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The Museum of New Art
7 North
Saginaw
Pontiac,
MI
48342
April 26 –
May 10, 2008
Special Thanks
To Professor Claude
Baillargeon
Immigrant Nation
by Natalie Mandziuk
Department of Art and Art
History,
Oakland
University,
Rochester,
MI
Throughout history,
the movement of people from country to country in search of better lives has
destined the intermingling of cultural backgrounds and has ultimately
contributed to the globalization of our modern world. Immigration has been,
and always will be, one of the most important methods by which the ideas,
dreams, and values of one culture are transmitted to another. Culture is
essential to the development of the individual and when cultures mix as a
result of immigration, the individual must decide how to balance the
combination of his or her cultural heritage with the culture present in his
or her new home.
The importance of
cultural identity to the individual is what has driven so many artists to
discuss the issue of culture in their work. In a broad sense, one of the
purposes of art is to provide opportunities for artists to express
themselves and the world around them. It follows then that the notion of
“culture” is a fundamentally common element in art. Questions about
identity, purpose, and placement in the workings of the world arise from a
sense of displacement when a person from one culture emigrates to another
culture.
The discussion of
immigration and cultural identity in art is by no means without historical
precedent. The depictions of the displacement of culture of immigrants by
two prominent photographers of the early 20th century, Jacob A.
Riis and Lewis Hine, were instrumental in bringing about immigration reforms
and public awareness about minority struggles and culturally oppressive
prejudices.
The modern politics
of immigration, especially in
America,
have given rise to an influx of art dealing with cultural identities and
confused heritages. A recent exhibition curated by Professor Claude
Baillargeon entitled Revolutionizing Cultural Identity: Photography and
the Changing Face of Immigration at the Oakland University Art Gallery
in Rochester, Michigan, brought together eleven international artists whose
work explores the “shifting notions of identity” in relation to immigration
and the globalized modern world. Through testimonials and photographs, these
artists were able as a collective to bring to life the modern evolution of
cultural identity.
In conjunction with
this important exhibition, Professor Baillargeon led a group of
Oakland
University
students to create their own art revolving around similar issues. The class
Art, Immigration, and the Formation of Cultural Identity was
comprised of one Art History and ten Studio Art students exploring, on an
even more concentrated level, the effects of cross-cultural integration on
immigrants today. The questions asked by the student artists included:
Why do immigrants come to this country? What happens to culture when a
person is displaced from their original home? How do immigrants in
America
today retain their cultural heritage while actively participating in
American life?
And How does my
cultural background influence the way I live? Through a compilation of
photographs, paintings, drawings, and a great number of interviews with
immigrants, this book aims to provide a glimpse into the world of
immigration and how it affects our world today.
Beginning with
Charlotte Collins’s analysis of the artists represented in the
Revolutionizing Cultural Identity exhibition, the immigration issues
addressed in this book attempt to answer the question What defines who I
am? By delving into the personal heritages and cultural backgrounds of
these artists,
Charlotte
brings to light their connection not only to their art, but also to each
other in an artistic venture intended to outline the social constructs of
ever-changing culture.
Charlotte’s
accompanying visual piece, I for Identity, presents a collage of the
artists’ cultures and emphasizes that no matter how different a group of
people might be, their search for their own identities unifies them by
forcing them to ask the same questions of themselves. Culture is pervasive;
a person can never be severed from their cultural heritage nor can they deny
the effect it has upon them. This fact further draws together not only the
artists of the Revolutionizing Cultural Identity exhibition, but also
those involved with the Art, Immigration, and the Formation of Cultural
Identity class.
As
voyeuristic as the goals of this book may seem, among its contributors is a
soon-to-be emigrant whose first-hand expectations of his new home gave the
entire group insight into the psychological stresses placed upon those who
emigrate. Adam Trunoske, a
Michigan
native, will at the end of summer 2008 be permanently moving to
London
to marry and start a life with his British fiancée. His piece, entitled
Yankee: Dandy, discusses his emotions, hopes, and worries about starting
his life in a new country. His relationships with objects that he uses
everyday, and with people close to him will be drastically altered. His
powerful photographs emphasize the importance of the small, mundane aspects
of culture that can never remain the same after emigration has taken place.
By giving the face of immigration this human connection, Adam is able to
imbue his viewers with a deep respect for all those who have the courage to
imagine their lives in a different place.
Just as
Adam will find ways to retain some of his American culture while living in
England,
it is every immigrant’s struggle to preserve his or her history while
embracing the present and future. A common way for immigrants to do this is
through food. Sarah Gaskins explores this area of immigrant activity through
photographs of three restaurants that represent her Polish, German,
and Irish heritages. The antique look of her images highlights the old-world
feel of the restaurants and romanticizes the nostalgia of the little piece
of the homeland that these immigrants have created in
America.
Claire Sawalha’s series, entitled The Shisha, takes a similar
approach to the preservation of cultural heritage in
America
by giving us an intimate look at the Middle-Eastern hookah-smoking
tradition. Popular now for even those of non-Middle-Eastern descent, hookahs
represent a piece of culture that has not only managed to survive in
American society, but has even gone so far as to influence it.
Aside
from food and recreational pleasures, another very popular way for
immigrants to display pride in their cultural heritage—no matter how long
they or their family have lived in America—is by tattooing symbols of their
native culture on themselves. Through her exploration of cultural tattoos,
Julie Runyon uncovers how even great-grandchildren of immigrants can feel a
connection to their heritage. As visible labels of their heritage to the
world, the permanent marks etched onto their bodies become outward symbols
of their inner pride.
Not all
cultural labels, however, are self-assigned. Jennifer Sutton’s series,
Welcome to
America
You
@#*&$*%!,
seeks to
prove that racial slurs and slang over-generalize minorities. Words
plastered on people’s faces force stereotypes to loose their appeal and
raise the individual to a level beyond the reaches of race, class, or color.
The red geometric labels seem so ill-fit for the soft-organic faces in the
images. It becomes clear that prejudices will never be able to encompass the
true diversity of human culture.
The
injustice of cultural prejudices is what drove me to create my own piece,
(being a) Part of
America.
Questioning assumptions about the reasons for which immigrants come to
America,
I ask viewers to play a matching game. Six languages, all reading “I am part
of
America,”
are paired with six explanations of the immigrants’ motives. How are we to
tell which history belongs to whom? The ambiguity is precisely the point.
Skin tone, language, religion, and social class cannot be used as
determiners for an immigrant’s motives. It is necessary to realize that
America
was founded by immigrants and should forever be a welcoming haven for anyone
seeking a different life. Utmost in our minds should be the fact that
immigration in itself is an incredible test of character and strength. Those
who come to this country have already been through so much in their lives,
it seems unfair to ask them to then deal with the hardship of prejudice in
this, their new home.
Shauna
Bohlinger’s cartoon stories speak about the hardships faced by Japanese
immigrant women in
America.
With an impossible language barrier and a completely different set of sexual
politics in
America,
Japanese women are faced with incredible trials everyday. Giving us an
intimate view of life as a foreigner, Shauna opens our American eyes to how
bewildering life must be for newly arrived immigrants.
Even if
immigrants have adjusted to life in
America,
there often remain social prejudices that make life extremely difficult.
Such is the case with many Mexican immigrants, as is shown in Jackie Brown’s
paintings. A deep employment prejudice exists towards Mexican, Central
American, and South American immigrants. As a society, we place the Latino
community in low-paying jobs in restaurant kitchens or on janitorial crews
with no hope of advancement. Regardless of their education or abilities, the
American bias suppresses the American Dream for the Spanish speaking
community. Jackie’s work shows the injustice of this crime by giving us
intimate views on the lives of individual Mexican immigrants.
Providing
even more in-depth views of the trials of individual immigrants is the
photojournalistic piece I am a REFUGEE by Laura Fawaz. Delving into
the lives of Iraqi refugees, Laura’s work compiles a complicated web of
war-torn emotions and still vital hopes. The context of these immigrants’
exiles is especially relevant for our modern times as the War on Terror in
Iraq
exhausts the American spirit and drives our country to even more
isolationist policies concerning immigration.
As our
government continues to increase immigration restrictions in an effort to
protect national security, fingerprinting, DNA sampling, and photo
identification of citizens and immigrants have become major priorities.
Photographic identification, however, seems to be fundamentally flawed since
appearance is such an ever-changing facet of a person’s identity. Susan
Dine’s piece, Identity Crisis, proves this point by showing examples
of how different a person can look with only a few simple changes in
appearance. Appearance is such a fickle element of identity that it seems
grossly inaccurate to use a photograph to distinguish an individual.
The body of work
compiled by the eleven contributors to Art, Immigration, and the
Formation of Cultural Identity draws from personal heritages and
cultural sensitivities present in the group. Each member came to realize to
a greater extent the effect that immigration has on culture and how art can
be a perfect medium for influencing others to achieve a greater
understanding as well. Culture permeates the entire essence of a person and
therefore cannot be overestimated. When culture is displaced, a person’s
cultural identity is necessarily altered. This is why immigration elicits
such questions about identity. What defines who I am? How do I practice
“culture” everyday? What is it that makes me “American”? These questions
are not only for immigrants, but also for every person living in
America.
Together we are a nation. United by our struggle for freedom and justice in
our lives, we are all immigrants. To deny our connection with every
immigrant flooding our doors is to deny that we ourselves are human. The
incredible intermingling of cultures that results from globalization and the
shrinking of our world brought about by the global connectivity of the
Internet is quickly dissolving the geographic boundaries that previously
separated races, religions, and ideas. The greater our connection becomes
with the rest of the planet, the more we realize that we are not citizens of
America
or of any other country, but rather simple citizens of one human race.
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