Join us for the release of the new documentary film, The Chinese Gardens, which looks at the lost Chinese community in Port Townsend, WA - examining anti-Chinese violence in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1800s, and drawing connections between past and present race relations in the US.
Through text, brief interviews, and images of the empty spaces of Port Townsend's former Chinatown, the film examines early instances of racism against the Chinese in this country, from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 through various lynchings, beatings, and murders. The Chinese Gardens also documents Chinese American resistance to these crimes, illuminating the hidden history of that tumultuous time.
Valerie Soe is a San Francisco writer, educator, and artist. Her experimental videos and installations, which look at gender and cultural identity and anti-racism struggles, have exhibited at venues such as the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles the Museum of Modern Art and the New Museum in New York City, and at film festivals worldwide. Her most recent award-winning documentary, The Oak Park Story (2010) has exhibited widely across the country. In addition, her essays and criticism have appeared in books, journals and publications, including Countervisions: Asian American Film Criticism; Afterimage; Cinematograph and The Independent.
Refreshments will be served.
Where:
SF State campus, College of Ethnic Studies
1600 Holloway Avenue
Ethnic Studies & Psychology Building (EP)
Room 116
San Francisco, CA 94132
When:
Friday April 6, 2012
12:30 PM to 2:00 PM PDT
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Amy Sueyoshi has come out with her first book! For those of you who don't know her, She is a faculty member jointly appointed in Race and Resistance Studies and Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University. Amy is a historian by training and her specialties lie in Asian America, gender, and sexuality. Check out Queer Compulsions, a true story of Asian American love, deceit, betrayal at the turn of the century. She would love to come to your event and class to talk about the book.
Queer Compulsions
Race, Nation, and Sexuality in the Affairs of Yone Noguchi
Amy Sueyoshi
While confessing his love to fellow writer Charles Warren Stoddard, Yone Noguchi (1875–1947) had a child (future sculptor Isamu Noguchi) with his editor, Léonie Gilmour; became engaged to Washington Post reporter Ethel Armes; and upon his return to Japan married Matsu Takeda—all within a span of seven years. According to Amy Sueyoshi, Noguchi was not a dedicated polyamorist: He deliberately deceived the three women, to whom he either pretended or promised marriage while already married. Sueyoshi argues further that Noguchi’s intimacies point to little-known realities of race and sexuality in turn-of-the-century America and illuminate how Asian immigrants negotiated America’s literary and arts community. As Noguchi maneuvered through cultural and linguistic differences, his affairs additionally assert how Japanese in America could forge romantic fulfillment during a period historians describe as one of extreme sexual deprivation and discrimination for Asians, particularly in California.
Queer Compulsions
Race, Nation, and Sexuality in the Affairs of Yone Noguchi
Amy Sueyoshi
While confessing his love to fellow writer Charles Warren Stoddard, Yone Noguchi (1875–1947) had a child (future sculptor Isamu Noguchi) with his editor, Léonie Gilmour; became engaged to Washington Post reporter Ethel Armes; and upon his return to Japan married Matsu Takeda—all within a span of seven years. According to Amy Sueyoshi, Noguchi was not a dedicated polyamorist: He deliberately deceived the three women, to whom he either pretended or promised marriage while already married. Sueyoshi argues further that Noguchi’s intimacies point to little-known realities of race and sexuality in turn-of-the-century America and illuminate how Asian immigrants negotiated America’s literary and arts community. As Noguchi maneuvered through cultural and linguistic differences, his affairs additionally assert how Japanese in America could forge romantic fulfillment during a period historians describe as one of extreme sexual deprivation and discrimination for Asians, particularly in California.
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