Ethnic Aspiration

February 15, 2008

Welcome, new visitor! My name is Ari, the man behind Aries9. Here I share my thoughts on music and life, so you can get to know me and my music. Thanks for visiting!

Today I was reading and listening to this article about George Takei. And in the interview, Mr. Takei made a comment that struck me. For the exact words you’ll have to listen to it, but he was talking about meeting Toshiro Mifune, the Japanese actor famous for his role in Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. He was talking about how Mifune had qualities that have never been associated with Asian males — sexy, strong, manly, and so on. And how he and Takei himself served as a role model for Asian Americans.

Ethnicity is a big deal for me, as is for many Americans. As I was starting out and trying to figure out how to present my rock project to the world, for a while I considered pushing my ethnicity way into the background. Down play my ethnicity or make it into more of a mystery, to a point where if a casual visitor is not looking, he wouldn’t notice that this isn’t a band made of typical white men.

But over time, I gradually am coming around to the complete opposite direction.

Asian Americans are all over the place, for example, in figure skating. Classical music, too. And none of us can ignore our dominance in the technology sector — the world is practically run by appliances manufactured by Japanese and Korean corporations.

But not so in most of American popular culture. Mr. Takei is very much an exception than a norm.

But there are many of us here, and we all desperately need role models, visible presence in the mass consciousness, recognition that we are diverse, we are able, and that we are valuable. I’ve been observing Japan’s slow and quiet rise in small corners of popular media, from video games to anime to more recently, manga (graphic novels). There are many, many young people who are influenced by our cultural exports.

It’s all the more reason for me to really claim and display prominently who I am, and be an ambassador to this very large field of popular music, where Asian Americans have been very under-represented.

I am a Japanese American, and I am a rock musician.

Don’t get me wrong, getting famous and recognized is not my primary goal in getting into the music business. But I do want everyone to know, especially those who think my output has some value, that this is a work by an Asian man.

Hopefully in the near future, I’ll get professional portraits of myself and start putting those pictures up front in all of my promotional efforts. So that those of us who share my heritage can hopefully be proud of good efforts put out by someone from their background. And those who don’t share our ethnic origin, can make a discovery, or be intrigued by witnessing something they didn’t expect.

This is rock music created by an Asian man. And it is good.

Filed under: Ari, Aries9, Music, Reflections |