On this two-sided panel, I portray the“double life” I felt like I was living growing up attending two separate schools - American school on Mondays through Fridays, and Japanese school all day on Saturdays. Mondays through Fridays, I unknowingly was internalizing messages about what it meant to be Asian in America, including being the “smart Asian girl.” While on Saturdays, I (without much surprise to my teachers or classmates) nearly failed if not completely bombed most of my tests. I was also shy, quiet, and never raised my hand in American school, while in Japanese school I loved to goof off and often annoyed my teachers. While I usually tend to paint all my 10 years of Japanese school with a negative brush and it is still an experience I haven’t fully processed, one way of embracing my Japanese identity has been learning to appreciate the ways in which Japanese school provided me with a refuge from having to fit into a white American school culture. Although attending a Japanese school prevented me from having certain experiences growing up, I sometimes think back to those times and miss the freedom it gave me to be unapologetically Japanese, and unapologetically me.
pizza and bentos, two-sided wooden panel, acrylic on wood, featured in the Page Turn group show curated by Viss at The Fishbowl on display from June 1-28, 2024