Sound on, speak up.
amplifying community voice
ROB CHEN
chinese american
Can Asian American artists serve a bigger role? Growing up, Rob Chen unpacked his Chinese American identity while being the oldest brother of three. However, perceptions about his ethnicity and masculinity from his parents, alongside a life changing Asian American Experience class, led Rob to consider what his life would be like as an actor, and how he could use his platform to strengthen the voices of others in his community. After performing a spoken word poem at an #AsiansforBlackLives march in NYC, Rob continues to focus on unifying people through art, as well as dreams of designing a better future for the next generation of community-driven Americans.
Q: What is the biggest misconception you would like to address about your cultural identity and/or Asian American identity?
A: For us in our community, we're always trying to fight for that “representation,” when what we really need is more participation. We need more people involved in politics, yes, but we need more of our own Asian Americans to vote, we need them to donate, we need them to volunteer their time and hours; that is participation. It's going to be the same thing when it comes to, say, my field in entertainment, where if we're trying to get more Asians on screen in TV and Film, then we also have to support the local film festivals, we have to support the Asian American film festivals. We need to be in tune with what’s happening within our own community, and support them, too, because these are the guys who are supporting other Asian American artists and voices.
Especially in 2020, where we see the way things are right now. Our voice is even more important now more than ever before. We have to bring ourselves to the table. We can't wait for other people to invite us to the table and have this discussion about “race.” Race, at least in America, has been so much about Black and white, but because it's 2020, and Asians make up the fastest growing minority in America as well as the fastest growing population that could vote, we can't wait for others to give us a table — we have to bring our own little wooden stools that our grandmas used to peel onions on, sit there ourselves and say, “Hey, we're here to stay.” We have our own voice and we have to support our own people for that.
“Race, at least in America, has been so much about Black and white, but because it's 2020, and Asians make up the fastest growing minority in America as well as the fastest growing population that could vote, we can't wait for others to give us a table — we have to bring our own little wooden stools that our grandmas used to peel onions on, sit there ourselves and say, ‘Hey, we're here to stay.’”
Q: How have your parents' perceptions about Chinese American identity and masculinity affected your upbringing?
A: I think the biggest thing is no matter if I am Chinese American, or somebody else is Haitian American, Japanese American, or Indian American, we see that our parents want to be accepted into our country, versus for us and our generation, we want to be respected in our country. My legal name is Robert, and now people call me Rob, but I also have a Chinese name. I would ask my mom, “Why didn't I just have a Chinese name?” and my parents would say, “Well, it's because we want to make sure that the teachers are able to pronounce your name. We want to make sure that kids aren't going to make fun of you," and, something that they won't say is, “This will help you with jobs.” Growing up, I didn't feel that American. I didn't feel proud to necessarily be an American, until recently when I realized, “You know what, it's cool that we get to vote.”
In terms of masculinity, my parents are a little bit more traditional and more conservative in their approach. Aside from me, I have two younger brothers in the family, so it's all dudes. All guys. My mom and my dad wanted all three of us to be standing tall and to have great physical health and mental toughness, discipline and leadership. That's when my parents were actually very, very interested in military school, so they sent me and my brothers to military school as a way of being like, “Hey, they could learn how to become a man,” but what I really learned from military school was toxic masculinity. Before it was even coined the term toxic masculinity. It was once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that, while I don't regret going there, I would never recommend somebody to go.
In 2016, I pierced my ears and got earrings, and for me it was a sign of, “I'm taking this step to be an artist.” Beforehand, when I was in college, I was a business student. I was in four years of business school, did two different internships at startups, so that was the trajectory where I was gonna go. My final year at my school, I was like, "Nah, man, this ain't it," but it was really hard to talk to my parents about that. When I went back home, it almost felt like I was coming out to my parents or something; they could not see me in the same way. My dad would say, “Wow, there's something wrong with you, you have mental problems,” and my mom would say, “Oh, I cannot see my boy the same way.” As I got older, my mom or my auntie would every once in a while mention, “If you're going to be lazy, if you don't wash dishes, if you don't eat all of your food, you're not going to have a good wife.” There's always this idea of, if you're not successful, that if you don't do things right, you will never get “the wife” or “the woman”, the person who will then cook and clean for you as “the man” – really traditional things that seem to have worked really, really well back in the agricultural times, but not so much in 2020.
—
Editor’s Note:
Toxic Masculinity: Ideas about the way that men should behave that are seen as harmful. For example, the idea that men should not cry or admit weakness (Cambridge Dictionary).
Q: What has been your experience as the oldest brother in a Chinese American family while also expressing yourself as an artist?
A: In Chinese traditions — it's unfortunate and it has to change — so many view sons to be more valuable than daughters because of how agriculture was, where if you have more sons, then they could till the land and plow the fields, versus if you had a daughter, then you need to have a dowry for them when they get married, and that's kind of how it was before. Even though it's been long gone since then, there still is a bit of that tradition even now. So, for me as a guy, it's so much about like, “How do I be successful, how do I become a man, and how do I show that to my brothers?” A big one was going to the military school. Once they saw that I went to a military school, that I started working out more and I started to take more command of the room, my parents went, “Wow, this is amazing,” and that this was a great influence for my brothers. When I told my parents that I didn't want to continue on with military school, they thought I was insane. My dad even said, “This is probably the worst decision that you could ever make in your life.” I still went with it anyways. I had to.
When I transferred and left military school — I was about fourteen or fifteen years old when I left — I transferred to this boarding school in Princeton, New Jersey, and that was what opened me up to the arts, like drama theater, a cappella, singing, dancing, everything. My parents didn't even have to say much about it, it was even through my own brothers and even some of my family friends who knew me for a long time, they would say homophobic things. Back then, if you did art or if you were performing, they would associate you with being gay or doing High School Musical. Which is definitely not the case, it shows a lot of strength, if you could be soft and also tough at the same time, and I think art does a great job at that because you have a structure of say, the painting. You have the plain old white painting, but then you could start painting whatever it is you want to paint on it using your own soul and your own energy to do so; that's why I love art. But, growing up as a teenager, on top of growing up with all brothers, even though my mom was the one who played The Sound of Music when I was like a baby, where we would sing together every once in a while, we didn't have a lot of that culture growing up in terms of expression.
I remembered there was a whole period of time in my adolescent years when I didn't cry. It was really insane. I didn't cry when my great grandma passed away, I didn't cry when one of my grandmas passed away in China, I didn't even cry when watching sad movies. Nothing. I didn't want to cry. I felt like it was a sign of weakness, until my grandpa passed away when I was in college, and when that happened, it was like everything came out in a way that I have never experienced in my life, and that's how I knew it was so therapeutic and important to be able to express these emotions, especially as an Asian guy.
I think we're getting better at it as Asian men in America. We're getting better at expressing ourselves, at showing love, but we still have a long way to go. Part of it is our upbringing from our Eastern cultures, but another part of it is the Model Minority Myth, where they've made Asians to be a certain type of way and where they've emasculated Asian men. They've made Asian men to be weak, to be considered really asexual and just evil people. So you have a whole era of Asian men, growing up hating themselves, and the only way they could find some type of relief is through working out and to prove their dominance and to prove their masculinity — you get the 'Kevin Nguyens'! You get the Asian fuckboys, one hundred percent. You get all that and like, are they wrong for being them? No, they're one hundred percent themselves! But we gotta understand where some of these behaviors come from, and it becomes problematic especially when you have Asian dudes who start being really disrespectful to our Asian sisters, our Asian queens. They raise us and we have to treat them with the utmost respect and nothing less. Think about it this way, how many of our Asian American friends do we know have had 'The birds and the bees' talk? I know I haven't. I didn't get anything. All I got was my freshman year of college where my dad was just like, “Hey, you know, you're an adult now...” I was in the middle of playing Plants vs. Zombies and he just walks up and he's like, “Hey, you know, just remember, always wear a condom.”
But I also want to make a note that this is not all Asian parents. My parents grew up differently because they’re immigrants. They have different cultural standards that they brought to America. And because they grew up with their parents, they tend to base their teachings off of their parents. Therefore, there’s this disconnect between the child and the parent in many different types of ways. For example, clothing styles have changed, so daughters are going outside wearing shorts, and maybe it wasn't cool back then, but now it's a normal thing. But some parents think, “Hey, maybe you shouldn't wear this type of clothing, it's too scandalous. How would you feel if your auntie were to see this?” And then what happens is it becomes shaming completely and that's not what we want. We need to understand why they think the way they think, and not to be offended by it.
“I remembered there was a whole period of time in my adolescent years when I didn't cry. It was really insane. I didn't cry when my great grandma passed away, I didn't cry when one of my grandmas passed away in China, I didn't even cry when watching sad movies. Nothing. I didn't want to cry. I felt like it was a sign of weakness, until my grandpa passed away when I was in college, and when that happened, it was like everything came out in a way that I have never experienced in my life.”
Q: Acknowledging these elements of your upbringing, what was it like for you to experience a significant change in your life by expressing yourself as an artist in 2016?
A: 2016 was when I made the decision to live a life of an artist completely. I've had the interest beforehand, it's just that I was scared. I was too scared to make that jump, and too scared of what other people would think. I was too scared of myself, my capabilities, and what I was going to do if I were to make this step. There are many moments that led to this decision, but one of those defining moments was in 2016 when I took an Asian American Experience class.
So, I went into this class thinking that I knew my stuff. I thought I was "woke", I thought I was already proud to be Asian, I thought I was already — I didn't want to say this — but I thought that I was a "better Asian" for knowing "Asian shit". But then I took this class. It changed my life because that was when I learned about I-Hotel in San Francisco, that's when I learned about the coolies and how there was a whole Asian slave trade going on, that's when I learned about the Murder of Vincent Chin. I learned about all of that and many more things that still aren't talked about to this day.
I've heard about the Model Minority Myth before, but when I took the class, this was a term that wasn't even coined by our own people. We make jokes about being Asian and being doctors, we joke about our parents with accents and being tough on us, but to see it as actually being written by white people just so they could stop the unity of Black and Asian communities to come together for the Civil Rights Movement. So, I couldn't see myself as a businessperson. I think money is very, very important, but to see myself everyday behind a screen as my type of contribution to society, I couldn't see that. I could only see it as art.
That’s when I started to dive into acting because I felt that if I studied acting, then I'm studying what it means to be a human being, I'm studying what it means to live a life. And if I could learn that, then it could help me carry on into other professions of art, such as writing, directing, producing — they all have a level of humanity to them. Media is all about humanity, it's all about discovering the human person and what is in their story. And now it's 2020 and here I am four years later.
—
Editor’s Note:
I-Hotel in San Francisco | Coolie Trade in the 19th Century | Murder of Vincent Chin | Model Minority Myth
Q: Speaking of 2020, at a recent #AsiansforBlackLives march, you performed a powerful spoken word poem that has since gone viral with over 48,000+ views. What do you feel are the responsibilities of Asian American artists in society today as well as next steps for moving forward?
A: There’s a lot of hate right now, a lot of confusion, and a lot of frustration. As Asian Americans, we need to do our part by participating on all levels. As artists, I always feel we have a strong sense of imagination, so we must use our imagination to be able to envision what the world could look like, or be able to reflect upon the world we're seeing today. So, as an Asian American artist, I one hundred percent want to use my talents and gifts for the community. When I say community, it's a very broad term, it's whatever you define as community. So for you, for somebody, it could be that community is your family, or that community is your neighborhood, or that community is Asian people, or that community is Black people -- whatever that community is for you, do the art for that community. Now more than ever people are hurting, and art is a great way to heal.
It doesn't matter what type of art form it is either. There are graphic designers who are making charts, full of information on how to, for example, talk to your Asian American relatives about Black Lives Matter. There are people designing shirts and signs that others can use at the protests and at the demonstrations. There are dancers who are also making concept videos in response to everything and showing support for Black Lives Matter. In my case, I wrote a poem, and then you could have somebody else who could write a song. All these things are so important to have, but the big thing is, what I want Asian Americans to know, is that we shouldn't feel afraid to step into the conversation on talking about Black Lives Matter, especially as Asians.
I know there's some people who might feel like, “Well, I'm not Black, so I would never know what it's like to be Black,” which is true. No matter what, we'll never know what it's like to be Black; however, we know what it's like to be Asian. We know what it's like to be hurt. We know what it's like to be put down by a whole system as well. So, how I see it is that we need to amplify our voices by amplifying theirs.
I see different comments every once in a while with people saying, "What about Asian Lives Matter? Why are they only showing Black Lives Matter when we've been suffering?" Yo, number one, the media sucks. We all know that the media is terrible, they're always going to try to pin one against the other. We can’t just believe everything the media tells us. How I see it is that if you don't stand for anything, then you're going to fall for everything. So, when you don't stand for anything, and you see what's happening on the media, you're just going to be persuaded from that. And, you also cannot ask the Black community or Black people to apologize or to say, "Oh, sorry for a few incidents that happened within our own community that also happened to yours." We as Asian people have to stand up and say, “This is wrong." As an Asian person, I believe that my own people's lives matter, too. They do. And I'll say that this person died and that person died and they didn't get their justice, just like for the Black community. That is why we have to stand up for Black Lives Matter.
We have to look out for our own, you know, you can't love somebody else until you can love yourself. How I put it is that, “Yo, I am one of those types of guys who supports Black Lives Matter, and I'm going to be the one who calls out on shit that happens to Asian people, too!” Injustice is injustice. Ultimately, that's what Black Lives Matter is — it's not just saying “only” Black Lives Matter. It's way more than just that. It's oppressor versus the oppressed.
Look at the media right now. You know what they've been covering a lot of? They've been covering so much about the riots, so much about the violence and the looters and everything. But, what they don't really cover is the love that's in the streets. People walking around at the demonstrations saying, “Hey, do you need sunscreen? Do you need water? Do you need some snacks?” There's volunteer medics on scene if somebody were to pass out. There are bikers who help lead the way in terms of traffic. So much love, and mainstream media will never show that. They're not going to cover the love, and they're not going to cover the actual police brutality that happens either.
It happened last week! [Sunday, June 28th, 2020 - Monday, July 6th, 2020]. In New York City, protesters had occupied City Hall, right before that announcement of the budget cuts and the plan for the fiscal year, and they were demanding that $1 billion gets cut off from the NYPD. Around that time when it was happening, we got police that are coming and out of nowhere they just said, "You guys have to leave the perimeter, that's it." And it was like, "No, why we gotta leave?" They stormed in, arrested a few people, broke down their barriers and then just left. There was no media coverage of that, nothing. That's why, with certain Asian people who only get information from mainstream media, they start to believe more and more that Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization, which it's not. It's so far from that. Now, if someone’s actually going to label Black Lives Matter as a terrorist organization, they should have labeled KKK as a terrorist organization a long, long time ago. Play it that way. I mean, if you have over 1000 Black people a year getting killed by police officers in America, that’s a problem.
Q: With regards to your poem, what was your process in choosing your mom as the audience?
A: I originally titled it, “Dear Asian Moms”. But later on, I switched it to just “Dear Mom” to make it more personal. I've had these personal conversations with my mom, where sometimes they would get really heated to a certain point and I was really afraid that if I kept talking to my mom and having these discussions, then I would lose my relationship with her altogether. I felt that I had to go about it introspectively and think, "Okay, I need a way to get through to her," and I think the only way was to show her through love, so I wrote this open letter poem. “Dear Mom, I love you with all my heart. You're the reason why I stand up tall and aim for the stars. But there's something I gotta say and it might be hard and uncomfortable; it's about my Black brothahs and sistahs who are dying in the struggle.” So, how I introduce it as that, I'm not going in headstrong being like, “Mom, you're wrong,” but instead as, “Mom, I love you.”
“‘Dear Mom, I love you with all my heart. You're the reason why I stand up tall and aim for the stars. But there's something I gotta say and it might be hard and uncomfortable; it's about my Black brothahs and sistahs who are dying in the struggle.’ So, how I introduce it as that, I'm not going in headstrong being like, ‘Mom, you're wrong,’ but instead as,
‘Mom, I love you.’”
Q: Given your platform as an Asian American artist, what would be your message to younger artists and younger Asian Americans about what you've learned from 2020, and what can they take with them going forward?
A: I don't know if it's good to take advice from me; I mean, I'm still a young artist trying to make it up in the game! But I will say, for anybody my age or even younger, try as many things as you can. Try everything, anything that interests you, try it all. Because, more than what you will find you like, is that you're going to find the stuff that you don't like. And then, once you find the stuff that you don't like, you can focus on the stuff that you actually do like. Now, if you're Asian American, I'll say number one, know your roots. Find out who you are, where you come from, all of that is important to know, because later on it could come to bite you back when you don't give it that time you need to actually figure that stuff out.
So, knowing that history is going to be very important, knowing your origin is going to be very important, and then celebrating it! To be proud of it, to not be ashamed of your culture, but to then take arms and to be so proud of it to the point where you want to change it, you know? You should love your culture so much that you could remix it in the modern-day society. You want to be able to remix the traditions and the cultures that you love into something that fits modern day. That's how we get pop culture in the first place. Hip-hop, for example, has taken influences from Funk, from Jazz, and they chop it up, they sample sounds, and it's the same thing with being an Asian American. I think for any Asian American, right now, we're at a very exciting time, because we're starting up something called an Asian American culture that we haven't really had in the past. Black Renaissance and the Harlem Renaissance, for example, brought up amazing art and culture, and Black people can claim those! They one hundred percent can say, "We invented Hip-hop. We invented Rock ‘n’ Roll." They could say that because they did.
With us, we're at this very interesting position now because we're starting to gain more influence. We have BTS, so K-pop is, for example, reaching a lot more people all over the world, but it's more than just music. Because through K-pop, people from around the world get to see, "What is fashion like in Korea? What are the hairstyles in Korea? Maybe I should watch a Korean drama. Okay, now I get to hear the language and what it sounds like." And it could be the same thing that applies with, well, whatever “Asian culture” is. We have a very interesting dynamic where we're seeing our brothers and sisters from the other side of the world get stronger, more powerful, and, as their influence is getting greater, here in America, our influence is getting greater, too. There's more of us moving in, and we're doing all types of different jobs, too — sure we have doctors, but we also have more CEOs and journalists and actors and writers and politicians. People will have more household names besides Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, and maybe they’ll start to realize, “Oh wow, that's Awkwafina! Oh wow, that's Randall Park! Oh wow, that's Aziz Ansari!” More of our heads are coming out, which is the great part about it. I also hope that people who become successful in their fields still know where they come from, which is why I always say to know your roots first. You know your roots, you know where you come from, and then no matter what career you take, once you're successful, you know where you come from and you can give back to that community. That's something I know I want to do.
—
Editor’s Note:
Hip-hop rooted in African culture | Chuck Berry invented Rock ‘n’ Roll
“I also hope that people who become successful in their fields still know where they come from, which is why I always say to know your roots first. You know your roots, you know where you come from, and then no matter what career you take, once you're successful, you know where you come from and you can give back to that community. That's something I know I want to do.”
Q: Looking towards the future, what dreams are you most passionate about manifesting?
A: I don't have a ton of money right now. I live at home with my parents. But someday, I want to have a building complex, where the top floors are going to be meant for immigrants, undocumented citizens, and low-income families. And then, at the bottom floors, there's going to be commercial businesses that they can run, they can manage, and they could even start. So, having this business that fulfills itself, circulates itself within this building is something I definitely want to do. And that's an example of how I want to give back to my community, something outside from me being an actor. I don't want to limit myself with just being an actor, just being a storyteller. When I make the money from movies or films, I want to use that money and supply it back into our people. We have to because we need autonomy, we need control over our businesses, we need control over our voices. If we don't, then we're always going to let somebody else dictate what it is that we could do, and we cannot have that.
Of course, you know, it'd be great if I could win an EGOT! Show that I won an Emmy or a Tony, but I can't take that to the grave. Can't take any of that with me. But I definitely want to have a production company and a studio where kids, especially from the inner city, could learn how to produce, how to make their own podcasts, how to make their own YouTube channels. Because kids are already learning that on their own right now, it's just that not all of them have an amazing microphone, not all of them have an amazing camera, they might not be exposed to all of that. But they have their own phones, so it'll be nice if there's a whole space where they could learn, they could have trial and error and be okay with it, and build a community where there's a whole bunch of young people of color and kids of color who are learning about their own voices, learning about how to use the internet and technology to tell those stories that they've always wanted to tell. There are people already doing that right now, but I want to be a part of the movement that pushes our next generation forward. I look at it 20 years from now, and I can't help but to think what my kids are gonna ask me. "Hey Dad, what happened in 2020?" I better have a damn good answer for that. I do everything I can now to ensure that my future unborn kids and their kids will have a better life, and that I could leave a legacy for them.
