The Politics Of Life

Introduction

Introduction I fire at the face Ofthe country where I was born ... As the waves splash, moment by moment, I stand ready to fire With the pistol ofconfession. -Kazuko Shiraishi JAPANESE POET KAZUKO SHIRAISHI'S poem "I Fire at the Face of the Country Where I Was Born" 1 reveals the feminine experience as a political experience-as an existence belabored by the dogs of history, the senility of history, contemporary societal perspectives about women, and the need to manage the rage often catalyzed by these burdens. The pistol of confession aimed at our beloved country-that is the reality at which the Asian American woman playwright sooner or later must arrive, because the history of oppression of people of color and women in the United States leaves her no other truly honest route. She is compelled to mine her soul and come to grips with who she is in relation to society. The confession of Shiraishi's poem is a pistol because without such assertive behavior-without breaking the limiting boundaries of stereotype and prejudgment-she remains unheard. It is confession because we, as multicultural beings, are frequently at odds with America. We must challenge America's understanding of our history and her 1Kazuko Shiraishi, "I Fire at the Face of the Country Where I Was Born," in Women Poets ofJapan, ed. Kenneth Rexroth and Ikuko Atsumi (New Directions Books, 1977), 110-n .Reprinted with permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation. INTRODUCTION perceptions about our present and future. We must confess the angst and fear and rage that oppression has wrought while sustaining our relationship with America as proud citizens. Confession means we have developed a rich voice and we must be heard. It means we challenge all manifestations of oppression. The playwrights in this volume wield their own unique pistols, firing in different directions, but never missing their marks. The politics of life challenge us to maneuver within and around the bastion of European American patriarchy and to manage our lives and the accompanying rage with clarity, imagination, honesty, integrity, and resolve amid the erosive elements of racism, sexism, and antifeminism. WAKE-UP CALL In 1980, when I was a master of fine arts student of playwriting at the University of California at Los Angeles, I wrote a play entitled Asa Ga Kimashita (Morning Has Broken). One of my playwriting teachers, a European American, told me that the play had no place in the American theater because American theater audiences had no desire to see a play set in postwar Japan that focused on the fall of a Japanese patriarch. He said that I would never become a "real playwright " unless I began writing for a "wider" audience. I was not certain if the professor said "wider" or "whiter," because the fan in his office diminished the sound quality, but there was no need to ask. In this case, the words were synonymous. The play went on to win several prestigious national awards and other honors. Apparently, American theater audiences do have an appetite for more than just meat loaf and apple pie. The waves continue to splash on the faces of Asian American women playwrights as we carve new places for ourselves. One would like to believe that the civil rights movement rid America of racism, but that is a naive, if not ignorant, view. One would like to believe that racism is put aside as repugnant, something for the rightwingers to practice inconspicuously, like a sand flea crawling onto the fragmented continents of our lives. But I certainly feel the itch. I feel the prickle. In my life as a playwright, there are a great many wake-up calls that alert me to the fact that my being Amerasian and 2 INTRODUCTION female does make a difference, no matter what the idealists profess. And, often, I am one of those idealists. My life defies placement in any singular or traditional category. I am Amerasian, which means that I am neither Asian nor American (and yet both) and that I am neither native japanese, Blackfoot Pikuni, nor African American (and yet all three)-truly multiracial and multicultural. My rendering categories useless also is true of my artistic and academic worlds. I have been writing plays for twentyone years and enjoy a career as a playwright and screenwriter. At the same time, in my academic career I lecture in the United States and japan on theater...