Banana Is Yellow.

Year: 2023
Medium: cane sugar, blue and white porcelain, silicone, acrylic, plastic wrap, rice, porcelain plate
Size: 5” x 5” x 5”

This series of works questions and reclaims what Asians are. ‘Banana’ is a pejorative word to Asian Americans in the United States and Asians in Western Culture. ‘Banana is Yellow’ consists of five wrapped bananas on the top of a European map. Each banana is cast with silicone and colored with acrylic from Asian skin colors from different countries. I started this work by questioning myself: What is Asian? Where did the term ‘Asian’ come from? Are Asian skin colors yellow? Does every Asian have the same skin color? On the top of the plastic wrap, there is a grocery label. The term Asia originated from the Greek word Ἀσία. At that time, this term was used to refer to specific areas ‘’(red area on the map). Now, people in this area call themselves Arabic or Turkish, not Asian. The book, Systema Naturae, written by Swedish Carl von Linné, in 1735, divided Humans into four different Homo variat (Europaeus albus, Americanus rubescens, Asiaticus fuscus, Africanus niger) and described Asians are sallow, melancholic, stiff. If geographical and skin color identicalness is not the shared experience of Asians, what are the everyday things among Asian people? “Banana is White” is a banana made of rice on a white ceramic plate. In the term ‘Banana,’ the color white implies that the characteristics of Asian Americans are Westernized. I want to ask about the criteria decided one’s personality is American or Asian. The color white is regarded as the color of Western culture color and the color of Caucasians. I used rice and ceramic plates to reclaim the biased idea that white came from the West. This work is a banana cast with cane sugar. Rather than being recognized by their skin color, it would be much more reasonable to regard their experiences. I wanted to shed light on the labor and history of Asians in Western culture. The title “January 3rd, 1852, Hawaii” points out the historical moment when the first Asian immigrants arrived in the United States with a legal labor contract. They worked in sugar cane plantations.