Chris Iijima
Originally “identity” was less about who one was and more about what one stood for. Lost in contemporary definitions of Asian Pacific American “identity” is that it was conceived not primarily as an expression of racial pride, but as an expression of resistance to stereotypical assumptions about people of color in general and Asians in particular. Grain of Sand was essentially about celebrating the ability of people to grow in hostile soil.
Indeed, that is the foundation of the culture and “identity” of all American people of color. The album stands for the proposition that Asian Pacific American “identity” as solely a celebration of one’s roots and without a larger political context of struggling for a more just society, is empty and incoherent. Indeed, that is the reason why most of the album does not deal directly with Asians and our “identity” at all.
