BANANA

NAIL SALON GIRL

CHINK

NINJA

DRAGON LADY

YELLOW = JOY !!! is at face value a celebration of yellowness. The bright photographic series is bathed in yellow from the beginning to the end. In Anglo based societies, yellow is often associated with emotions like happiness or joy. Yet to the Asian community living in the West, yellow is a stark reminder of our lesser-than-skin and our racial status in this hierarchical unrelenting sovereignty.

A slightly deeper look at the images will show that Banana, Nail Salon Girl, Chink, Ninja, Dragon Lady are not simply celebratory in nature, but these images manipulate these Asian American typecasts titles, colored as yellow props to criticize the United States’ view in equating Asians to slurs. The glow of the FOREIGNER sign no longer seduces but accuses. The subject dressed as an absurd yellow character no longer is oddly amusing but one in captive and a beast.

Not only does this series explore the consequences of Western colonialism, but also YELLOW = JOY !!! scrutinizes Japan’s brute Eastern colonialism. Yellow circles tied to confine, on the face, are 단무지 (danmooji), a Korean side dish. The danmooji are not merely an indicator of the monster, society has made us as and sees us as, as Asian Americans, but is a symbol of Japan’s own dark imperialist history. 

During 1910-1945, Japan colonized Korea, a time in which the danmooji was first imported from Japan to Korea. Its original name - takuan. Takuan and danmooji are slightly different in color and shape. Even still my mother still prefers using the Japanese term, the new Korean word unable to embed in her mind.  

The colonial era of Japan may have ended, nevertheless its scars have yet to fade. Caged to the past, we may have eyes, a nose, and a mouth to see, smell, and speak freely, but all we hear is echos of past, unable to heal. 

In the West, to this day, Japanese culture reigns supreme among Asian cultures. It is ironic, is it not, that to access power through slander, in the United States, the way is through Japanese weapons, the very same ones that colonized my past?  

Indeed, yellow does not always equate joy.