Guiding questions:
How are you working through issues of self-tokenizing in your current projects?
What are some situations where you’ve felt your work was misconstrued or used to represent your whole culture(s)?
How do you navigate wanting to sincerely depict your background without falling too much into neo-colonial tropes?
What are the implications of using non-English languages in your work that circulates in English language contexts?

Who is this event for?
All are welcome, and creators of color with questions about culture, belonging, and international creative solidarity are especially encouraged to join.
Can I register and just listen, not participate in the discussion?
Yes, sure.
Will the talk be recorded?
The talk (hosted on Zoom) will not be recorded. In my past experiences, I find people speak more openly this way.
Will this event be disability accessible?
Closed-captions will be provided (thank you, Steph).

Post-Talk Recommendations, Links

How did the suffering of marginalized artists become so marketable? an article by Vivek Shraya

Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance, bell hooks

W.E.B. Du Bois on Double Consciousness, The Atlantic

In the Wilds of an Open Soil with Writer Merlin Sheldrake, a comic by Wendy Xu

⚡️ANTIHEROINE.⚡️ an independent radical magazine by & for TQBIPOC

Everywhere a Garden, a graphic memoir by Maxine Go

Frazzled book series by Booki Vivat

Resources to learn more about Southeast Asia in English:
New Naratif
Intersastra

Bling Empire and the Energizing Potential of Asian-American Mediocrity, Jean Chen Ho on Harper’s Bazaar

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho

Pre-Talk Recommendations

“What does it say about me, this obsession written in a language I never chose?”
- Mary Jean Chan, A Hurry of English (poem) from Flèche (Faber & Faber)

Notes on Diversity, a comic by Lee Lai in The Lifted Brow #39
“The balance between telling personal stories and selling personal stories.”
“The balance between self-representation and commodification.”
“The balance between exposure and tokenization.”

‘Is Choosing to Stick to “Westernized” Tropes Also a Form of Freedom?’ It’s not a simple choice.
Letter 27 on The Reading, a substack by writer and critic Yanyi.

“The whole point wasn’t about her [main character of novel series Lara Jean] being Asian. Nobody’s whole point is their race. Sometimes when we see a book about a person who isn’t white, the whole point is about their struggle with their race.” (28:00)
Cozy Content, Jenny Han on Call Your Girlfriend podcast, interviewed by Aminatou Sow

“If this bizarre book I had written could be regarded only as an “immigrant narrative,” would I ever be anything other than a race writer?”
Jay Caspian Kang, The Many Lives of Steven Yeun, New York Times Magazine