by Matthew Ng
Isabel, Sophie, and Ina make up the Asian Joy project. They are collecting and archiving Asian American oral histories shtat center on finding joy, and using these stories to create a public mural that explores how the convergence of Asianness and Southernness shapes Asian American well-being. Look forward to a celebration this year, where you can view the mural and oral histories!
I got the chance to learn more about the individuals who make up Asian Joy, and their motivations behind the project. Keep reading to learn more about the team!
Introduce yourselves! Tell us who are you, share your backgrounds and paths, and anything else that you’d like to share that forms your identities.
Ina: I am a visual artist with a background in public health pharmacy and am particularly interested in using art to explore stigmatized topics and advocate for health equity. I’ve had the privilege of collaborating on projects with organizations like the World Health Organization and UNC Asian American Center, focusing on social justice initiatives. Through my art, I strive to authentically represent and share the stories of the AANHPI (Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander) community.
Isabel: I’m a Chinese-American visual artist and health equity researcher. My individual art practice explores themes of well being, queerness, and internal turmoil through the lenses of Traditional Chinese Medicine. My community-based work focuses on creating space for BIPOC community members to engage with and share art as a way to understand each other and our surroundings. I studied nutritional science as an undergraduate student and then I completed a masters of public health and dietetics. I was one of the 2023 Emerging Artists-in-Residence at Artspace in Raleigh, where I am now a studio artist.
Sophie: I am the oral history lead on the Asian Joy project! I’m proudly queer, Vietnamese American, and ice-cream-obsessed. I am also a PhD candidate in Health Behavior at UNC and a field scholar at the Southern Oral History Program (SOHP). I study how arts, creative media, and storytelling can be used as part of health advocacy and social movements. I have also always loved youth and campus engagement—and I am constantly inspired by students’ creative use of language, music, and art in their activism and advocacy, from today’s Gaza solidarity encampments to the 1960s/70s civil rights and antiwar protests that are so deeply tied to my own family’s history.
What does being Asian American in North Carolina mean to you?
Ina: For me, being Asian American is not a siloed part of my identity, but rather a culmination of everything I am, which includes being a North Carolinian. I think having these two intersecting identities gives me the opportunity to enjoy things that just makes sense for me as an Asian in NC, like relishing my weekly grocery trips to Grand Asia, being surprised but then not surprised when I find a REALLY good Asian restaurant, or finding a community that understands the nuances of these two identities intersecting.
Isabel: I see really beautiful parallels between being Asian American and being from North Carolina. Southern and Asian cultures both share a communal and collective mindset. It’s really endearing to learn how these two sides of my identity both adore boiled peanuts, stewed greens, and sweet potatoes. Of course, there are a lot of spaces in NC where parts of my ethnic identity gets exoticized, but I think those experiences have made me lean more into the nuances of my cultural background, and how those ancestral influences play with my Southern upbringing.
Sophie: Both the South and Asian Americans have historically been viewed as monoliths—a damaging phenomenon that has shaped cultural norms, media, and even laws and policies. But what I see in our North Carolina communities could not be further from monolithic. Being Asian American in North Carolina means being forever in awe of the land, the cultures, the food, the music, the art, the ice cream… how all of these are blended into people’s intertwining histories. Being Asian American in North Carolina also means that while I recognize the huge issues our state has, I am very protective of our communities here and will fight any coastal elite who has a bad word to say about us. Just kidding! In all seriousness, I echo everything Ina and Isabel have said—I could not have put it better myself.
How has being a part of the Asian American community in North Carolina shaped your work? What inspirations do you take from the community?
Ina: Most of my artwork is rooted in the community. My general process includes conducting oral histories/interviews with community members and then leveraging those stories to create art that hopefully represents their stories. As such, I truly hope the Asian American community feels seen when they look at my work. I also love collaborating with other Asian American artists (like Isabel and Sophie!!). I feel like when friendship and genuine care for our lived experiences is the groundwork for community work, we can do so much together.
Isabel: Creating community here in North Carolina is like finding pockets of brilliance and curiosity and innovation and warmth. Compared to other more historically-established AA communities across the United States, NC’s AA community is definitely more dispersed and new. But I think that provided us room to build what AA advocacy looks like in a Southern context that was shaped by Black and Brown communities. I love learning from and collaborating with AA creatives and activists here. I continue to be inspired by our collective power and softness and our “let’s just make it happen” kind of attitude.
Sophie: Southern communities have an incredibly rich history of resistance and organizing. As a long-time North Carolinian, I am excited to witness and document how Asian Americans have been a part of these movements in our state. As a public health student, educator, and advocate, I’m especially inspired by the emerging student-led and grassroots efforts to disaggregate Asian American health data and develop health initiatives by and for our communities. I hope to reflect these movements in my own work at the intersection of health, arts, and storytelling: My current research explores how Asian American comedians in the South experience and tell stories about health; my work at the SOHP includes recording oral histories with Asian American community members from all over North Carolina for an ongoing project called Southern Mix.
All three of us, through our public health work, creative work, Asian American advocacy, and day-to-day lives, are deeply invested in making North Carolina a better place for all communities here.
What is the Asian Joy project? What inspired you to pursue this?
North Carolina has one of the nation’s fastest-growing Asian American populations, with a rich yet under-documented history in our state and across the South. With Asian Joy, we aim to celebrate and amplify Asian American joy and experiences in North Carolina, exploring the convergence of Asianness and Southernness that shapes our well-being. Through art and storytelling, our goal is to authentically represent our communities across generations, cultures, and ethnicities, emphasizing the common pursuit of well-being and joy. We hope to operationalize this goal by collecting oral histories from local community members, working with them to create public art that represents these stories, and installing the mural at Raleigh Union Station.
Asian Joy started with Isabel and Ina’s desire to celebrate and document Asian American experiences of well-being and joy through public visual art. They brought Sophie in to add an oral history component after Sophie recorded an oral history with Isabel for Southern Mix. We all found each other through our art and public health spheres: Isabel and Ina met through the local art community, and Isabel and Sophie know each other from serving in the Minority Student Caucus at UNC.
Where can people learn more about the Asian Joy project/what can they look forward to from your team?
You can find more information about our project at https://www.isabel-lu.com/asian-joy. We’re currently planning a celebration event to unveil the mural for later this summer. We will send out an invitation through NCAAT, as well as through our Instagram accounts. Moving forward, the three of us plan to continue to engage our community in storytelling and arts. So stay tuned as to what we’re up to next!
Instagram accounts:
Isabel: @iisabellu
Ina: @inaliuart
Sophie: @brophiebbro / @twindergirls