Monyee Chau
Name: Monyee Chau
Age you feel: I am 24, I just had a birthday and I think I feel 23 still because I answered this question by accidentally typing 23, hehe.
Where YOU GREW up: I grew up in Seattle, WA.
Cultural background: I am a Taiwanese/Cantonese second generation immigrant
2020 Mantra: As an artist my mantra at this weird time we’re living in is really “I am worth more than my productivity”.
Can you share a little bit about your career?
I have always wanted to be an artist when I was young. My parents supported me and let me have independent art classes that helped teach me technical skills, and then I went to Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.
Talk to us a little more about what you mean when you say Chinese born American?
I wanted to bring to attention the politics about the language we use to describe immigrants here in America. ABC or American Born Chinese makes it clear that immigrants will never be just “American”, and always an ethnic other. I also would like to honor and acknowledge the blood that runs through my veins first and foremost.
America makes people want to assimilate, because assimilating and erasing your differences makes you safe. I want to give respect to the beautiful heritage that I have been born into, because I don’t want to lose that.
What's a favorite thing about yourself? What's your least favorite thing that you're trying to make peace with about yourself?
My favorite thing about myself is my constant want to learn. I want to learn about the complexities of the Asian American experience, about art, about community and how to be a better community member. My least favorite thing is the process of racial self hating I went through growing up. I know this was necessary for my growth and for me to get here, but I hope that this becomes something future generations don’t have to experience— shame about who they are.
What is the process in creating the pieces you make?
This really varies with whatever I’m working on! I like to think about what I want to talk about, which often is around my family, labor, Chinatowns, etc.
And I really enjoy taking on different mediums to let materiality of the object be a part of the commentary. For example, I used glass to make glass dumplings to talk about the fragility yet permanence of culture. The take out menus I used to talk about the history of Chinatowns, was to connect the fact that restaurants were integral to the Chinese immigrant life here in America. Similar to how food is often the first introduction to a new culture, it is the same role that Chinatowns play for American’s. An introduction to what it means to be Chinese in America.
In A day's work of labor and love series you explore the concept of a labor of love as a form of communication for families of color. How was labor presented to you by your family?
My grandfather traveled on his own at 12 years old by hiding under boat covers, riding wild cattle, to travel to Hong Kong to work at a restaurant to take care of his younger siblings.
My grandmother spent days in the sun of our backyard to craft hundreds of zhong zhi for her family, friends and community.
A symbolic version of this in the Asian community is also cut fruit. Every single day I came home from school, my grandmother almost always had cut and peeled apples, pears, mangos, strawberries, grapes, etc. There was so much labor put into the small things that just made us happy and well fed.
Labor of love has been a constant in my life, and has shown me that this is the love language I grew up with.
What sparked the inspiration for your overview of the history of Chinatowns?
I grew up in Seattle’s Chinatown International District in a restaurant that my family owned. As much as I wanted to distance myself from what it meant to be Chinese, this was a place that was always keeping me tied to my roots. I learned the history of Chinatowns much later on in life, realizing that U.S. history curriculums had failed me.
I never learned much about people that looked like me at all.
I didn’t learn that Chinatowns were much more than a place where you could come and get your Asian groceries or get Asian food, but the grounds became a place of safety and survival for a lot of Chinese immigrants. I believe in preservation of these neighborhoods so heavily. They are necessary to the American story, and so the history must be shared and accessible to all. I hope people join us in the work against anti-gentrification of these neighborhoods, and celebrate and fight for them rather than tear them down.
