Transcription of Xtina's words as part of the panel at the MFA.
Xtina’s bio as read by moderator Elena Tajima Creef, professor of women's and gender studies, Wellesley College
[18.51] “Xtina Huilan Wang is an MFA student in photography at Mass College of Art and Design. She is an artist, activist, curator of numerous art events and is also a self-taught ambrotypist and custom knife maker. She is also a member of Decolonize Our Museums. She also wanted me to let you know that she wears a lot of wool, whittles spoons, enjoys crosswords, stares a lot at the sea, and thinks about the conditions of ideology that surround race, gender, and power dynamics in neoliberalism. Xtina also takes pictures occasionally for school.”
Xtina’s statement
[27:05] “Hi there, I’m Xtina. I guess it’s my turn. Similarly to that question of why I chose to come today, I’m here to follow up on what we started with the demonstrations, which was to insist on having honest conversations about various ways that race, representation, cultural context, influence, and access were not being addressed through the ‘Kimono Wednesday’ event and needed to be. I appreciate what Matthew and Jasmine both said in their apologies and also recognition that there needs to be a commitment to this kind of dialogue. But the issues with that event at the time still stand. The informational talks that were later renamed “Spotlight Talks” were called ‘Flirting with the Exotic.’ That there were no Japanese people present in giving the talks or in presenting the uchikake. That the talks themselves were vague and omitted a lot of important facts, like that the goods imported from Japan that influenced Monet’s painting were acquired on the basis of a treaty that Japan signed at gunpoint. That concerns by the Asian American Pacific Islander Community were dismissed on social media as well as in person until we showed up with signs. That the implicit audience was assumed to be white. In the MFA’s own promotional language, ‘channel your inner Camille.’ That the event only replicated what Monet was supposedly criticizing without interrupting the racist legacy of the painting or any criticality of Orientalism both in Monet’s time or of our own. That there was a huge exhibit of arguably the most famous Japanese artist Hokusai literally around the corner and at the same time the MFA chose to base this particular event off of a painting of a white man. So, the issue with all of those things is that those erase the complex realities of Japanese culture and history, both of Japan itself and also the way in which it is received in the U.S., which shows that there was very little consideration with the racial context of the event being held on U.S. soil. In the main fallout, my particular skin in this game is that Asian Americans, and in particular Asian American women, receive the consequences of that kind of objectification, that kind of dehumanization. Asian American women is a group that is most likely to underreport sexual assault and domestic violence issues. A lot of that comes out of the kind of objectification that allows and makes our bodies more vulnerable to these types of things. I want to be clear that for me, and I think for a lot of the demonstrators, that the demonstrations themselves were never about wanting or asking for inclusion. But rather to shine a light on how the ways that powerful institutions like the MFA chose to engage or represent Asian cultures, amongst others, are a problem because it serves to maintain and consolidate a white historical and cultural perspective.
“The MFA, as a predominately white institution, has enormous influence, legitimacy, a huge endowment, access, authority, and resources compared to individuals or communities that they are representing. If the Japanese community in Boston were to hold their own uchikake event or the Asian American community wanted to discuss the Kimono Wednesday issue, which we did, it doesn’t compare to the MFA’s reach. There’s probably ten times more people present today than the panel we organized a few months ago, if you even heard about it. Why is it that the MFA and other museums have been allowed to consolidate all of that influence? Why are we reliant or made to be reliant on institutions for representation, for inclusion, for validation? The demonstrations over the summer called into question these imbalances of influences and resources and also to address the kind of harm that’s caused when an institution with so much influence is irresponsible, or at least negligent, about how it flexes that power. The demonstrations created a space if not outside of the walls of the MFA then certainly outside of the normal purview of the museum, where we could connect with our community and represent ourselves without relying on white institutions to legitimate our experiences.”
First question posed by moderator
[41:57] “Six months after the events of Kimono Wednesdays, maybe we can talk a little bit about lingering aftermath, take-away lessons and what you’d like to put on the table for discussion among ourselves before we open it up”
Xtina’s response
[44:03] “One of the things that I was thinking about in terms of my own more anti-establishment stance is - the little devil advocate that comes up in my head is what is the solution? I think that America has a particular obsession with finding a solution or some final answer which in and of itself has a little bit of an eerie tenor to that, a final solution. One thing I want to insist, as far as it goes right now, I do feel like the museum is committed to it, is that this is a process, and that this event today, this panel discussion today, cannot be the single and only emblem of conversation and dialogue. That this type of thing is an ongoing learning, that we will never arrive at a solution, and in fact, if we do, that solution cannot be trusted because of the way that those types of things get coopted so easily. And so one of the things that I hope to see the museum, as it were, do is to give way to individuals and communities who are the most marginalized, who are not often seen within these illustrious walls, or the board of trustees, or on the donors lists, or the membership list so that they can represent themselves rather than have an institution control the reins of that representation.”
After moderator brings discussion back to comparing blackface to yellowface and placing Monet’s La Japonaise and the MFA advertisement for Kimono Wednesdays and Flirting with the Exotic (“channel your inner Camille”) on this spectrum
[52:02] “You know one of the things, I’m just gonna make it more conversational, that Reiko I’m very glad that you brought up, is this idea of sort of challenging the cult of authenticity that often times we have, which is actually quite a racial construct, that to be authentic oftentimes is a predetermined spectrum that you can operate within. And it’s so great to see the kind of experimentation and the kind of expression that is breaking the rules of the kimono that you just displayed, but I think also that why those are allowed to exist and why those are great examples of expression is that they are free from the kind of racialization that in fact is embedded in how Asian Americans are received in America. I think that a lot of the - like I am an Asian American of non-Japanese descent, and there was a lot of controversy about why I or other protesters of similar background would dein ourselves worthy to speak for Japanese people in this particular event and the subsequent protest. And one thing that I want to say is that I think that a lot of folks who identified as being Japanese or were Japanese nationals that were upset about our demonstration were upset because they felt like the ethnic part of the specificity of Japanese ethnicity should have been the most important. They treated it as if it was the most important. And I agree. I think that is should have been the most important part. But within the American purview of race, which is a very very flattening kind of binary, and for America is primarily a white and black binary, but what race does to ethnicity, and my sort of working definition of ethnicity here is customs and things that people relate to through location, through a common location. What race does is that it flattens ethnicity. A really good example is Vincent Chin. In 1982 was a Chinese man who was an autoworker in Detroit during the time when the big Japanese car industries were starting to gain in prominence and a lot of people were being laid off in motown. And he was beaten to death because he was misidentified as a Japanese man. Now in the moment of his violent encounter if he were to say ‘oh no no I’m not a jap, I’m a chink,’ the sort of absurdity of thinking about that would have saved his life, is very difficult to conceive of. And particularly because of the way that race actually operates on the ground in America is that it flattens that specificity that in fact should have been the focal point at the museum exhibit. So I want to address that ‘cause I know that there has been a lot of discussion about that and a lot of confusion too as to why I as an Asian American who is not of Japanese descent feels like I have some privilege or access to be able to speak for. I don’t think I’m speaking for Japanese people, I’m speaking for myself actually.
After Ryan Wong’s comments about the MFA taking this event as an opportunity to “really think about who gets to speak within institutions” and “examine how museums can branch out into the world and how we can address these diver topics”
[59:46] “I want to respond to that and, as much as I like the idea of putting a little pressure on Matthew, who’s sitting right there, to have two young organizers of color on the board of trustees I also have to think about sort of the perpetuation of that type of structure in and of itself, which is a much messier type of conversation to have. Take the Oscars for example. The #OscarsSoWhite. If the Oscars had had one person of color or maybe two or three people of color that were nominated this year but may or may not have actually been awarded best whatever, there’s a way in which that slips behind and undermines the ability to still have the hard conversation that the academy is still, Hollywood is still dominated by white men. I do worry about the lip service that placing two or three or four or however many young people of color, young organizers of color so that they can stand in as some kind of figurehead and that the museum or other institutions - I mean this museum isn’t clearly the only problematic one - where they can sort of pat themselves on the back and say we did a good job, we’re the good white people, we love diversity, and this is a real question I think a lot organizers and people of color talk about with each other. When I have frank conversations with my friends and my family a lot of it is how when we aren’t represented it’s very clear, and we are very frustrated about it, and that when we are represented it’s done in such meager or such paltry or such misconstrued ways that it’s even more frustrating because it feels like the response then is well you should be grateful that you were even considered.”
Question by Tim, one of the counter protesters: “Hello. My question to the panel is how much of the protest is about the painting and how much of it is about the event and whether there will be a situation where you would allow the public access to the kimono.”
[1:03:56] “Since I’m the only protester on the panel, I guess I have to answer that. The protest, I will speak for myself, I was not there protesting the painting or the event itself. In and of itself I’m not against, I’m not like we should burn down the Monet or that we should tackle people to the ground if they’re putting on the kimono, but that we should have a really honest, complicated conversation about why we choose to do that. And that was something that was totally lacking and that I’m glad that the museum tried to amend later on, but not without a lot of pressure and a lot of bad press, probably helped also. But this is not about banning kimonos. I’m not interested in that. I’m pro kimono. But I’m not pro the kimono being used as a kind of fetish item or a way of garnishing and glorifying western beauty, which is what the painting does. It centers a white woman who uses the accoutrements of the east to accentuate her whiteness and her beauty. And so the kimono is being used in way in which it’s stripped of its cultural context. That’s what I’m protesting against in this.”
Tim, “so can you imagine a situation in which you would allow the museum to exhibit or allow the public access to the kimono?”
“I don’t actually have the authority to tell the museum what to do or what not to do. The thing about free speech is I get to say what I want to say and the museum gets to do what it wants to do and no one goes to jail for it. But it doesn’t mean that my criticisms, or what they do comes without consequence and that I get to criticize what they do.”
Tim, “so if it was in an educational context you would be fine with the public wearing the kimono and taking pictures or would you be against that?”
“Well, it was slated to be in an educational context to begin with and it failed at that -
Tim, “with a bad title”
“ - bad is a very light way of putting it, but yeah I agree with you. Misogynist.”
After Reiko addresses the same question and speaks to MFA resources
[1:08:10] “I’m not against the resource, I just think that the context realization is the utmost importance. And to answer your question very directly I think that especially this event and the aspect of selfie-taking as a type of cultural consumption that we practice, and individualism in America, you’re asking me if this individual event, what are the specificities that would make me go along with this individual event. And individualism in America in particular is hung up on what I would buy or not buy, either with our money or with our attention, and the individual scale of consumption doesn’t actually matter all that much. Ultimately, one individual or even a handful of individuals putting on the kimono doesn’t make or break white supremacy. But community scale consumption and discussion of history and community interaction, that is what matters. And so the way in which this particular event and how it allowed community to come in and consume the kimono and consume the ways in which global exchange of culture and ideas, however you want to frame it, the way that it allowed the public to do that without criticality, without contextualization, without the historicity of it, that is what was lacking, and that’s why it was problematic.”
After an audience question
[1:11:43] “There’s something that you said, and I’m on board with all of your feelings about the event itself, but there’s something that you said before you gave us your opinion about the event and you talked about how you loved this institution and you are planning a Japan day to use the resources. From my opening statement I do want to think about, this is not some sort of condemnation, but I think it’s a worthy point of consideration, of why is it that we come to a white institution for these resources.”
After another question and panel comments
[1:19:10] “I think that in terms of situating those experiences there’s a way in which for folks who feel marginalized by or underrepresented by institutions like the museum there is a different approach to how those particular populations have need for exhibitions or experiences to be expressed that are different I think from the dominant white majority. And one of the things that I think about is, especially when you bring up the idea of authenticity, which is a pretty fraught, it’s a word that sounds like it’s pretty clear, but when you start to break it down, it’s incredibly convoluted. But when I think about not erasing, not have the mask erase the identity, what that means is that when someone dons the uchikake, like let’s say this event happens again, how can they also don the experience of the internment camps, how can they also don the experience of the kind of marginalization that occurs and the huge rate of sexual assault that’s underreported, how do they don the slights and microaggressions and the kind of othering that people experience. Donning the kimono, donning the uchikake, cannot be donned as a disposable item. It cannot be just another consumable thing. It comes along with a lot of history both that is situated within Japan and that needs to be further articulated and expressed so that we can understand what the roles are so that there can be more people to break those rules but also how it’s situated within the American context.”
Barbara Lewis comments, referring to a previous question, on the “violence of stereotyping.”
[1:22:48] “Following up in that, I think when Asian Americans came up to talk about this particular issue there was a misconstrual, either intentionally or not, that we were in fact speaking for Japanese culture, for Japanese nationals, and I think this can actually be very clearly related to the Black Lives Matter movement, when we made a protest about this it was to say that our opinions of this also matter, that this is not a monolithic issue insofar that only the Japanese-American perspective counts. It certainly does count, as it should and it should be centered and forefront, but within the context of America and the way that it’s racialized, I get called a jap, I get called Yoko Ono, which I actually really like Yoko Ono so it’s kind of a compliment but it wasn’t meant to be so. And so similarly to the refutation that Black Lives Matter often gets is that there is an implicit ‘too.’ ‘Black Lives Matter too,’ that’s what it’s really saying. And so when this selective use of All Lives Matter comes up, All Lives Matter only gets used as a lever point against Black Lives Matter, and in fact what it does is that it erases exactly what Black Lives Matter is trying to accomplish, which is to make visible what is already invisible. We don’t need to say ‘white lives matter,’ because white lives already do matter. It’s already implicit within our culture that we understand this. And so in the context of this particular event, that too where like Japanese, in this case Japanese voices, Japanese opinions, Japanese history, and ethnic specificity does matter and it should matter but that it has an impact on Asia America. It has an impact on people like me.”
After Ryan Wong comments on acknowledging violent history and funding art by marginalized peoples
[1:28:28] “And in doing so, this is a little more abstract, but when that kind of funding or that sort of support is offered, don’t take credit for it, which may be a little bit harsh, and absolutely don’t think that your work is done.”
After Matthew Teitelbaum discusses how MFA has a page on its website describing how art pieces were acquired
[1:30:53] “So it’s really great to hear that the museum is taking some of the action that it should be doing and shouldn’t be a point of. I suppose we should applaud it because it’s so rare to see that type of thing. But again I worry about a kind of back-patting that happens oftentimes about these sorts of issues. And on Ryan’s point earlier about what our assumptions of what racism actually looks like today I think to the point of white supremacy at least my opinion of it is that white supremacy doesn’t just look like the confederate flag or Nazis running around with swastikas tattooed to their forehead. I think that white supremacy is a kind of invisible swaddling of whiteness and white culture that pervades everywhere. It’s not just saluting Hitler of whatever. White supremacy, like the word supremacy means that it is supreme, it is what surrounds us, it is what determines our values, and what we think are important. So to that point I have to contest that I do think in fact this institution is one that participates in the larger system of white supremacy even if skinheads aren’t running the show.”
After more audience and panel comments
[1:44:55] “I have so many things to say right now. I’m not sure where to start. I have some notes I wrote down for myself. On the point of de-centering, which I think is pretty important, the main question I want to float about that is that in de-centering, what it is that we are de-centering, is that the museum occupies a space which even if say NAPAWF, which is an Asian-American group, or if let’s say the Japanese Society of Boston, wanted to hold an event, that there is a way in which holding it in this space, within the space of the MFA, lends a kind of credibility and a kind legitimacy that’s attached to a whiter, western dominance. That’s what we mean by white supremacy, and I will expand on that in a little bit. But it’s not just that the museum itself dictates what is and isn’t important to be seen or how it chooses to represent people, but that it also in and of itself because of its influence, because of its authority and legitimacy and its resources, it generates a desire for people at the margins to want to participate. This is the scary dangerous aspect of assimilation. This is the kind of normalization that white washes communities of color and marginalized communities so that they are tempted to relinquish, because of their marginalization that we experience, the ability to speak on our own terms so that we have a little piece of that really really delicious-looking tangible powerful pie that the MFA dominates. That’s number one. In terms of, Matthew, the things that you said, the great ways that the museum is making efforts to include artists of color, I mean you can trot out all your artists of color, those are truths, I don’t dispute any of those things, but not all truths are neutral. Why is it that that’s the focus? Why is it rather that that gets trotted out instead of us talking about ways in which we can uplift the voices of marginalized communities and individuals? That’s what I keep talking about in terms of institutions patting themselves on the back for doing this kind of work that they should already be doing. Now in terms of the protest about how it’s disingenuous to call it white supremacy because everyone has different types of identities that’s completely true, and this links back to my answer Tim’s question earlier about whether it’s reverse racism or reverse bias or whatever you want to call it to attribute the kimono to some stereotype. The thing is that we talk about race being a social construct, that it’s not a real thing. That is accurate. The stereotypes that construct the mythologies about race are not real. But the impact of those myths, and the way that they get received, and the way that people get treated because of them, that is real.
In closing, after more audience and panelist comments
[2:00:14] “A quick word on the idea of respect. This does go back to Matthew. I do want to make some space for you. As the gentleman in the back stated, white supremacy, you don’t need to be white to embody or practice white supremacy. I deal with undoing it within myself every single day. And to the point of being uncomfortable, and that it’s something that’s challenging with you, I urge you to sit with it, and in fact one of the things that an institution like this can do, and any white person or anyone in a dominant position can do, is that you can find what is uncomfortable to you, what is challenging to you and take a seat and think about it. Sit with it and think about it, and don’t try and come back and tell me how much you’ve done for me. Don’t tell us all the good things that you’re doing. Those are not untrue, and those are important to know about, but don’t do it as a way of silencing or diminishing the issues that people bring up. Now to the point of -”
“Do you feel that I did?” Matthew Teitelbaum
“I think that the way that happens - “
“I don’t believe that I did,” Matthew Teitelbaum
“I appreciate that. One of the things about communication is that intent and impact are very oftentimes contrasting things, and so I want to let you know about the impact that your words had and I trust that you do have every intention to not do that. But it is important more so to pay attention to how that impact functions more than the intention. The intention is something you hold on to and let it guide what you’re going to do, but that when you see a response you have to adjust what your behavior is so that your impact actually, your intent actually rings true. Now to the point of Shinzo Abe, the issue that is brought up, at least the way I understand it, is that the most recent pact between South Korea and Japan in which they supposedly resolved, politically resolved the issue of the comfort women, is that Japan has a pretty terrible track record with the treatment of women. If you don’t know about this history, please please educate yourself and look it up. What this situation allowed for is that the male heads of the governments made an agreement, because this was a shameful act within Japan’s history, that they would officially apologize about the issue about comfort women, and that South Korea has officially and politically accepted that apology. However all this was done without the consent, without including the women that are actually still survivors of it and still exist today. Their voices have been silenced.”