the Okanagan called Hillbilly Hills with my best friend. I told her that I wanted to start doing drag, and the conversation of a name for my drag persona began. I always knew that I wanted my drag to reference my Thai lineage and my queerness in the context of Asianness, but also to allow for the complexity and contradiction that comes with being mixed raced.

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The first name I considered was Ladyboi, having personal con nection to this term as it is used in Thailand. I remember the term being used as a weapon against me by my family and cousins—my mother especially. Having always been an effeminate child, my family would tease me and bully me for this by heckling the term ‘ladyboy’ at me.

In Thailand, this term is used in a variety of ways and has multi ple understandings. Firstly, it’s the term used to describe trans women, mostly by foreigners and tourists who come to Thailand in pursuit of exploring its bus tling sex tourism industry. This relationship that the term has to both queerness and Orien talist fetishism drew me to the title. ‘Ladyboy’ is also used to describe gay men who are more feminine presenting in general. Lots of people have said that they see Thailand as one of the most open Asian countries in terms of its acceptance towards queer and gender deviant people. But when this word was used by my family towards me, it didn’t feel accepting. Queerness in Thailand is mostly valued from the outside, known internation ally for being a hot spot for trans prostitution and often repre sented in popular culture as such. Thailand is called “the Land of Smiles’’ because the people are seen as happy, hospitable, joyful, cheerful, and gleeful. But to me, this smile is subservient. It is a smile that one wears as a facade, because happiness is profitable. People from Western countries don’t have the happiness that they covet, so they seek it else where. The Thai woman wears a smile so that the white man may value her. Thailand smiles, but it reveals crooked teeth.

When I was called ‘ladyboy,’ my cousins were smiling, grinning, and laughing uncontrollably. But there was no smile on my face— instead, tears and humiliation. The desire that I had to adopt this name came from the queer desire to reclaim this story for myself. Finally declaring that—yes, I am a ladyboy, and I am smiling :)

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The shoot was also planned for the same day that I would make my large stage debut at East Side Studios, a warehouse that houses the majority of Vancouver’s queer club scene. As this performance also felt like a declaration, I chose to perform ‘Born Yesterday’ by one of my favourite artists, Arca. This shoot was conceptually centred around this performance. I remember Ashley asking for some keywords and inspirations for the styling of this shoot, and I gave her a series of bina ries that seemingly contradict each other—soft/metal, sensual/ violent, light/dark, vulnerable/ alien, sensitive/bitchy. I wanted to express all of these ideas and how they may synchronize with each other in one visual reality—a fantasy that was undoubtedly Bangkok’s own.

I think my attraction to para dox, contradiction, and binaries can be attributed to my mixed raciality. One photo, in particular, makes me think of this. Bangkok lays on the floor leaning forward towards the camera, one arm resting on the ground for stabil ity and the other presses against her face. Her finger pulls her eye lid towards her temple, referenc ing the childish microaggression against Asians by mocking their eye shape. This gesture is full of contradiction as well as reclama tion. Within her gaze, she asks, ‘How do I perform my own Asian ness from the middle ground of a mixed race perspective?’

of the stranger online, the likes, the comments, the shares, the views, the yasses, the slays.

But the other important fact of her birth was that it works outwards—if I am bursting into this world loud and confident, then I am bringing all those who brought me here with me. I don’t want to leave anyone behind.

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As this was my first time doing a photoshoot of myself, I wanted a team of first timers as well. The obvious choice for the photog rapher was my dear friend Alger Ji-Liang, whom I’ve known since moving to ‘Vancouver’ six years ago. This was also his first time shooting something so large scale, a conceptual shoot with multiple collaborators. In terms of styling, I remember talking to my friend Ashley Jim about

Her finger pulls her eyelid towards her tem ple, referencing the childish microaggres sion against Asians by mocking their eye shape. This gesture is full of contradiction as well as reclamation.

However, the name ‘Ladyboy’ is quite popular in the world of drag, and I couldn’t find an Insta gram handle involving the name without defiling it with random dots and underscores. “How about Bangkok?” I proposed to my bestie. We liked it. It was simple, witty, ironically honest, and references my Thai heritage. We talked about different ways to spell it, considering the sug gestive “Bang-cock,” but ulti mately deciding against it for it felt a little too pointed. Spelling the name that way felt like I was boxing it in to the overtly sexual representation of Thai culture, not to mention that there was already a queen somewhere else with that spelling. Plus, the name of Thailand’s capital and largest city already does the work for me. Bangkok had been named.

our dreams and aspirations while laying on my bed. She had expressed to me that she wanted to pursue styling at the same time that I told her I wanted to start drag. It was only natural that she would be the first ever stylist that I worked with, as I was her first official client. Dreams beget more dreams.

The final step of Bangkok’s emer gence into this world as a real entity was her first ever photo shoot. I wanted this photoshoot to be a declaration. I wanted Bangkok to burst through the frame of the image saying, “I have finally arrived, and it’s about Time,” as stated by all those who supported me along the way. I wanted to be able to see her in a way that others could see her, as her own entity.

After my first few performances, I realized that performing in front of people wasn’t exactly the thing I needed to do to make her feel like she was real. My first ever performance was virtual, which was fitting for Bangkok given her fascination with the digital realm, and it was staged in my room. Something about being able to see her on a screen made it feel more real—a prod uct of living in our newly hyper virtualized world. Being Bangkok is not the same as seeing Bang kok, and I needed to see Bangkok on the screen of my Macbook or within the endless scroll of my Instagram feed or TikTok ‘For You Page’ to feel like she was actually present. I needed the validation

Now, I consider Bangkok to be my surname, and Ladyboi as a sort of title. As I explore more facets of Bangkok, I realize that even the name is subjective and fluid. I’ve already birthed two alter egos of my alter ego, BangCaucAsian (the white side of them) and BOYKOK (the masculine side of them).

Ashley Jim: artistic director, fashion stylist

TRIBUTARIES

Jenn Xu: photography assistant, second photographer

Alicia Sun: assistant stylist

Anson Xu: productionvideographer,assistant

Sherburne, P. (2020, May 20). Live From Quarantine, It’s the Arca Show. Pitchfork Magazine. the-arca-show/tures/interview/live-from-quarantine-its-https://pitchfork.com/fea

- Bangkok

References

that the mistakes you’ve made have made you who you are and also that pain has made you grow, even if it has held you so down at some point. This song for me is about holding space for that contradiction, that I can love my pain and think it’s beautiful and transformative but also still somehow… painful. Pain is transformative if you let it be.

photos are my own kicks: a declaration that I am ever present and that my individual journey may birth many queer realities, utopias, and worlds that my guarded, scared, and crying childhood self would never have imagined was possible. Only in her dreams did she ever kick for what she deserved.

reveals her to the world. This light shines upon her queer divinity and illuminates her upward gaze. In a 2020 interview with Pitchfork regarding her album KiCk i, Arca spoke of what the title means to her. It references the prenatal kick within the mother’s womb that marks a child’s manifesta tion of its own distinct individ uality: “When a child is brought into the world, kicking is the first manifestation of its will. So I see it as a metaphor for individua tion, for choosing to differenti ate yourself. It’s a rallying cry to kick against categorization. If it’s oppressive, kick against it. And I liked that it was physical” (Arca, These2020).

James Albers: artistic director, writer, performer, model

Alger Liang: photographer, producer

“Born Yesterday” by Arca was the perfect song to burst into this world with. This song is also both a declaration and a reclamation. The lyrics speak of taking one’s power and confidence back after heartbreak, ideas that I am all too familiar with. To me, the song is about empowerment through vulnerability. It’s about admitting

Her lived experiences are defined by this difficult middle space— not Asian enough, not white enough. Bangkok is the embodi ment of this contradiction.

In this womb-like darkness, Bangkok looks up at the light as though it is her own god—a sort of life-giving shimmer that

68 TRIBUTARIES ForumDialoguesACAM Finding virtual community through ACAM Dialogues: Building Anti-Racism on Campus Scan this QR code to check out more from ACAM Dialogues, including the latest cohorts and podcast episodes, as well as the history and ethos of how and why ACAM Dialogues was founded.

This forum and the 2021/2022 ACAM Dialogues would not have been possible without the sup port and dedication of many individuals and communities. We would like to express our grati tude to Szu Shen (ACAM Program Manager) and Dr. JP Catungal (Interim ACAM Program Direc tor, 2021-22) for their guidance throughout this project. Our thanks to the Chan Family Foun dation for their generous support of this program. Lastly, we would like to thank all our cohort mem bers for their willingness to think carefully and critically about anti-racist work on campus and to foster a generous space of learning and community. •

digital media coverage of global events and their implications surrounding how we talk about race, racialization, and racism in community. Emily Law considers virtuality’s implications for tem porality and spatiality, pushing us towards developing spaces where questions about race, (anti-)racism, and racialization are allowed nuance, even as they also enable meaningful relationships between people. Together, both their reflections invite us to think through the relation between vir tuality and dialogue around race. We hope this forum offers a place to share the cohort’s learnings from the past year with our broader community. As we think together about what it means to build community and organize in spaces of virtuality, ongo ing reflection around the ways we relate to each other remains crucial. In publishing this forum, one of our goals is to open up our cohort’s conversations to broader contexts, inviting our contributors to situate them selves within ongoing collective discussions surrounding virtuality and anti-racism.

This forum, titled “Finding vir tual community through ACAM Dialogues: Building Anti-Racism on Campus,” responds to the volume’s theme of virtuality. Striving to foster community and anti-racist work in the midst of a pandemic, the concept of virtual ity heavily informed our approach to the ACAM Dialogues, both in terms of learning and activism in virtual spaces. We are interested in exploring what it looks like to foster and sustain relationality and anti-racist learning across virtual platforms that shift our understandings and experiences of being together in time and

amanda wan Olivia& Lim

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The ACAM Dialogues: Building Anti-Racism on Campus is an ini tiative that offers a student-fa cilitated, workshop-style series that aims to develop strong foundations for student-driven coalition building and peer learn ing around anti-racist work. This project builds off the broader work of the UBC Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies (ACAM) program, an interdisci plinary minor that encompassess courses addressing topics across a wide range of Asian trans/ national contexts, including histories, identities, mobilities, and experiences. Beyond course work, ACAM focuses on fostering community-building and capac ity-building around anti-racism on campus and in the broader community, embracing creative approaches to cultivate dialogue around pressing issues and ques tions related to Asian transna tional communities.

This year, the ACAM Dialogues embraced a cohort model to attend to pandemic safety con cerns and to focus on cultivating accessible engagement. A small cohort of BIPOC undergraduate and graduate students from a variety of disciplines met once per month throughout the aca demic year to engage in collec tive learning around approaches to anti-racism. In this sense, the series provides a low-barrier but robust space for students to connect with other students interested in anti-racism work

Inspace.this forum, two cohort mem bers reflect on their relation to virtuality, in conversation with this issue theme alongside ques tions evoked by their partici pation in the ACAM Dialogues. Gurnoor Powar addresses the ways in which the meaning of racialization and safety can take on different forms across virtual spaces, exploring the uneven

on campus, all while developing important learnings and skills related to community organizing. In 2021/2022, the cohort meet ings addressed a range of topics including: settler colonialism and Asian-Indigenous relations; BIPOC Futurities (interactive work shop); ideas of Canadian multi culturalism in anti-racism; white supremacy and work culture in community organizing; mental health in the Asian diaspora; intergenerational, intercommu nity, and intersectional dialogue in practice (public roundtable/ panel). As the coordinators for this year’s series, we had the opportunity to facilitate these monthly dialogues with the cohort, drawing on our own posi tionalities and experiences as ACAM alumni, ACAM student staff, and graduate students at UBC.

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Scan this QR code to check out more from ACAM Dialogues, including the latest cohorts and podcast episodes, as well as the history and ethos of how and why ACAM Dialogues was founded.

ForumDialoguesACAM

Engaging with anti-racism edu cation as an Indian woman, I find that there is so much to learn in regard to just the Asian presence in the BC that I’ve been in the dark about for so many years. The virtual space of the ACAM Dialogues along with the added time between group meetings allows me to learn about all these topics at my own pace.

Gurnoor Powar

I joined ACAM Dialogues at the beginning of my third year shortly before switching my minor into ACAM spontaneously after finding out about the minor program. I’m currently about to enter my fourth and last year of my degree, with a major in English literature. I love reading, doing anything creative, and I’m a great cook (though that’s my very biased opinion). I’ve begun to get a lot more involved in my community in and outside of UBC during my third year, but my only regret is not starting sooner. And ACAM Dialogues for sure is a big part of that—a community that I hope to be a part of for a few more years if my grad uate studies keep me at UBC.

Thesespace.spaces

are, more or less, public and usually anonymous, and what is great about these virtual spaces is that people speak freely. What we perhaps cannot fathom about how rac ism is propagated can be found online, along with the way peo ple who are racist think and feel. These responses are transcribed into history after being shared with the public, and more than ever it gives us a glimpse into the changing attitudes of gen erations and the way different demographics think. It takes away any comfortable distance we find when we read about racism in news headlines or hear about instances of racial violence from others—rather, you find yourself reading the intimate and anonymous thoughts of people around the world. And as hard as that is, it’s also just as enlight ening as our thoughts can be to them. So, in the way that virtual platforms act as a safe or unsafe space, they have allowed me some freedom to choose what I want to see and understand. •

Besides making it easier to attend and partake in discus sions, I feel that engaging in discussion behind a screen with a group of like-minded people is a lot more comfortable than tak ing up these heavy topics (like racism, Asian-Canadian assimila tion, Asian-Canadian history as a whole) in a class and in per son. Beyond that, every voice is heard, and there is no obligation to speak, but when you do you feel like you’re actively contrib uting in a significant way to the discussion. You can enter into these Zoom meetings and just learn too without having to say a whole lot.

responses, digest information, and more, at their own pace.

Can these conversations erad icate discrimination? Perhaps that’s a far-fetched dream in our lifetime given the amount of racism we still see or hear of in our everyday lives and the denial nations like Canada live in when it comes to accepting their white supremacist roots, but it’s always a possibility! What these conver sations can do instead is foster a community to discuss topics of mutual interests, share personal insight and stories, and help indi viduals cultivate knowledge that they may otherwise not be able to learn outside of the virtual

The first thing that comes to mind is the privilege of anonym ity in the virtual space. Often we come across trending topics relating to race and racism, and it doesn’t take much digging to find at least a few comments online that support racially motivated violence. And I think it’s worth noting that only some headlines about racism become hot topics in media, yet so often I see cases regarding violence trending, arguably because it’s not against a minoritized group whose oppression is normalized. When tragedy befalls anyone besides the ‘other’ it becomes stormed with media attention and public uproar.

many examples. Forums like these prompt lively thinking, delivering a space that, because of its ano nymity, feels safe for me.

Although race and racism have long been discussed both inside and outside of virtual spaces, these topics are sometimes portrayed as “hot” topics that become temporarily viral in the mainstream,often following public and spectacular forms of violence(e.g.imagesofphysical attacks,racist graffiti,demon strations)thatarecirculatedinvirtualspaces.Whatdoesitmeantohaveconversationsaroundraceandracism,virtuallyorotherwise,beyondthistimelineofvirality?

Some virtual spaces are indeed filled with racialized hatred, and it’s not hard to come across forums like that on the web. But virtual spaces can also create spaces filled with individuals speaking out about racism, becoming a source of discus sion for these topics. Reddit is filled with these type of forums, and Tik Tok has just as many helpful posts about topics like racism that allow commentors to discuss and that prompt more videos. And that’s just a few of

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Through ACAM Dialogues I found myself in a community of people that accepts me and is happy to see me because I am here and willing to learn. You are not there for credits or any other obliga tions—you’re there because you are genuinely interested in what ACAM Dialogues has to offer you. And for me that’s a safe space.

Engaging with a topic like racism can itself be daunting, especially if you’ve had past experiences with racism. There is just so much to really learn and digest, and at the same time it’s a topic that you can feel hesitant to really engage with other people about. But ACAM Dialogues allowed me to reflect on my own experiences internally and make sense of the topic of racism as a whole. It also has allowed me to share the information we’ve discussed with my peers, creating, perhaps, mini forums in which we share resources or stories of our own in smaller virtual groups. And these virtual spaces make it more inclusive and easier for individu als to really be a part of a group, allowing for discussion that doesn’t have to be allotted a spe cific time or location while letting individuals think through their

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Emily Law

Scan this QR code to check out more from ACAM Dialogues, including the latest cohorts and podcast episodes, as well as the history and ethos of how and why ACAM Dialogues was founded.

ForumDialoguesACAM

73 VOLUME FOUR 73 73

However, the interplay between virality and digital permanence is complex. While topics of race and racism seem to withstand the passing of time, their impor tance and prevalence still seem bound to their timeline of virality and exposure. Engagement with regards to these topics shift as a result of the two. The temporality of virality results in a very sur face-level engagement. Unless conscious engagement occurs between two people, conversa tion does not typically evolve out of a singular comment. It does not take long before one swipes away to the next post where the same motions are repeated again and again: see, react, com ment, and repeat. What this does is enable a passive response to topics that require a much more active approach.

There is no doubt that conver sations surrounding race and racism are important. Especially after the surge in hate crimes against Asians, the repeated incidents of violence against Black people, the mistreatment of Indigenous communities… time has allowed for the desire and need for change to grow. While virality allows for the expo sure of such important topics, it does not preserve their impor tance across the digital space. Perhaps what needs to be fos tered are virtual spaces beyond that of the comment section for us to unpack these issues. A space for us to understand why these issues still exist in a world that preaches equality and inclu sivity. A space for us to under stand what underlying prejudices and stereotypes are damaging our ability to respect and under stand one another. A space to explore what more needs to be done for us to preserve these conversations beyond its viral timeline and to move forward. •

issue and of the discussion a lit tle longer before it is forgotten or overshadowed by another wave of virality. This space has been something I treasured greatly being in this cohort.

on different forms in the vir tual space. Viral topics only last brief periods, allowing individual interactions to last a mere few minutes. Virtuality provides the space to react and respond to viral topics; to express sadness and grief towards the tragedy that has occurred; to condemn the horrendous acts of vio lence and to reinforce the need for change. However, when the topic resurfaces beyond its viral timeline, time seems to stop; older and more similar stories are remembered, and the same emotions are provoked. Digital permanence, ensuring that infor mation is retained so long as the technology remains viable, takes effect and these topics seem to withstand the test of time.

My time in the ACAM Dialogues cohort has allowed me the opportunity to see that conver sation around race and racism is possible beyond the timeline of virality, both online and offline. When you are physically pres ent with one another, you are given a space to reflect beyond your reactions. You are able to dig deeper into these issues: the “Why?”, the “How?”, and the “Now what?” rather than just the “What?” In many ways, physical presence prolongs the tempo rality of these conversations, preserving the importance of the

James Albers

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Jessamine Kara Liu (柳垂萱)

Vanessa Matsubara

Vanessa Matsubara (any pronouns) is a writer and artist raised on Treaty 1 territory. Their work tends to explore feminine rela tionships, QPOC experiences, and prairie Asians. Matsubara is the new director of UBC’s Exposure, a co-producer of Artivism 2022: The Politics of the Body, and is a third year Media Studies student.

Alger Liang

Jessamine Liu (she/her) is an egg obsessed, queer woman of colour, and diasporic writer with roots in Taiwan, the Philippines, and provinces in China. Aside from writing, Jessamine also dabbles in her many, many arts-n-crafts hobbies from polymer clay to embroidery. She is also a bunso energy (aka youngest child vibes), plant mama and aspiring counsellor, and in many ways, strives to be more chaotic like her halfling wild magic sorcerer D&D counterpart.

James Albers is an emerging artist, cura tor, writer, organizer, performer, and drag artist based on xwməθkwəýəm (Musqueam), skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and seĺíĺwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) territories. They recently graduated from the department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver with a double major in Visual Arts and Art History. During their final year, they were the Assistant Director of the Hatch Art Gallery, UBC’s only student run art space. Conceptually, their practice often adopts collaborative and community-oriented approaches as they see this as a productive way to subvert singular and limited perspectives within artistic spaces and worlds. James is inter ested in exploring the queer potentials of revisionist histories and chooses to believe in the magic of fiction. Recently, James has been thinking through the truth that a perfect lie may hold.

Emily Law

Alger Liang 梁家傑 (he/him) is an emerging interdisciplinary artist, photographer, film maker, and writer based in Vancouver, BC on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam peoples.

CONTRIBUTORS

Emily Law 羅穎賢 spends her days thinking about the world and our place in it. Only recently did she decide to write these thoughts down and share them with the world. Inspired by her grandparents’ stories during her childhood, Emily hopes to create and share meaningful stories as well.

Alger situates the body as the centre of research and uses a lens-based practice to speak on identity, grief, memory, and space. He is currently exploring movement-based photography and video. Alger recently grad uated with a BA from the University of Brit ish Columbia with a major in Visual Art and a minor in Asian Canadian and Asian Migration studies program.

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Fyonna Laddaran (she/her) is passionate about amplifying others’ stories and spark ing curiosity through creative mediums such as illustration, graphic design, and branding.

Gurnoor Powar

Victoria Sin (she/her) is a third-year student pursuing a major in Commerce with a minor in Asian Canadian and Asian Migration stud ies. Born and raised in Hong Kong, she now learns, works, and creates on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded lands of the xwməθkwəýəm (Musqueam), seĺíĺwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and skwxwú7mesh (Squa mish) First Nations. She is most interested in exploring topics of hybridity, femininity, and new media in her writing, and as well, she hopes to encourage open discussions about race, culture, and their relationship with capitalism through dialogues in traditionally “professional” contexts, such as the modern workplace.

Michelle Fong.

Michelle Fong (she/her) is currently study ing design in architecture with a passion for environmental sciences. She enjoys film, photography, visual arts, and loves to dance!

CONTRIBUTORS

Victoria Sin

Jenica Pong (she/her) is a second year business student at UBC (on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xwməθkwəýəm [Musqueam] people), with hopes of pursuing marketing and media in her future. Growing up dancing, she is fascinated by movement, music, and film, and is always ready to talk about her most recent finds.

Jennifer Szutu

Jennifer Szutu (she/her) is a UBC under graduate student studying Marketing and minoring in Asian Canadian and Asian Migra tion studies. As a Chinese Canadian with roots in the Sze Yup region of Canton, she is interested in understanding and platforming Asian diasporic experiences.

Fyonna Laddaran

Gurnoor Powar is a UBC student specializing in English with a minor in ACAM. She is cur rently about to enter into her fourth year and is thoroughly surprised three years have passed. She loves cheesy romances, but everything she writes is dreary and dark. Don’t ask her why—she doesn’t know either. Born and raised in Canada, unbelievably afraid of sharks, her greatest interests are her family and friends (plus her books).

Jenica Pong

Olivia is grateful to be living on the tra ditional, ancestral, and unceded territo ries of the xwməθkwəýəm (Musqueam), skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and seĺíĺwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) nations as a settler of Chi nese Filipino and European ancestry.

Olivia (she/her) is a graduate student com pleting her MA in English Literature at the University of British Columbia. Working at the intersection of critical disability studies and Asian transpacific studies, her thesis explores how understandings of disability and debility impact frameworks of redress in contemporary Asian transpacific literature. Her current and past community projects center around anti-racism education and Asian diasporic community building, most recently working with organizations like the UBC Equity & Inclusion Office, the UBC Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies (ACAM) program, and the hua foundation. She is currently the Special Project Coordi nator at the UBC ACAM.

An (she/her) is a graduating student at the University of British Columbia living on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded terri tories of the xwməθkwəýəm (Musqueam), skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and seĺíĺwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) nations as a 1.5 genera tion Chinese Canadian settler. Her academic interests in her major of English Literature and minor of Asian Canadian and Asian Migration studies (ACAM) have focused on post-colonial and critical race theory and Asian diasporic and transnational experi ences of migration.

Kailey Tam

Kailey Tam 譚慧義 (they/them) is a recent graduate from the University of British Columbia with an undergraduate degree in Honours English Literature and Language and a minor in Asian Canadian and Asian Migration studies (ACAM). Kailey is inter ested in work related to public policy, legal design, and accessibility, especially centering historically and currently margin alized and underrepresented communities. Kailey currently resides on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xwməθkwəýəm (Musqueam), skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and seĺíĺwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) nations.

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EDITORS

Currently, she is a part of several communi ty-based projects that centre community connections through storytelling in her work with UBC INSTRCC. She also serves as the Program Marketing and Communications Coordinator for the UBC ACAM program. An can be found cooking too much food, (dreaming about) skiing, and thinking about all the books she has yet to read.

Olivia Lim

Emily Law

Emily Law 羅穎賢 is a first-generation Chi nese Canadian settler of Cantonese descent based on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squa mish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. She is currently pursuing a double major in Psy chology and English, with an emphasis in language and literature. Through her studies, Emily seeks to understand the individual in both intra- and interpersonal levels; specifi cally, how the interplay between the human mind, societal and cultural factors influence and create one’s identity. Outside of work, you can find Emily building models, making music, journaling, reading, or taking a nap.

An Xu

Gurnoor Powar

Gurnoor Powar is a second generation Indo-Canadian currently based on the ancestral and unceded territories of the the xwməθkwəýəm (Musqueam), skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and seĺíĺwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. As of now she is entering into her fourth year at UBC in the Faculty of Arts with a major in English with an emphasis on literature, and a minor in ACAM.

amanda wan

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amanda creates poetry and artwork in the form of zines, illustrations, and published work in Room Magazine, Augur Maga zine, LooseLeaf Magazine, and elsewhere. They also serve as the current Community Engagement & Events Coordinator at the UBC Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies (ACAM) program.

She is especially interested in becoming part of more community projects that focus on sharing and teaching community stories that create tangible connections to the past, through Asian-centered history that have long been untold. Only recently has she been introduced to the ACAM program which has facilitated in her a passion for not only her own community history but others too.

EDITORS Keep up with ACAM: Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies UBC @ubcacam @UBCACAM

Naomi Leung 梁珮恩 (they/she) is a stu dent, climate/racial justice organizer, and Han Chinese Malaysian settler on stolen and unsurrended xwməθkwəýəm (Musqueam) and scəẁaθən (Tsawwassen) territories. They are entering their second year studying global resource systems with a focus on climate and environmental sciences, public health, and climate emotions.

Naomi Leung

amanda wan (they/them) is a queer han chinese settler based on the unceded, occupied territories of the xwməθkwəýəm (Musqueam), skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and seĺíĺwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. They are currently working on a thesis project around the erotic mediations of techno-Orientalist aesthetics, and the critical ambivalence that registers such as virtuality or “Asiatic” skin produce. In particular, they are thinking with Ocean Vuong’s OnEarthWe’reBrieflyGor geous and Larissa Lai’s TheTiger Flu in the process of writing about relationality, fan tasy, and the eroticized intimacies of power within queer Asian transpacific literatures.

She has a background organizing for climate justice education, harm reduction, and pol icy change with Climate Education Reform BC, Sustainabiliteens, and Climate Justice UBC. She enjoys creating digital art, listening to music and time with friends, family, and her dog Oreo.

The fourth edition of Tributaries asks how virtuality influences, continues, transforms, and creates conceptions of Asian and Asian Canadian diasporic identities and communities.

In virtuality, the hypothetical becomes real, without being tangible or physical, yet with felt consequences. In the past two years, we have conducted meetings and classes, watched movies and con certs, made new friends, created social movements—virtually. Are these events any less actual, any less significant, for being virtual?

Virtuality is troublesome to define and potentially contradictory in its mean ings. It can mean existing in essence or in possibility—an ambiguous state between reality and the hypothetical. However, its definition becomes complicated when we introduce virtual worlds born of technology and mediated by algorithms. Each person experiences their own vast world made small—the limitlessness of virtuality qualified by For You pages and targeted ads. Our knowledge is broadened, yet restricted, and while more connected than ever, we are all the more lonely for it.

This issue seeks to address the following interrelated questions: How does virtual ity influence the continuities, changes, and creation of Asian identities? What gets lost and what is created through the upload from the physical to online, and vice versa? How does virtuality shift and interrogate our understandings and definitions of reality and authenticity?

TRIBUTARIES