But Still Like Air

Foreword

Foreword by Roberta Uno Velina and I never formally decided to have an annual conversation; it is something that evolved out of our "bicoastal" friendship as we have followed the lines of our separate paths-lives that defy geometry, running simultaneously parallel, divergent, and intersecting. The conversation insists on beginning somewhere in the middle of where it last ended. It is continuous and looping, always breaking with news, and yet echoed in memory. It is a conversation about new projects, ideas, our children, our passions, the latest play, politics, our mothers, health, the distance traveled. This particular conversation, Velina maintains her good humor while I am spewing about a phone call I received from an Asian American woman journalist who called me to clarify some dates regarding the plays of an early Asian American playwright. She tells me she is writing a chapter on Asian American theater for an encyclopedic reference on Asian America. Her approach to the subject is to focus on what she terms "major figures." When I ask her to define "major," her response is, "those writers who have achieved visibility." I ask her to define "visibility" and she says, "those whose work have been reviewed in major publications." We debate the issue of visibility. Whose vision determines an Asian American playwright's work is major? Is the work invisible unless a (white, probably male) reviewer at a "major" (white) publication notices it? What if a thousand Asian Americans see it somewhere a white reviewer will not even go?-is it less Copyrighted Material x FOREWORD significant? Why does her list only include those playwrights who have had productions at Asian American and/or mainstream theaters? What about those Asian American artists who are self-produced, particularly those in solo performance? What about those who collaborate with other artists of color? What about those whose work is community-based? We end up talking for quite some time; I want her to understand that while it is important to look at the individual achievements of specific writers, it is essential to provide a context for their writing and to look at the major work that has not been validated by the mainstream. Velina quips astutely, 'l\nother casualty of graduate school," and indeed I tell her that at the conclusion of the phone call the woman explained apologetically that she is a victim of her training, stating that her entry into this literature is as an academic and that she is an Asian American who did not grow up 'l\sian American," part of an Asian American community. That conversation left me feeling both angry and sad-angered toward an academic power structure that has the ability to grant credentials and legitimacy; saddened by the perception that Asian America is one, definable and exclusive, entity, so monolithic that an Asian American can feel locked out. When Velina first sent me the manuscript for this book, I could not help but reflect on these two conversations. This collection, in its conception, defies the narrow and reductionist categorization that is frequently imposed on our dramatic work by those seeking a convenient way to place it as literature or market it to an audience. The eyes through which Velina sees these plays are first and foremost those of a working artist and creator. The prevailing sensibility is that of someone who has felt constricted by the lines of the box demanding to be checked; someone who, with courage, joy, and honesty, has always drawn outside the lines. As an artist, Velina has naturally sought to recognize and embrace the sources of creativity and vision; thus her discerning eye has been drawn to and beyond the traditional centers of theatrical production . As an Asian American who was raised in Kansas, shaped by a rich and complex Asian America emanating from within the walls of her home, Velina understands that our art is being created everywhere we are and have beenHawaii and the mainland, urban centers and the suburbs, both coasts and the heartland, within and beyond our borders. Velina's metaphor for her own multiracial, multicultural, and binational identity is that of a "double," a concept that at once subverts and obliterates historical notions of fragmentation, impurity, and displacement. As a double one is able to occupy simultaneously more than one cultural space; so too, an added lens sharpens, expands, and deepens vision. This sense of "doubleness" Copyrighted Material FOREWORD...