The InBetweeners

hello

so my name is amaya okamoto i’m an

artist

and organizer currently based in new

york city

and boston usually but currently

physically in portland oregon which is

my hometown and the city i grew up in

which i’m sure

many of you all on this tedx call relate

to being quarantined with their families

or social distancing to the best of your

abilities

so at this point months have passed and

we’ve all begun to

learn the different ways in which we

interact with ourselves and with each

other

while quarantined we all impact each

other’s senses of identity

and purpose right that’s like the beauty

of being at school or being in college

is that

we get to interact with different types

of people

and people from different backgrounds

and cultures and identities and

it informs our own sense of self um

and we don’t get to do that when we are

stuck at home

and a little bit on lockdown so it’s now

more than ever

that we’re beginning to be aware of our

differences

because we don’t have access to uh

talking to other people the pandemic

is also happening at a global

time of civil and political unrest

um and especially in america it’s

happening um

during a time of an outcry

call for accountability from the

government against police violence

and a racial reckoning and a racial

reckoning

where many people are being forced to

critically reflect on their own

identities and think

maybe for the first time critical

questions like

where am i most valuable who am i

and what what are my privileges and how

can i make an

impact so i’m back in portland um

which also happens to be the widest

major city in america

and it was here in portland which don’t

get me wrong i love my hometown

where i had many of my first you know

formative experiences as a kid this is

where i had my first kiss

this is where i went to my first school

dance it’s where i drove my first car

but it’s also where you know

i was taught and i was i was

got desensitized to comments

um that were not uncommon for me uh

like you know you’re cute for an asian

girl

um or why you why aren’t you better at

math or um you’re basically white

uh to affirm my sense of belonging as

sometimes the only non-white person

individual in a friend group or a

classroom

or sometimes even in a you know on a

street or a community

so this is you know this is also the

city where

i learned to skip school or skip art

classes even

because i was scared of i was annoyed

by my art teachers commenting and

calling my art too oriental

or too political so it was here in

portland where i learned to be

embarrassed of my asian-ness and

embarrassed of my difference

but it was also here in portland or

leaving portland um where i learned

uh to embrace who i am and breaking out

of that sense of invisibility and

breaking out of that feeling

of silence of silencing that happened

here

um was the most empowering experience of

my life

so we’re going to be talking about race

intersectionality

and art um and i have tried to record

this talk

so many times so it’s a little casual

um but we’re gonna i’m gonna attempt to

kind of facilitate

a short slam poetry-esque

activity together so bear with me none

of y’all can probably see each other

um in the video so please do it with me

if you feel comfortable

a good friend of mine who is a poet

helped me develop an exercise

that kind of helps me reflect on my own

identity

and how i feel about who i am um

in all the different parts of of myself

and so it’s called how do you hold so

we’re going to do this together so

wherever you are i want you to take a

deep breath

and relax and put your feet on the

ground and

you know feel the earth beneath you and

stay rooted

and i’m going to ask you a series of

questions and i want you to respond

with your body right so the first

question

is how do you hold a pencil

how do you hold your phone when you take

a selfie

how do you hold a child

how do you hold a basketball

now how do you hold your race

is it something that you hold

comfortably is it something you’re

embarrassed about

is your race something that holds you

down

is it something that you hold in

different

parts how do you hold your gender

is does it slip through your fingers do

you keep trying to put it back together

how do you hold your sexuality

you know is it something that you keep

in your back pocket

um is it something that you hold behind

you

like you’re embarrassed is it something

that you hold proudly

so these are just a few identities there

are countless identities that make up

who we are

um but already the ways that they

interact with each other and the ways

that they

complement or or um the compliment or

kind of fight each other um it already

gets really complicated

right and so the last question is how do

we hold

all of our identities together right um

do they fit into a neat box that they

can we can throw in our backpacks and we

just hold our identities together and

who we are right

are we confident in who we are um do our

identities

fall out of that box and we’re

constantly trying to put them back in

and figure it out

you know do i do we hold our identities

in our hands and and is it complicated

and it’s slipping through our fingers

you know

and it will change the ways that we the

way that we hold ourselves and the way

that we hold our identities

changes over time as we figure out who

we are

we get more comfortable with our

identities and we get more comfortable

with our box

and taking things out and putting

different identities in

and trying out what feels most

comfortable

so hopefully that kind of made sense

because

if it didn’t that’s okay because

identity is

effing complicated and we don’t often

visually think about um how we hold the

different parts of ourselves together

and figuring out how these different

parts of ourselves

intersect and interact with each other

is a lifelong endless learning process

so just kind of my attempt at starting

to unpack and think more critically

about who we are

and how we want to present who we are

everything we do

create and say comes from our identities

and impacts our relationships how we

live in this world

our personal expression and especially

for me as an artist it impacts

the art that i create and the art that i

um

share with the world how you hold

your identities how you stand in

intersectionalities and how you interact

with other people

is at the core of starting to understand

your role in social progress and in

social justice

so to talk about and reflect on our

identities and begin to understand that

we must understand what our identities

are for me

and for america and our entire world

right now

race is the most important identity

um but for me it wasn’t always like this

as a child i

you know i’m originally from new york

city where i was out you know i grew up

really bold and privileged and colorful

as a kid you know my mom let me do

whatever i wanted cut my own bangs

wear whatever the heck i wanted um and i

grew up

surrounded by people from different

cultures and backgrounds and

i heard ten different languages every

single day walking down the street

and i was surrounded by different types

of art

growing up in manhattan when it was

still a place of

you know artists and teachers and um

young people

young people figuring out who they are

and who they want to be

and so um growing up in new york city as

a young person

i was thriving but i was also very

protected i’m the middle

child of three sisters um and

i was allowed i would grew up in a

family where i was allowed to be kind of

like

bold outrageous and outspoken and then

at school where

you know new york city is one of the

most diverse places in the world

probably

i was celebrated for my different

differences and you know my classmates

and my peers were celebrated for their

own unique cultures

and their different skin colors and i

swear i had a holiday

every other weekend or every other week

because new york city public schools

like took

a vacation on like every holiday

which is very uncommon in other cities

so

even though i know now that race

dictates

all interactions at the time or as a

child

i was not acutely aware of race

and racism the topic about

race and you know being asian when i was

like six seven years old wasn’t an

off-limits conversation

but in new york where um race is a lot

more

of a okay topic to talk about because

there are so many different races um

being asian and being other and being

different was something to be celebrated

and this was not the culture that

i had my entire life so this childhood

of color and

exploration and art came to a sudden and

frankly very

violent stop in 2007 where in an attempt

to

escape um a dangerous and unhealthy

situation

at home my mom who remains

the strongest woman i know and who has

broken more glass ceilings than i can

count

i moved my two sisters and i literally

across the country um like opposite

coasts

to start a new life from new york city

the mecca for diversity

and portland oregon the widest major

city in america

um yeah which portland oregon remains

the widest major city in america

and it was here in portland as a young

child where i experienced the most

blatant racism and exclusion and where

my mother

did her best to navigate sudden poverty

um from you know family stuff and

protect her daughters

it was not until moving to portland had

i ever experienced being

the only non-white person in a classroom

or the feelings that came along with

hiding my differences and hiding the

hardships

and struggles that i was having in my

personal life in my family and at home

um

and i felt as if growing up here that

portland or maybe the world was doing

everything possible to make me feel like

i didn’t belong

and for me as i struggled to understand

and reconcile these differences

i also began to learn the ways that

these differences

gave me insight and sensitivity to

injustice right like being different

and you know when you’re surrounded by

people who look who don’t look like you

and don’t act like you you begin to

notice those differences even more

intensely and you begin to think

differently too

someone recently asked me what fuels you

and through all my positivity and color

and openness i can confidently say that

my fueling factor

is rage when you grow up

constantly battling personal and public

demons

you really get knocked down and kick

down

but these battles

um and life experiences that i’ve had to

counteract and push through

also has gifted me with a constant

supply

of rage and passion um to correct what

is right

and what is just um and correct what is

unjust

and my upbringing of traveling back and

forth between two coasts from the

diversity of new york

um to the white utopia that is portland

prepared me

in an odd way with the insight and

passion

for social justice that i have now and

that fuels my

creative practice throughout my

upbringing i began to develop an acute

i went reading a little bit i began to

develop a lens of race and acute

sensitivity

to injustice and this lens of injustice

and this lens of race

um which i see everything with is what

is

the lens that i approach each one of my

identities with

it’s the lens that i approach each one

of my intersectionalities

and every interaction that i have with

um is to build lens of race

and justice and what is right

as a person but especially as a woman of

color

i relate to the intense feelings of

difference and oppression

that happened especially when you’re

surrounded by people who you do not

relate to

um the feeling of being not enough for

myself but also the feelings of not

being i’ve not been enough for the world

um you know it caused me for years to

struggle

um it caused me it caused me to kind of

struggle

when i felt when you feel so knocked

down and small um

and you want to help the world you

really struggle with understanding

how you can even interact with and

support

upheaval and injustice at kind of a

national scale

um you know how do i as an individual

these are the questions i would ask

myself is like how do i as an individual

um respond to increasing visibility

in this world of police brutality gun

violence

attacks on women’s rights tightening

borders

overall invisibility um these are kind

of just a few of the

i think pro um i would say problems that

our generation

gen z is really fighting and confronting

um uh yeah but

when we as individuals begin to

understand

who we are and our privilege and our

privilege

our privileges and how we hold our

privileges

we also begin to understand where we are

most valuable

and the roles in social justice that we

can fill so as an artist

it is my duty to witness and record the

times that we’re living in

my early childhood experiences set the

foundation for my understanding of who i

am

and how i interact with the world my

peers and my art

the first piece that i ever created for

in support of the movement for black

lives was in 2015 and it was a portrait

of

michael brown jr who was shot and killed

in ferguson missouri

and this piece and a series later became

banners

and posters and it was marched through

the streets of my hometown

the widest major city in america my last

year of high school

in 2018 the parkland high school

shooting

in florida sparked national student

outrage

and i created art in response to gun

violence as a way to

cope with increasing anxieties and fears

of our generation and connect with other

young people

across the country last year

the celebration of the 50 years since

the stonewall riots in new york city

which was

the first gay pride parade um in the

fight for gay liberation

um i created a series of planned

parenthood um to honor the work of

stormy delivery

sylvia rivera and marsha p johnson

and as a young queer person myself the

opportunity to memorialize and honor

these queer icons that make my own

open existence possible was the greatest

honor

as an asian-american person in social

justice

in general i struggle to find my place

and so to quote the historian jeff chang

whose book we gonna be all right

has basically become my personal bible

um asians he categorizes as the

quote-unquote in betweeners

you know we’re in between black and

white in between complicity and freedom

in between narrow self-interest and

equal justice

right asians kind of exist on this line

and we have in many instances the

privilege of the decision to choose

which side of history we’re on

and now is not the time to be complicit

right now in america but

everywhere now is the time to step up

and choose what side of history we’re on

because racial justice impacts us all

and now is not the time to be neutral

not only for asian americans but for

everyone

we all have the opportunities in our

lives to choose

which side of history one who we are and

where we come from

fuels the way that we approach and

interact with others

when we work to understand our

differences we’re able to recognize them

and effectively work together to take

down the unjust systems

that define our world there is a place

for everyone

in justice work whether that’s being an

artist an organizer

a medic a supporter a friend or even

on the front lines of protest there is

no

what is really important to understand

is that there’s no perfect or

right way to interact with activism

because it’s not like there’s a

blueprint

or definition of like how a young person

can change the world

and no matter what we do we have to

remember that this fight right now

is not going to end with our generation

or even the next

or even the next right this is

hundreds of years of um of battling

historical oppression and injustice but

now is not the time now is the time to

step up and think critically about how

we

hold our identities and about how we

share and present them

with others and we have to be open to

shifting the ways

that we carry all of our identities

together

um and and and share them with other

people

each of us i’m talking to all of you

each of us have our own experiences with

oppressions

and sufferings whether that’s with our

older siblings

horrible bosses or bullies on the

playground

but the big question to take away

is how are you going to use your

experiences with those oppressions how

are you going to use your story

um and your experiences to help and

fight for others

and so with that thank you