Celebrate Asian and Pacific Islander Latinx Festival at MOLAA as we explore the instances of cultural synthesis between Asian, Pacific Islander & Latinx Communities in the US and throughout Latin America. We examine these narratives throughout the month of May in partnership with the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) and the Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum (PIEAM).
Date(s): Thursdays, May 6, 13, 20, 2021
PLÁTICAS POÉTICAS: MAULI OLA-TULA’
May 6, 2021
Through poetry, healing, conversation, ceremony, and ritual, we have cultivated an artistic collaboration to honor our diverse Latinidad, Pinay, and Korean-Hawaiian heritages. We will create space to delve into our personal bodies of work and examine how they intersect with our multidimensional identities. We invite you to reflect with us and find solace in creating sacred space together.
Gloria is a Xicana-Filipina artist who works in painting, weaving, sculpture, and mixed media. Her use of everyday material invoked the Xicanx concept of ‘Rasquache,’ which signifies a resourceful, working class sensibility.
Ciana thrives as a Xicane-Hawaiian-Korean educator, artist, performer and special events coordinator out of Puvuunga [Long Beach, California].
EATING UP EASTER
May 13, 2021
Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, is a microcosm of a planet in flux. Eating Up Easter explores the challenges faced by the Rapa Nui people, and the intergenerational fight to preserve their culture and a beloved environment against a backdrop of a modernizing society and a booming tourism trade.
Please join us for a conversation on the unique situation of the island and people of Rapa Nui. Fran Lujan presents Oceania 101, a history of the region which explores Rapa Nui’s place within the Pacific Islands. Film director Sergio Rapu will talk about his experience growing up on the island and the motivation behind the film Eating Up Easter. Registrants can access the film prior to the event and are encouraged to submit questions to be answered during the live broadcast.
Organized in collaboration with the Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum.
Detention/Resistance: Japanese American and Latinx Histories of Incarceration - Asian Pacific Islander Latinx Festival
May 20, 2021
From Spanish colonial missions to WWII concentration camps to present day ICE run “family detention centers,” the history of the U.S. is marked by mass incarceration due to racism and xenophobia. In 1942, Crystal City detention facility opened in south Texas as one of the many sites around the U.S. used to incarcerate those of Japanese ancestry during WWII. Unique to Crystal City, many of these internees had been deported from Latin America to the U.S. This panel of Japanese American and Latinx artists and experts will speak not only to these communities' connected histories of violence and displacement, but also to the interwoven stories of resistance and community power that were built out of these times of pressure.
Organized in collaboration with the Japanese American National Museum
Learn more about our partners
Japanese American National Museum
Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum