Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, the Japanese pop singer and kawaii model, toured Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles to support small businesses that were deeply affected by the pandemic.
Her tour included brief stops at JANM, Anime Jungle, Bunkado, Café Dulce, Fugetsu-do, Honda Plaza, Koyasan Buddhist Temple, the Metro station platform, and Okayama Kobo. Her visit was part of her Local Power Japan project, an initiative that included 30 stops to towns and cities throughout Japan to boost local tourism and make her performances more accessible to fans.
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and Masako Miki discuss the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans in Common Ground: The Heart of Community.Kyary Pamyu Pamyu in front of The Interactive StoryFile of Lawson Iichiro Sakai. Photo by Helen Yoshida.
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu also received a set of gifts or omiyage from the JANM Store that were selected and presented by Alexa Nishimoto, the marketing associate for JANM and self-proclaimed super fan of the musician. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu enjoyed the exhibitions and encouraged visitors to learn how the history of Japanese Americans continues to affect future generations.
“The work JANM does is so important for future generations to see,” said Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. “It is important for people to learn about this history.”
Alexa Nishimoto presents Kyary Pamyu Pamyu with gifts from the JANM Store. Photo by Helen Yoshida.
Bunkado, Café Dulce, Fugetsu-do, and Okayama Kobo will offer Kyary Pamyu Pamyu-themed food throughout May 2022 at the discretion of store management. Café Dulce and Fugetsu-do are offering Kyary Pamyu Pamyu-themed donuts and mochi. Bunkado is selling Kyary Pamyu Pamyu-themed shirts through the end of this month.
Alexa Nishimoto with the Kyary Pamyu Pamyu-themed pastry at Okayama Kobo. Photo courtesy Alexa Nishimoto.
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s April visit to Little Tokyo and merchandise dovetails with Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month during May 2022. And what better way to celebrate Heritage Month than with a visit to JANM?
Visit JANM to explore our exhibitions to learn about the Japanese American experience!
Audrey Chanjason chuAudrey Chan, Los Angeles-based artist, illustrator, and educator. Photo by Jason Pierre. Rapper jason chu in Los Angeles Chinatown. Photo by George Shaw.
In September 2021, the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy at the Japanese American National Museum (NCPD@JANM) and Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles (Advancing Justice-LA) invited artists to apply for the Artists At Work (AAW) initiative.
Born out of the coronavirus pandemic and inspired by the Works Progress Administration, the AAW initiative employs artists in U.S. cities and regions to create original public-facing art and connect them to cultural institutions. The initiative also ties the artists and cultural institutions to social justice, economic, health, housing, and immigration issues in their local communities.
In December 2021, NCPD@JANM and Advancing Justice-LA selected Audrey Chan and Jason Chu as the 2022 recipients of this initiative. Chan is an illustrator and educator. Chu is a rapper and spoken word poet. Together they will create new artwork focusing on anti-Asian hate and racism.
Chan’s work blends visual and public art with film and research to challenge dominant historical narratives. Growing up in Oak Park, Illinois, she identified as an artist from a young age.
“My art is about picturing the possibilities of what the world could look and feel like if the lived experiences, desires, and struggles of historically marginalized communities were centered in the stories of America’s past, present, and future,” said Chan.
A Delaware native, Chu’s music and poetry stem from exposure to hip hop at an early age.
“I grew up with hip hop. It’s what made me Asian American. The community, the culture, the racial consciousness. I was surrounded by people who were using this art to hold a heritage. It’s a venue for having conversations that I wanted to have and to hear,” Chu said.
“My art is about picturing the possibilities of what the world could look and feel like if the lived experiences, desires, and struggles of historically marginalized communities were centered in the stories of America’s past, present, and future.”
Audrey Chan
Chu earned his bachelor’s in Philosophy at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. He earned his master’s from Fuller’s Center for Asian American Theology and Ministry in Pasadena, California. His music and poetry are influenced by the work of Ms. Lauryn Hill, Wu-Tang Clan, Lupe Fiasco, and Kanye West. His three biggest influences are Kendrick Lamar, Bono, and Ai Wei Wei.
“All of them are speaking of hope and healing in a broken world. They show what art can be for people,” he said.
Chan’s art is inspired by the work of Maya Lin, Adrian Piper, and Kerry James Marshall and her own family history. Chan earned her bachelor’s in Studio Art and Political Science at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. She earned her master’s from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia, California. As she developed her craft, her work also became inspired by political and social issues of the early 2000s.
“In the year prior [to graduate school], I had worked on a grassroots campaign to persuade voters in swing districts of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to vote for John Kerry during the 2004 presidential election. The invasion of Iraq was underway and I wanted to understand if and how art could be a political medium to mobilize for social justice and to give voice to frustration with the status quo.”
At CalArts, she connected with artists who were a part of the Feminist Art Movement through a campus-wide class project on the legacy of the university’s Feminist Art Program.
“I appreciated that Southern California was a place where artists could be unabashedly political, conceptual, and experimental,” she said.
When Chu moved to Los Angeles ten years ago, he sought a very specific movement.
“I moved here to Los Angeles to identify as an Asian American rapper and poet. I was seeking out a pan-ethnic community, and that’s a strength of the West Coast. The strength of the East Coast is that there is a strong understanding of racialization. Not only in urban areas, but in small-town America too. I like to say that Asian America means all Asian Americans,” he said.
Chu was inspired to apply to this initiative after a friend tagged him on JANM’s Instagram post.
“I grew up with hip hop. It’s what made me Asian American. The community, the culture, the racial consciousness. I was surrounded by people who were using this art to hold a heritage.”
Jason Chu
“My friend, a Cuban American choreographer, tagged me and said ‘Jason this sounds like you.’ This fellowship embodies everything I strive to do because it builds a communal consciousness.”
For Chan, there were many different aspects of the initiative that spoke to her.
“The AAW initiative was an opportunity to partner with NCPD@JANM and Advancing Justice-LA, two inspiring organizations that have been on the frontlines of defending democracy and centering the needs and cultural specificities of AAPI communities. By working together, we’re finding ways to merge art and advocacy to move the needle forward in representing the diversity of AAPI communities and building the solidarities that are essential to survive and thrive in the face of racist hatred and hostility. I also deeply appreciate that the fellowship recognizes art as a form of essential cultural labor and gives new life to the legacy of the Works Progress Administration,” she said.
Chan and Chu plan to create a new artwork that engages multiple generations, represents Southern California Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, and stands alongside other communities fighting against injustice, hate, and violence.
“We’re working on building a collective visual and textual vocabulary for this moment that can be translated into multiple languages and that can be activated through installations, events, and public participation. By making the project bilingual, we hope to provide another resource for intergenerational communication, but also to serve as a reminder that there is so much to learn about and from each other,” said Chan.
This Sunday, August 21, at 2 p.m., JANM is pleased to host a unique staged reading of Arthur Miller’s iconic drama, “Death of a Salesman.” Directed by Michael Miraula and produced by Tadamori Yagi, the reading will feature a predominantly Asian American cast as it attempts to explore minority relations within the larger context of mainstream white America in the late 1950s.
To learn more about this production, we conducted the following interview with Yagi, an LA–based actor who, in addition to producing this reading, also plays the role of Biff, Willy Loman’s son.
Actor and producer Tadamori YagiJANM: How did this production of “Death of a Salesman” come about?
Tadamori Yagi: I really wanted to work on this play; specifically, I wanted to act the role of Biff. When considering how best to go about this, I immediately realized two things: 1) Willy’s family would have to be cast as Asian American, and 2) I’d probably have to produce it myself.
It all seemed like a huge, impossible undertaking. But then I found an article about a group of students at the Stanford Asian American Theater Project who produced their own version of “Death of a Salesman” in 2013. After reading it, I said to myself, “I should at least do something!” Since I didn’t have the experience or resources to do a full production of the play, I decided to go with a staged reading instead.
JANM: Tell us about the structure of the play. Who will be playing what roles, and how does the casting work with the existing narrative?
TY: The play consists of two acts centering around the life of a traveling salesman named Willy Loman and his pursuit of success and the American Dream. Time-wise, it takes place in the late 1950s.
When casting the play it was important to me that the family be an accurate portrayal of a multi-ethnic Asian American family. The reason for this was personal, as I am Japanese-Chinese-Korean American. The actor who plays Willy (Kelvin Han Yee) is Chinese American while Willy’s wife Linda (Marilyn Tokuda) is Japanese American. Meanwhile, the actors playing the sons, Happy (Kenzo Lee) and Biff (myself), both have mixed Chinese and Japanese ethnicity.
APIA actors are often cast randomly without regards to their actual ethnicity but, for a family drama, I felt casting accurately would make it feel more authentic. I also decided to cast Willy’s neighbor Charlie (William Gabriel Grier) and his son Bernard (Ky Soto) with African American actors. Through these unconventional casting choices, I wanted to subvert social stereotypes of both the Asian American and African American communities—challenging, for example, the Asian American model minority myth.
It was also important to me that the casting of the play be historically and culturally accurate. For example, I consciously made the choice to cast Willy Loman as Chinese American; if he were Japanese American, he and his family would have been interned during the war years and he would not have been able to work as a traveling salesman.
Likewise, before I cast Charlie’s family as African American I made sure to research whether or not there were actually black lawyers presenting cases before the Supreme Court at that time. Luckily it turned out that during the late 1950s, there was a small number of black lawyers presenting civil rights cases before the Supreme Court—one of them being future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Historical accuracy and authenticity are important to me.
Tadamori YagiJANM: “Whitewashing” (the practice of casting white actors in non-white roles) has been increasingly called out in the media. Do you consider this version of Arthur Miller’s play to be your response to whitewashing in the entertainment industry?
TY: While I did not explicitly intend for the casting to be a response to “whitewashing,” I suppose it could be interpreted that way.
JANM: What do you hope will be the audience’s takeaway after seeing your play?
TY: I hope this reading of the play will resonate with the audience in such a way that some will recognize aspects of themselves or their own families in the play.
JANM: Are there other iconic plays or films that you think would benefit from a similar treatment?
TY: I love period pieces and I love family dramas. I picked “Death of a Salesman” because, in addition to being a compelling drama, it has an inherent universality that can accommodate an ethnically diverse cast. I’m sure there are tons of other iconic plays that could work, especially the more modern ones, like “The Odd Couple,” “Of Mice and Men,” or “Waiting for Godot.”
Ironically, for all the pains I took to cast the play in a “realistic” way, what I took away from the whole process was this: if you love the material and it speaks to you on a human and personal level, the other details don’t really matter so much. As a creative person you should just do the work and you will find a way to make it fit somehow. And if you can’t find a story that adequately fits your experience, you should create your own story, because getting to do the work you love is the main thing.
Tadamori Yagi’s staged reading of “Death of a Salesman” is free with museum admission. RSVPs are recommended here.
Dumbfoundead, whose given name is Jonathan Park, is a Korean American rapper. Born in Buenos Aires, “DFD” was raised in LA’s Koreatown. At the age of 10, he got his first exposure to hip hop at a community center in MacArthur Park. He further honed his craft at Project Blowed, an open-mic workshop in Leimert Park. He began to achieve renown after participating in the West Coast division of the rap battle Grind Time Now. Today he has a strong presence on YouTube, where he has over 400,000 followers, and has released three solo albums to date.
Dumbfoundead will be headlining JANM’s outdoor Summer Night Concert on Thursday, August 18, along with other hip hop and electronic music stars. Our summer Getty Multicultural Undergraduate Intern in production, Michael Chang, conducted the following interview with the rapper via email.
Michael Chang: What drew you to music, specifically hip hop and rap, as a way to express yourself creatively?
Dumbfoundead: There was always an “I don’t give a ____” attitude that came with rap music. I feel like I can say whatever I want when I rhyme it over a beat. There’s a lot of power in music. Hip hop as a genre specifically has always been rebellious and DIY, and I like that aspect of it—it makes something out of nothing.
MC: As a creative person, what do you think makes Los Angeles a unique place to work?
DFD: We have so many little neighborhoods, and each one makes you feel like you’re stepping into another country. Being in this city really is the definition of the American experience; I feel like I learn more every day about different cultures and how unique everybody is, which helps me write universal stories and songs.
MC: Do you think LA is more conducive to a thriving scene for artists of color?
DFD: I love that LA is as diverse as it is. The community of AAPI entertainers here is bigger than anywhere else in the world and I definitely do not take that for granted. I think it’s important that we tell the stories of our people with all the outlets we have here. I know when I tour the Midwest I get a lot of AAPI artists coming up to me and talking about the lack of creative outlets in their town.
MC: The music video for your song “Safe” critiques how Hollywood erases and ignores AAPI identities in mainstream media. Do you think executives, directors, and other people in power inside the entertainment/media industry do this with intent or more subconsciously?
DFD: I think it’s a little bit of both. It’s almost a new idea to throw us into leading roles and in some cases they can’t even imagine us playing those characters. In other cases, they aren’t willing to take the chance because they think white actors are a safer bet for box office success. We need more people of color behind the scenes—writers, producers, directors, and executives—pushing our stories forward. We can’t just wait for those roles to come along, or expect them to be written by people who don’t know anything about our experiences. We have to write our own stories.
MC: Looking into the future, are there any other media or disciplines you’d like to explore?
DFD: I would love to write, direct, and act in films. TV and films have always been big passions of mine and there are so many stories that still need to be told. For right now though, I’ll settle for writing treatments for my music videos [laughs].
JANM’s Summer Night Concerts series kicks off this year with “Viva La Taiko” on July 21 and continues with “Electronic and Hip Hop Night” on August 18. Concerts are held on the plaza; admission is free and no RSVP is needed. For more information, visit janm.org.
Michael Chang majors in Graphic Design and Painting at the University of Southern California.
