Week 2: Reflections by Anonymous_17

Group: Discuss the Police, facilitated by David Wells
By Anonymous_17 - Southern CA

A Look Back and Within as We Weave New Futures: Reflections on Activism Interviews

For “homework 2”, I watched PJ and Roy Hirabayashi's interview and read a couple of the transcripts from the other interviews. When answering the question "What Sparked Activism for You", both PJ and Roy, along with multiple other interviewees, brought up the Third World Liberation Front/Ethnic Studies movement as well as the antiwar movement as the backdrop to their answers. Hearing them speak about this was particularly enlightening as during the fight for Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at my college, my colleagues and I were heavily inspired by the TWLF movements at San Francisco State and UC Berkeley that led to the creation of Ethnic Studies. I had also further explored this history while doing research for my senior thesis, where I learned about the cross-solidarities between the black, Chicanx, and Asian American student organizations during this time, along with those involved in the antiwar movement. It was really amazing to hear personal experiences about these movements and to know that they played an integral part in the lived experiences of various North American taiko pioneers.

I was also drawn to part when PJ spoke about seeing the beginnings of taiko in San Jose and feeling the energy of a unique movement that was based in self-expression and music, but was also beyond just music and hearing Roy follow by describing how he realized taiko could be a way to create their own sound and style, that it could be "the Japanese American voice that we never had". Roy also spoke about how "not everyone was Japanese, or Japanese American but still it was a cultural identity of being Asian and Asian American and working together within that context". This reminded me of a conversation I had with a professor and a colleague about the importance of taiko as a point of contact between Japanese and Japanese Americans, Asian and Asian American, Asian Americans with other Asian Americans. Connecting all of this together, I think what PJ and Roy shared really points to power of taiko in exploring, reaffirming, and fostering identity and community. In addition, I found it interesting to hear them talk about the juxtapositions of how even in these beginnings, in America, taiko and the people playing were being called "traditional and folk" (which, as Roy said, "we never really felt we're a folk and traditional art form because we're so contemporary") while in Japan, they were characterized as "non-traditional and renegades". This reminded me a lot about how, I, myself, was led to believe taiko was an "ancient art form" until someone broke down the history and showed how kumi-daiko as we play it, is really a neo-traditional art form. I think there's so much to explore in how these stereotypes of taiko as an “old tradition” have their roots the orientalist gaze of the Other. During the interview, when they really questioned the label "World Music", brought me back to how a professor once really made me question that category, because just as Roy said "isn't everybody world music here…even the symphony and opera are world music".

I felt a lot of emotions when I heard Roy speak about feeling a bit sad and disappointed at how now dialogue is more "how can I practice better skill when I’m at home with no drum versus you know what's, what's going on around here" and how taiko players view themselves more as players than activists. Especially when comparing that to the potentials of self-expression and creating a powerful voice which PJ and Roy expressed about taiko earlier in the video, I felt once again frustrated at how that dilution came to be. As I have ventured more into the wider North American taiko community, I have found myself becoming more and more disillusioned because of this. Whereas I was initially drawn to North American taiko because of its connections to the Asian American movement, its legacies of activism and empowerment, and its existence as a music/art form of Asian America, the strong intentionality I felt behind so many people and spaces to erase and disengage from that history, to make taiko an apolitical site while racism, cis-hetero sexism, classism, ableism, etc. continue to shape our spaces - made me very conflicted and lost. At some points, I even felt uncomfortable in naming that history when speaking to others as seeing so many people not want to talk about it made me question if I had misinterpreted or wrongly understood taiko's origins. This series of interviews and the compiled video really turned that around as these key figures in North American taiko tied in that history and their own truths to this moment. This is what we need to talk about.

(Quick notes about reflections from some of the other interviews:

I appreciated: hearing Chris and Dan Kubo connect racial inequities to the economic system, especially in highlighting how the entire history of enslavement to now really ties into racial capitalism; Stan Shikuma's quote about "neutrality never helps the oppressed" and how silence means standing on the side of the oppressor, since it really ties into one of my favorite quotes which basically says the same thing: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor" - Desmond Tutu; Chizuko Endo's emphasis on the connection of anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist movements of the 60s/70s to today and Kenny Endo talking about African American music when answering the question about taiko and activism's relationship, because similar to the Asian American movement building off black liberation movements, taiko also takes much inspiration and influence from music forms originating in the black community. Specifically with what Kenny-sensei said, it's interesting to see the parallel between what taiko is and can be for Asian Americans with the roots of resistance, liberation, and creating something for the self/community in African American music, particularly in considering the degree of appropriation of musics historically originating in the black community - jazz, rock, R&B, soul, funk, gospel, hip-hop, trap just to name a few - by non-black folx to the extent where their roots are often forgotten or they have become more profitable to be performed by a non-black body (or even in taiko when a lot of the music we play has been influenced by, for instance, jazz, rock, funk, hip-hop, etc. but we often do not pay homage to their origins)...is that the pathway for taiko?