Don’t judge Denise Uyehara based on the way she looks. The
Japanese American performance artist-writer and UCLA student will
be the first to say assumptions based on appearance can be
extremely destructive.
Known for tackling issues of race, gender and sexual identity in
critically acclaimed solo works like “Headless Turtleneck
Relatives” and “Hello (Sex) Kitty: Mad Asian Bitch on
Wheels,” Uyehara opens her latest solo show, “Big
Head,” at Highways Performance Space tonight. The woman
Entertainment Weekly once named “Best Performance
Artist” has created a multimedia production that compares the
treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II with that of
groups now often viewed as “the enemy:” Arab, Muslim
and South Asian Americans.
The discrimination in “Big Head” goes beyond
expected white versus ethnic boundaries to examine how prejudice
has the potential to affect everyone. One section of the piece,
which features narrative and clay animation video, was prompted by
an Orange County hate crime committed by Japanese Americans against
an Indian man and his family mistaken for Middle Easterners.
“I’m Asian American, originally from Orange County,
so it hit home for me that we’re all very susceptible to
being racist,” Uyehara said. “Regardless of who you
are, why are you beating (other people) up?”
The internment of her great uncle Masamori Kojima during World
War II and the letters he wrote during that time also helped
Uyehara think about the mistreatment of Arab and Muslim Americans
in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.
“It was only a generation and a half, two generations ago
that people were interned,” she continued. “For a long
time, it was hard for me to relate, beyond intellectually, to the
incarceration of Japanese Americans. But with recent events,
it’s easy to remember what happened then and to think of how
we can help those who are being incarcerated now.”
Ironically, “Big Head” was originally inspired by an
Immigration and Naturalization Service document made public through
the Freedom of Information Act years before the Sept. 11, 2001
terrorist attacks on New York and Washington D.C. A coalition of
Japanese Americans and Arab Americans discovered the 1986 INS
contingency plan that laid down guidelines to track, mark and
possibly intern suspected terrorists in the U.S.
“They actually had a barracks set up in Oakdale,
Louisiana,” Uyehara said.
In an effort to include the stories of other ethnic groups in
the work, Uyehara at one point assumes the identity of former UCLA
Daily Bruin editor-in-chief Edina Lekovic, a Muslim American whose
ability had once been questioned by a Japanese American staff
member. Uyehara questions the connections between internment camps,
the U.S. Patriot Act and current infringements on American civil
liberties.
“This whole “˜never again’ thing is really a
joke because it’s happening over and over and over
again,” Uyehara says while playing Lekovic’s
character.
With the completion of “Big Head,” Uyehara now
spends much of her time as an MFA graduate student in UCLA’s
Department of World Arts and Cultures, looking for ways to expand
and build upon her ideas.
Despite all the critical acclaim she’s received over the
last 10 years ““ a former “Writer on Site”
artist-in-residence at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and a
recipient of an AT&T “New Plays for the ’90s”
grant among many other awards ““ she maintains a very
practical attitude about her success, especially as a Japanese
American.
“There’s a need for more people of color to be doing
this work,” she said. “I’m one of many voices out
there trying to get heard. It’s not like I’m not the
only one.”
“Big Head” will be playing at Highways Performance
Space at 1651 18th St., Santa Monica, Feb. 21, 22, 28, March 1 at
8:30 p.m. and March 2 at 2 p.m. $15 general admission, $13 students
and seniors. For reservations, call (310) 315-1459. For more
information, call (310) 453-1755 or visit deniseuyehara.com.