Intervention - Andy Liu

    For my intervention I decided to talk about my experience with racism when I was young and where we stand today. I chose to address this issue due to me stumbling across an ESPN article about Jeremy Lin titled "Chink in the Armor". In the video I addressed how I felt, my experiences with racism growing up, and used Jeremy Lin's situation as an example of what it is like to be Asian in America. As young boy and not knowing English made me a target in the community I was in, and all these years later I still feel the same and have experienced similar experiences even as adult, even though I am an American and speak fluent English. I could go on and on about the different articles, tweets, headlines, statements, etc. I've seen over the years that completely disregard Asians and the struggles that we go through. One instance in particular that happened not too long ago that I did not mention in the video was the targeted attacks towards Asian spas in Atlanta; where Capt. Jay Baker of Cherokee sheriff’s department did a press conference and said that it was not a hate crime, despite the suspect having sexual fetishes that lead him to frequent these places but dismissed the possibility of this being a hate crime and chalked it up as the suspect just "having a bad day". This is just one example of many more examples of people just casually expressing their disregard towards Asian struggles, and just complete insensitivity towards Asian people in America. I decided to take this opportunity to really express how I feel using the Jeremy Lin situation as an example and address what doesn't get address often in the mainstream media. The "Stop Asian Hate" movement came and went, but I will be fighting this fight forever, regardless if it is a hashtag or not.

The inspiration for my intervention was Rubén Ortiz-Torres, I was particularly inspired by the way he works. His work is described as "works in a variety of media to explore cultural representations and collisions as they appear in everyday cultural life". The example shown in the text of his redesigned lawn mowers in Chicano lowrider style broke the traditional stereotype of what a lawn mower is suppose to look like and do, which heavily inspired my performance. I feel so often in my life that I was taught to just be obedient and not cause trouble or speak up, but at this point in my life I refuse to not speak up. I refuse to fall into the stereotype of Asians being passive and the model minority, and if no one is going to speak up, I will. I understand that I am not the only one who has spoken up about the xenophobic attitude in America but a majority of Asians in America stayed silent out of fear.  As Kimberly Drew said, "small acts foster change", this is my first time speaking about this and it took me a while to build up the courage to speak up, but I just hope that we can do better as a society to understand each other's pain and hurt as equal, that no one hurts more or less, and to love and respect each other as if we are all one race, the human race.