Janine Nguyen and Anthony Tran, ASA 115, Art Project Week 1

To criticize Elizabeth Warren, a Caucasian female senator from Ohio, it is critical to bring into light how Warren has utilized multiraciality as a ploy to give herself clout as a senator until her involvement in the 2020 presidential campaign. For years, since the early 1990s, Warren has been convinced that she is of Cherokee Nation heritage. Native people have been relegated to being invisible, whereas Warren is clearly not as a phenotypically white woman of influence. Warren has established herself as the only Native American woman in Congress, yet she has failed to make any advances in rights for Native American people, notwithstanding the Cherokee. In Cindy Nakashima’s “Invisible Monster”, multiracial people are described to be the outcasts of society; they are unstable, unnatural and threaten the foundations of society. However, using multiraciality to boost her career, Warren was celebrated as the first minority woman to receive tenure at the Harvard Law School; to boot, she tends to “flip-flop” in her stories of her ancestors which she seems to derive from racist stereotypes. In addition, Warren’s motives are suspicious because the Cherokee Nation has no official records of her or her family, and she avoids even talking to Native American leaders despite public opinion of her multiracial roots. After years of ignoring the concerns and criticisms of the Native American people, only now in 2019, Warren apologizes for her misappropriation of Native heritage. It is clear to day that her decision is based on garnering the most votes and gaining the forgiveness of the general public as a presidential Democratic nominee, not out of actual guilt and shame for making fraudulent claims. The case of Warren emphasizes how white privilege has overshadowed the cries and grievances of ethnic minorities. Warren is still commemorated as a progressive, white Feminist, despite her ignorance and how she clearly took advantage of being Cherokee on basis of the one-drop rule. Native Americans remain invisible at large, especially in politics where representation is crucial in advancing in their rights and improving the current conditions of the Native people. The case of Warren highlights how there is a divide in which phenotypically Caucasian multiracial individuals do not experience the same hardships; while this case is interesting and complex, it is obvious that Warren faces little to no repercussions for her actions.

This piece was inspired by my favorite cartoon series, Steven Universe, and white paternalistic elites from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as Dr. Walter Plecker and John Powell. The piece is an adaptation of various scenes throughout the films in order to convey a similar story to its original plot. Here, we have the main character, Steven, being asked about "what" he really is in order to fill in the schema that people naturally feel a need to complete. Steven is half human and half gem, an alien species with supernatural powers that allowed him to fight off enemies and fuse with other gems. 

The way that fusion works is trust and love between two gems, at least that was what they knew. Steven's love interest, Connie, is a human that was able to fuse with him and are now worried for their safety, as this a new territory in biology that has not been discovered, or explored. Outsiders, like the larger more powerful gems overlooking the planet, feel the need to express their disgust and try to stop Steven and Connie from continuing to mingle and spread. It was believed that only gems of the same kind are allowed to fuse. Already being a human and gem fusion, Steven has to pick a side to fight in this upcoming alien invasion/war. He struggles to see that he can’t be himself without either side.

Addressing the reading, Powell and Plecker advocated against interracial marriages and for bills that segregated people by color and did much worse things in the fight for oppressing non-white folks. The idea of fusion between Steven and Connie, here, speaks to Plecker’s ideas of biological inferiority of American Indian and African American folks and any other hybridized offspring. Steven Universe is a beautiful story that speaks to issues beyond interracial love, but LGBTQIA+ issues, and being such a progressive series for a network as old as Cartoon Network, the channel that develops and premieres this show, really drew my attention for this project. This piece was created using the AutoSketch and Goodnotes 5 apps on my iPad Air. Being an artist to me means someone that can produce a work that somehow releases feelings or ideas and may be viewed by others to share those ideas and feeling in any kind of medium, or invoke new ones through interpretation from and with that medium. I love projects that are assigned with general ideas that allow me to produce something more complex, whether it is a new idea or practice a more sophisticated technique. My philosophy on creating art mostly resides to mental and emotional relief/release. It is a great way to redirect one’s energy from what might be a stressful life, but it is also something that can make one think. Whether it is in creating that piece or analyzing it, thought goes into the development of each element.