Slanty Eyed Mama

Earlier this month I had the good fortune to attend a performance and conversation with Slanty Eyed Mama at the Meyer Auditorium in the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Publicity for the event stated:

Trip-hop spoken-word sensation Slanty Eyed Mama comes to DC with a concert of sonic poems, electric violin arias, and satirical politico-comic commentary that deconstructs images of Asians in America. The duo is made up of two Juilliard-trained “good Asian girls gone wild.” Classical violin virtuoso Lyris Hung traded her bow for a guitar pick and rock ‘n’ roll sampler, and award-winning actor-writer Kate Rigg dominates the microphone with her wicked Nuyorasian lyrics.

I later learned that this event was part of a series entitled Articulations 2007: Making Place. The programs in this series were designed to “explore the relationships among people, perceptions, and place.”

The performance was a great balance of artistry and politics; the music rocked and their presence on stage was enrapturing. I left that evening full of energy, and best yet, in the company of a group of friends.

Two things they offered during the course of the post-performance question-and-answer session were that as artists: (1) it is their job to provoke discussion; and (2) it is their responsibility to tell stories. It’s not as if they didn’t already have me hooked with their performance, but the talk-back made me like them that much more.


Something happened in me that night that I don’t quite have the words for…I felt such peace and fulfillment at having been there; I felt as if my subjectivity and positionality as a queer Filipino female-bodied immigrant activist feminist and educator were wholly recognized, touched, and cherished. It’s what I’m searching for through my dissertation, and it’s what I felt that night.

I haven’t stopped talking about Slanty Eyed Mama since…I keep sharing them with others hoping that I’ll find someone just as excited about them as I am, someone who appreciates them for all they are, someone who might just be able to understand me…

(To see other Slanty Eyed Mama fans, check out their myspace page.)

Sadly, I have to say a few queer (white American) people around me have, in response to my urgings that they check out Slanty Eyed Mama (and better yet, work with me to try and bring them to campus next year), questioned why I might want to involve them in this endeavor and failed to see any connections whatsoever. They asked me whether or not Slanty Eyed Mama was a queer duo…they may or may not be, I truly have no idea. But more importantly, I don’t care. Their work spoke to me as a queer API, and that’s enough.

Ironically, though, I am often criticized, or at least looked at askance when I talk about my loyalties to a particular kind of identity politics. I’ve had to answer more times than I could hope to keep track of how I see identity politics as something other than essentialism, which really just strikes me as funny because of how there’s a willingness amongst some academics to understand “identity politics” in such a simplified way when it seems our greater goals are to seek out the complexities and nuances of situations.

I wish I could convey to these people that I feel strongly about the queer groups I am a part of bringing Slanty Eyed Mama to campus, whether or not they themselves are queer, because they speak to such a variety of intersecting dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression—something I think is sorely missing from too many of the queer groups and movements I’ve been a part of.

I’m tired of these people telling me that I should go talk to the Asian Pacific American groups on campus about bringing Slanty Eyed Mama. OF COURSE I’m going to talk to these groups, too, but why can’t we all meet and talk together? Why must we draw lines around whether SEM is sufficiently “queer” to justify co-sponsorship by queer campus organizations? Am I only accepted by these same organizations because I’m “queer enough” despite being API? How could a group like SEM that challenges racism not be understood as queerly fighting white heteronormativity?

Okay, I guess I have a little anger about this whole issue.

And well I should!

Shouldn’t we all when we are continuously told about the importance of “intersectionality” by people who fail to enact actual coalitional politics and connections?

“If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.”