Artistic Statement
I find that I write a lot about issues of identity and belonging. I don’t necessarily set out to do so, but as a sixth-generation Asian American woman whose provenance is constantly being questioned, my own struggle with feeling excluded from the American landscape of storytelling is, I realize, my “essential wound”. Writing new works for theatre, film and television that aim to shift the paradigm and hold an inclusive mirror up to society and my own culture within it has given me the opportunity to create social change through the arts. It fuels and inspires me to, against all odds, work towards fully flourishing in a society that often wants to keep us down. I strive daily to create work that can inspire thought, social action, healing and/or hope, with music and words that intertwine with our collective heartbeat and shepherd us on a shared journey of self-discovery that can speak our own truths to our own power.
I recently heard from a commercial theatre producer that they were not interested in a story line in one of my new musicals that involved a modern-day Chinese American woman grappling with the Anti-Asian hate crimes that have been intrinsically woven into the pandemic for so many of us, but only wanted to see the adjacent storyline of the piece, which is about a Chinese prostitute trafficked into San Francisco’s Chinatown during the 19th Century. The irony of this kind of erasure and its connection to the tired trope born of exoticizing Asian American women is not lost on me. Nor, sadly, is it new. Direct and indirect censorship is, of course, another way of “canceling” those people whose stories one prefers to keep as one sees them, not as they fully are, all of which has been part of the Asian American experience since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. People often ask me how/why I’m always creating projects, so many projects for myself and my community. It’s become clear to me that I persist in illuminating my perspective with pride and gratitude – not only because I’m used to having to prove myself over and over again just to be considered “worthy enough” to have the opportunity to do the work, but also because my generational trauma wrapped in racism that I’ve only recently figured out how to name is also inexorably linked with my generational fortitude wrapped in perseverance.
I recently heard from a commercial theatre producer that they were not interested in a story line in one of my new musicals that involved a modern-day Chinese American woman grappling with the Anti-Asian hate crimes that have been intrinsically woven into the pandemic for so many of us, but only wanted to see the adjacent storyline of the piece, which is about a Chinese prostitute trafficked into San Francisco’s Chinatown during the 19th Century. The irony of this kind of erasure and its connection to the tired trope born of exoticizing Asian American women is not lost on me. Nor, sadly, is it new. Direct and indirect censorship is, of course, another way of “canceling” those people whose stories one prefers to keep as one sees them, not as they fully are, all of which has been part of the Asian American experience since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. People often ask me how/why I’m always creating projects, so many projects for myself and my community. It’s become clear to me that I persist in illuminating my perspective with pride and gratitude – not only because I’m used to having to prove myself over and over again just to be considered “worthy enough” to have the opportunity to do the work, but also because my generational trauma wrapped in racism that I’ve only recently figured out how to name is also inexorably linked with my generational fortitude wrapped in perseverance.
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Christine Toy Johnson
Artistic Statement
I find that I write a lot about issues of identity and belonging. I don’t necessarily set out to do so, but as a sixth-generation Asian American woman whose provenance is constantly being questioned, my own struggle with feeling excluded from the American landscape of storytelling is, I realize, my “essential wound”. Writing new works for theatre, film and television that aim to shift the paradigm and hold an inclusive mirror up to society and my own culture within it has given me the opportunity to create social change through the arts. It fuels and inspires me to, against all odds, work towards fully flourishing in a society that often wants to keep us down. I strive daily to create work that can inspire thought, social action, healing and/or hope, with music and words that intertwine with our collective heartbeat and shepherd us on a shared journey of self-discovery that can speak our own truths to our own power.
I recently heard from a commercial theatre producer that they were not interested in a story line in one of my new musicals that involved a modern-day Chinese American woman grappling with the Anti-Asian hate crimes that have been intrinsically woven into the pandemic for so many of us, but only wanted to see the adjacent storyline of the piece, which is about a Chinese prostitute trafficked into San Francisco’s Chinatown during the 19th Century. The irony of this kind of erasure and its connection to the tired trope born of exoticizing Asian American women is not lost on me. Nor, sadly, is it new. Direct and indirect censorship is, of course, another way of “canceling” those people whose stories one prefers to keep as one sees them, not as they fully are, all of which has been part of the Asian American experience since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. People often ask me how/why I’m always creating projects, so many projects for myself and my community. It’s become clear to me that I persist in illuminating my perspective with pride and gratitude – not only because I’m used to having to prove myself over and over again just to be considered “worthy enough” to have the opportunity to do the work, but also because my generational trauma wrapped in racism that I’ve only recently figured out how to name is also inexorably linked with my generational fortitude wrapped in perseverance.
I recently heard from a commercial theatre producer that they were not interested in a story line in one of my new musicals that involved a modern-day Chinese American woman grappling with the Anti-Asian hate crimes that have been intrinsically woven into the pandemic for so many of us, but only wanted to see the adjacent storyline of the piece, which is about a Chinese prostitute trafficked into San Francisco’s Chinatown during the 19th Century. The irony of this kind of erasure and its connection to the tired trope born of exoticizing Asian American women is not lost on me. Nor, sadly, is it new. Direct and indirect censorship is, of course, another way of “canceling” those people whose stories one prefers to keep as one sees them, not as they fully are, all of which has been part of the Asian American experience since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. People often ask me how/why I’m always creating projects, so many projects for myself and my community. It’s become clear to me that I persist in illuminating my perspective with pride and gratitude – not only because I’m used to having to prove myself over and over again just to be considered “worthy enough” to have the opportunity to do the work, but also because my generational trauma wrapped in racism that I’ve only recently figured out how to name is also inexorably linked with my generational fortitude wrapped in perseverance.