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August 29, 2024 APEX Express – 8.29.24 – Retelling Stories

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.

Host Miko Lee speaks with playwright Naomi Iizuka and graphic novelist/activist Eddie Ahn.

For more information about the show’s guests:

the MAGIC THEATRE and PLAY ON SHAKESPEARE present: Richard II

A new translated version by NAOMI IIZUKA from William Shakespeare

August 21 -September 8, 2024

Tickets available here.

Eddie Ahns Advocate

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the Apex Express.

Miko: [00:00:34] Good evening. Welcome to Apex Express. This is your host, Miko Lee. And tonight we’re going to talk about retelling stories. So join us as you hop along the Apex Express. Welcome one and all to Apex Express. This is your host, Miko Lee. And tonight we’re talking about retelling stories. I had the opportunity to speak to two artists. One is the playwright, Naomi Iizuka and the second is the activist artists graphic novelist Eddie Ahn. So first up, take a listen to my interview with playwright, Naomi Iizuka. Before we recorded the interview, I actually had a chance to talk with Naomi and we worked together many moons ago. We actually were calculating based on our children’s ages. We work together in theater at Berkeley rep. And it is amazing to see Naomi retelling, so many stories in so many different cultures and genres. And here we talk about her experience rewriting Richard II which I had a chance to see at the magic theater. It has some absolutely amazing production values, and I encourage you all to go check it out. We’ll put a link to the show in our show notes. So check out my interview with Naomi Iizuka. Welcome Naomi Iizuka to Apex Express. We’re so excited to have the award winning playwright whose adaptation of Richard II opens at the Magic Theatre August 23rd and runs through September 8th. Welcome Naomi.

Naomi Iizuka: [00:02:30] Oh, thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here and so honored.

Miko Lee: [00:02:34] Well, we’re honored to have you. I want to start with my big question, which I adapted from the amazing poet Chinaka Hodges, which is who are your people and where do you come from?

Naomi Iizuka: [00:02:46] That’s a beautiful question. I think that my people are adventurous and iconoclastic, and that means that they come from many different places, geographically and also spiritually and artistically. I definitely feel an affinity for the Bay Area. it was the first place I really. Came to in my sort of adult life and I feel a great affinity for theater people and theater artists. we are, I think, a community of artists that come from, you know, all sorts of traditions and we make this evanescent event. And I think there’s something really beautiful in that.

Miko Lee: [00:03:31] Ooh, evanescent event. I really like that. That sounds so pretty. I’m wondering what legacy you carry with you from your people.

Naomi Iizuka: [00:03:40] I think, an awareness of history, an awareness of Mystery sort of just beyond your peripheral vision that there are stories that haven’t been told that there are tremors and voices just underneath the surface of the every day And a real curiosity about that, and I think that that cuts across a lot of, people in my life who actually are not only in theater, you know, people who are, attorneys and in academia and scientists. I mean, just, I think, I think it’s, a kind of an adventurous, um, curiosity. I think that that is what I’ve inherited.

Miko Lee: [00:04:18] Oh, thank you for sharing that. I’m wondering if that lends itself to the fact that you’ve adapted a number of classics. We’re going to be talking about Richard III, but I know you also did a version of Hamlet that was set in Oakland, Orpheus, and the Odyssey, and Japanese folktales. Can you talk a little bit about what sparks your curiosity around adaptations?

Naomi Iizuka: [00:04:40] That’s a great question. I think that adaptations at their best are conversations with ghosts. And I guess I really enjoy that. I enjoy this idea of, in some way being in conversation with. Consciousnesses that are not maybe here on this plane of existence anymore, but have left their thoughts and their, big questions, they’ve sort of embedded them in these works of art. And so when you adapt Shakespeare or you adapt a Japanese folktale, I feel like you’re in conversation with These ghosts and they’re wise and they’re playful and they’re mysterious and they’re, challenging. And I, I love that. I love that experience.

Miko Lee: [00:05:25] Aside from the adaptations, have you had personal experiences with ghosts?

Naomi Iizuka: [00:05:30] Oh, wow. I would say yes. but I, I, I maybe not. That’s something maybe I don’t want to talk about.

Miko Lee: [00:05:39] No worries. I always love to hear. I have had experience with ghosts. So I always love to hear other people’s ghost stories. I get it. If you don’t want to talk about that’s okay. Can you talk with me about this adaptation of Richard II? And I’m wondering how you got involved in this adaptation?

Naomi Iizuka: [00:05:59] Well, it’s a commission. So I was asked to adapt or really translate is the word that I think is more accurate, a Shakespeare play. And it, it’s a project called, play on where a bunch of contemporary writers were asked to translate Shakespeare. What that means is that we were really asked to do a deep dive into the original texts. I’m going to say plural because I think there are different versions even, and figure out the most muscular, vivid version of Shakespeare. Of Shakespeare that we could figure out for contemporary audiences. So it’s less about putting our own spin on something. It’s really about really wrestling with that material and finding this muscular Present day version of the material that is true to the original, and that brings to light the original and what sort of underneath the surface, you know, for contemporary audiences.

Miko Lee: [00:07:03] And since Richard II is about power and corruption, and we’re in this election season, we just are in the midst of the Democratic Convention, I’m wondering if you see parallels with Richard II and what’s happening now in our political realm.

Naomi Iizuka: [00:07:18] I do. I mean, and it’s interesting because I think that even though this play is centuries old, it does very much speak to the present moment where you have really different ideas about what is the right direction for a country and for a government and what it means to govern. And I think that I cannot think of more timely questions. And also candidly, this sort of anxiety, that’s, I think, an anxiety that we all feel in this moment where there are really You know, strong differences and and we’ve had some really, difficult divisions in our country and in within our own families. And I, and that is so, so much at play in Richard II. There’s, these arguments that people have they’re life and death and they’re within families and they’re within, you know, they’re within countries and how they are resolved really changes the trajectory of the future. So yes, 100 percent it’s so timely. It’s, it’s unbelievably timely.

Miko Lee: [00:08:24] And you’ve done a lot of works that are around, of adaptations, we talked about you doing those, but also you’ve done a lot of works that are around really intense issues from sexual assault and good kids and refugees and anonymous and unhoused youth and Polaroid stories. What draws you to storytelling? What draws you to the specific stories that you have been telling?

Naomi Iizuka: [00:08:48] I think that there is an answer to that question that is both conscious and aware and unconscious and more subterranean. So what’s probably the most truthful answer is, I don’t know, there is a kind of curiosity and hunger that I think I’ve had. I know I’ve had for my whole life, my whole life that I can remember where I want to know what the story is. I want to, you know, I see a person and I want to know where they came from. you know that, that excitement that I, I suspect many of us feel when you go into a library and you see all those books and you think, what are the stories? So that’s the more sort of subterranean, um, sort visceral, impetus for storytelling. I think as I’ve gotten older and I’ve thought about it and I’ve become a teacher, I think that storytelling is incredibly powerful. And I think that how you tell stories and who gets to tell stories is so powerful. And I, and I think I’m perhaps stating the obvious, but I think it’s something that I remind myself of on a regular basis. And so. My desire to tell stories that, maybe aren’t told or aren’t told in a way that is familiar is really deep. I, I think that that’s perhaps maybe the most meaningful way that at least I can move through the world and the, and the writers and artists that are around me, the storytellers, dancers as well, and choreographers. I, I, think they share that, this sense that who tells the story and how you tell it. It matters a lot.

Miko Lee: [00:10:20] And so much of this work is really powerful and is really trying to hit at sometimes hidden histories, stories that we don’t hear as often. I’m wondering if you think of yourself as an activist.

Naomi Iizuka: [00:10:33] You know, I haven’t In all honesty, I don’t, but I think I am, I think I am because I feel really acutely, certain things that must be said, and I think I’m realizing that the act of saying them and saying them you know, over time is actually an activist posture, you know, that you, have an engagement with the world that doesn’t slacken that, continues over time and you stand your ground. And I think that if that can be something that, I can contribute in some small way. I will feel that there’s some meaning to what it is I do.

Miko Lee: [00:11:14]And I’m wondering, because you’ve done genres, many different genres, from writing for TV, and then also stage, and writing for children’s theater and adult theater, I’m wondering if, how each of those play into your writing process. Do you write differently when you write for TV versus stage? Do you put on a different hat to get into character so that you could do that? Do you write differently for children’s work? I also see some of your children’s theater pieces as being like really around intense issues. So I’m just wondering about how you blend those and if you kind of divide up parts of yourself or what is your approach to writing in these different genres?

Naomi Iizuka: [00:11:51] I think it’s a great question. I always start, maybe not always, but I think 99 percent of the time I start with character because I think that when you start with character, you start with humans. And when you start with humans, you start with mystery. And I think that that to me feels like the most exciting starting point, whether you’re writing a play for young audiences, or whether you’re writing, a translation of a Shakespeare play, or whether you’re writing something for television. So I think that’s a common thread, starting with the human mystery inside of a life, inside of an individual, inside of their circumstances. that’s, I think, the starting point always.

Miko Lee: [00:12:33] And you’ve been collaborating with Campo Santo and John and now the magic for so many years. Can you talk a little bit about the benefits and or challenges of long term collaboration?

Naomi Iizuka: [00:12:44] Think long term collaboration is perhaps one of the greatest gifts that an artist can be afforded because it means that you have a home and sort of looping back to an earlier question of yours, you have a tribe of people, a community of people that you’re connected to and, and you have a shared, responsibility to the storytelling. And that, As I get older, feels so, it feels rare and it feels really precious because I mean, when I work with Camposanto, I just, you know, now I, and I’ve, you know, talking with Margo or Sean and Catherine Castellanos, I’ve known them for such a long time and I’ve watched them work and I’ve been in awe of their work and they, there’s a way that we connect through the work that is, deeper than, than the surface layer, that you’re able to sort of plumb depths that you sometimes can’t when you’re, just starting out working with someone, you know, and they may be a wonderful artist, but you just don’t have those years of, knowledge and, trust.

Miko Lee: [00:13:57] Yeah, so many layers that you can rely on and that trust and the connection. Um, I guess they’re kind of the family when we were talking in the very beginning, your tribe of people, the theater people.

Naomi Iizuka: [00:14:09] They are very much my tribe of people. I mean, I, I love them and it has felt like coming home, you know, to, to work with them.

Miko Lee: [00:14:16] Yay. I’m wondering if your ethnic tribe growing up in multiple parts, you know, being born in Japan and Indonesia and U. S. and being mixed race, Japanese Latin American, how does that impact your creative process?

Naomi Iizuka: [00:14:33] You know, I think I’m still answering that question. I think one thing that is really heartening is when I was younger, I felt very much like, oh, I don’t fit into any box. And there aren’t that many people like me that are, you know, multi ethnic and multi racial. And, as I’ve gotten older now, and I look at, for example, my son’s generation, I’m like, that is now, I don’t know if it’s the norm, but in California, there’s, so many people who are, mixed in and the mixtures are, you know, they run the gamut and I think in terms of my own work, maybe what that led to early on was an awareness that. the reality of lived existence for most people is complicated and not easily paraphrasable, and I think that that bred in me a certain humility and also a certain, there’s a certain challenge there, you know, like, how do I, How do I evoke the truth of this really complicated reality that is not just my own reality, but, so many of us, right? we’re not one thing. We’re, we’re many things, some of which are not always visible or some of which are in some ways hidden.

Miko Lee: [00:15:46] Have you ever written a play that’s a Japanese Latin American play?

Naomi Iizuka: [00:15:51] not explicitly, no. I mean, I think a lot of the plays that I’ve written, they, they are, I would say, flexible in terms of their casting and in terms of their point of view.And I think that they invite, they invite that kind of collision. But specifically, no.

Miko Lee: [00:16:12] Well, I would be so curious to see your take on, like, the Japanese Latin American kidnapping and incarceration of that whole community. Yeah, there’s so many stories that have not been told about the JLA community.

Naomi Iizuka: [00:16:26] So many, yep.

Miko Lee: [00:16:28] I’m wondering if there is a story that you grew up with that you remember your family telling you that’s helped to frame your creative process?

Naomi Iizuka: [00:16:36] Oh, wow. That is a really great question. my maternal grandmother, was a, kind of a mysterious woman. And I, I wondered a lot about her and I think there were a lot of secrets in her past. I think she is somebody it’s actually less about the stories that were told and more about the questions that not only I had about her, but my mother had about her, my uncle had about her, that we just never fully found out. We, you know, we discovered when she was well into her seventies that she was blind in one eye. She never learned to read or write and it was a little bit unclear. Estranged, I guess, from her family of origin. yeah, it just, there’s so many questions about her. I think the other story from my father’s side of the family, from the Japanese side of the family, which I have written about, actually, because my father told the story, from when I was, for as long as I can remember, my father was a, was a very young child in World War II and he was Japanese national and he, and he was in Tokyo with his family and their house was bombed. And my father was not in the house. He was supposed to have been in the house, but he, Kind of, he was very little. He was, I think he was like five or six, and he had wandered away. My father, kind of, the moral of the story for my father was always like, you know, don’t do what people tell you, because if you do, something bad may happen. So he didn’t do what he was supposed to do. He didn’t stay put. He wandered away. And, and he, as a result, he survived, you know, and, think That was a story that I, I still think about. and I, if you knew my father, it would make a lot of sense because he has this really, um, very, defiant is not the quite the right word, but he really knew who he was and he wasn’t going to sort of take it from anyone. He was just going to, you know, do it his way. and that story felt very much, you know, the origin story of that personality.

Miko Lee: [00:18:35] So he had encouraged you to be a rebel, to kind of be who you are.

Naomi Iizuka: [00:18:40] A little bit. But you know what’s so funny is I, you know, growing up, I was not like my father. You know, my father was, you know, he would, he told many stories. I’m not gonna, I can’t tell you all of them, but you know, he was kind of a naughty kid growing up and, and he got in trouble, you know, he was, you know, and, and I was not that way. I was the opposite. I was a really, you know, very obedient, good student. Actually, in a strange way, my father, I think had the last laugh because I did turn out to be in my life choices, I think rather rebellious, but that wasn’t nobody’s meeting me as a, you know, as a teenager or a child would have thought that they would have thought, Oh, you know, what a well behaved, polite, you know, good student and then I turned out to have a kind of a very different trajectory. It’s interesting.

Miko Lee: [00:19:24] What’s the first play you ever wrote? How old were you? And what was it?

Naomi Iizuka: [00:19:28] I think the very first play I wrote was this very strange play. I was, a senior in college and it was called Betty Ford and the Dream Commandos. I think I have only a copy that’s paper because I wrote it on a typewriter. That’s how old I am. And I, I, it was a really expressionistic, strange piece that was that they did site specifically, it was short. I think it was maybe a 20 minute play. And I honestly don’t remember the story of it. I remember fragmentary moments of it. I remember there was a chorus of dream commandos that were sort of like sort of ninja like and there was a Betty Ford character who was kind of in a haze. Yeah.

Miko Lee: [00:20:12] That is so wacky. Why Betty Ford?

Naomi Iizuka: [00:20:16] God knows. I don’t know. I mean, I

Miko Lee: [00:20:18] Betty Ford as like First Lady Betty Ford or Betty Ford as in running the rehab center?

Naomi Iizuka: [00:20:24] Well, I mean, it was the same person and I think you put your finger on it, which is that I This was a woman that I think I, as a young person, I remember watching her on television and thinking, and this was before the sort of drug rehabilitation part of her life. I just thinking like, she has a hard life. She seems, you know, she’s smiling, but I, I think behind that smile, well, again, it gets to that human mystery. I, I guess I was curious about her. She seemed like somebody that, Had this persona and had this sort of public facing, way about her, but that there was a lot of sort of still waters run deep about her too. So I think, I think that that was, that made me curious, you know?

Miko Lee: [00:21:07] Oh, I would love to have a reading with playwrights reading their first plays. That would be so fun.

Naomi Iizuka: [00:21:13] That’d probably a little sad. Scary.

Miko Lee: [00:21:17] I, there’s a beautiful exhibit art exhibit where they had children’s book authors. The, um, this was a museum of children’s art did it and they had their work now beside a work they created when they were a kid and in framed and it was so gorgeous because. Everyone really showed that even when they were like five years old, they were already creating their style. So

Naomi Iizuka: [00:21:40] That’s fascinating. Yeah.

Miko Lee: [00:21:41] So I just love, I would love to see playwrights that from playwrights. Anyways. I’m wondering if you can talk about your daily creative process, like what do you do? I mean, I, I talked to Isabel Allende about this and she said, every morning I get up, I get a cup of tea, I make myself go into this room and I write, even if it’s painful. Yeah. And even if it’s bad, I’m wondering if you have like a set schedule or how do you do it?

Naomi Iizuka: [00:22:06] I don’t have a set schedule. Mainly, I, I wish I, I did, and I may be able to now in my life, but I think for many years just juggling a day job. And, and I, and I still have, you know, I teach and I, I write for television and so it’s, it’s a little hectic. and I was a single mom. But now my son is in college, I just actually dropped him off. So I think I will have my schedule be a little different. What I do, which is I think related to what you just described, is I make sure that I write every day, but it’s not always at the same time. So sometimes if I have the luxury of, a day where I, don’t have to be somewhere at 8am, I will write in the morning. And I do like very much sort of waking up, brewing a cup of coffee and, writing. But I also write, you know, late at night. In fact, I was, you know, just dropping my son off at college and, he was asleep. And, I was sort of in a different part of in the Airbnb where we were staying. And I, Just wrote, you know, so I was like, as long as I’m writing a certain amount of time or certain number of pages a day. But I also agree with what you described in Isabella and his process that it’s really important to write even when you don’t feel like it. And I tell my students that all the time, because, you know, if you just wait till you feel like it, then you know, you may not write very much. So you have to write even when you don’t feel like it. And even when it feels like the writing is hard, or it’s not what you want it to be. And then it will, if you keep at it, you know, it will be.

Miko Lee: [00:23:32] Thanks. Okay. My last question for you is what are you reading, watching, or listening to right now? First thing that comes to your mind, what are you consuming?

Naomi Iizuka: [00:23:41] That’s so great. I am reading, right now this, I guess you would call it a graphic novel Uzumaki, which is kind of iconic. And I had read part of it a while back, but I am kind of reading the whole, like all the volumes. And it’s this Very strange, I guess you’d call it J horror, dystopian, comic, but it’s beautifully illustrated and the story is really mysterious and compelling. I’m listening to Pod Save America just because it’s election season and I’m really curious you know, what those guys have to say. And I haven’t seen it yet, but I just actually texted Sean. I’m going to see that this weekend because it just came down to San Diego. I’m going to see Sing Sing with Coleman Domingo and Sean San Jose. And I cannot wait. I’m so excited. I feel like I’m the last person to see it because it was in New York and it was in LA and then it opened in San Diego just as I was like leaving to drop my son off at college. So I’m seeing it this weekend.

Miko Lee: [00:24:41] I just actually was looking at this note from Stephanie Shu saying go see it tonight. I will get you free tickets for Sing Sing. I was just thinking about that. I should go see that tonight.

Naomi Iizuka: [00:24:52] I’m so excited.

Miko Lee: [00:24:53] Me too. Very excited. and Coleman also lovely Bay Area person. Uzumaki, that looks fascinating. Supernatural psychological horror is what is the genre.

Naomi Iizuka: [00:25:06] No, it’s, it’s, it’s really extraordinary. And, the thing is, is the reason I’m, I’m reading it now is I have like the full collected, all the volumes in one sort of giant omnibus. And so I’m reading everything, you know, all of them from beginning to end. I’d read the first, the first one, which is probably the most famous one, but it’s great. I mean, even if it’s not your cup of tea, it’s, it’s so cool. I love it. It is kind of my cup of tea, but, but even if it’s not, you will love it.

Miko Lee: [00:25:32] Okay. Thank you for the recommendation. we’re going to post links for people to buy tickets for the show at the magic. Is there anything else that you’d like to let our audience know about you and your work?

Naomi Iizuka: [00:25:44] I think you covered it. You’re a really good interviewer.

Miko Lee: [00:25:49] Thank you so much for joining us on Apex Express. I’m going to see the show this weekend. I can’t wait to see it and I’m excited to see what else you create next. Thank you so much, Naomi.

Naomi Iizuka: [00:26:00] Thank you.

Miko Lee: [00:26:01] Next up, listen to Florente Aguilar a Manila born guitarist and composer whose arrangements and composition successfully craft the balance between respect and redefinition of tradition.

MUSIC

That was Florente Aguilar, a Manila born guitarist, and you are listening to Apex Express. Next up, take a listen to my conversation with advocate, activist and graphic illustrator, Eddie Ahn. It is quite amazing to hear from an artist, who’s an activist, who’s telling their story. And tonight it’s all about how we retell stories, whether that’s rewriting a traditional piece like Shakespeare or rewriting the tale that is your life and doing it. In graphic illustration style. So listen to my interview with Eddie Ahn.

Welcome Eddie Ahn to Apex Express.

Eddie Ahn: [00:29:40] Thanks for having me.

Miko Lee: [00:29:41] I’m so excited to be able to talk to you about your new graphic memoir of family, community, and the fight for environmental justice. Loved reading your book and looking at the artistry. It’s so powerful. So I want to start with my very first question that I ask many guests, which is who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?

Eddie Ahn: [00:30:04] Gosh, the book itself covers a lot of my people, particularly my family, myself. I am now, two generations removed, of course, from my grandfather, which the book begins with. he himself was, uh, very brilliant person from all accounts, was a translator for the U S army and South Korean army during the Korean war. And then, I am also, you know, this, the son of immigrants, my mother and father who came from South Korea to the US and really built their careers and their family here. So I think a lot about that migration pattern and how it’s influenced who I am today and what I do.

Miko Lee: [00:30:44] And what legacy do you carry with you from those ancestors?

Eddie Ahn: [00:30:48] I think a lot about their successes and failures. so the challenges that they encountered along the way. My grandfather, of course, was A survivor of a lot of trauma he himself went through the Korean War. and then also was separated from his family a lot after, you know, the Korean DMZ, the demilitarized zone was settled. So for him, his life is really one of, Very, very deep trauma and tragedy, having been separated from most of his family. And then he had to go start a new family in South Korea. And a lot of the book covers, the initial kind of devastation he faced. And then later on that the challenges he faced, even as an entrepreneur, very well educated person trying to survive in South Korea and my mother’s resentments around that are also covered in the graphic memoir as well. So a lot of it is like, Dealing with that family kind of conflict and also understanding it in the scope of my own life and how I’ve chosen to pursue nonprofit work to begin with in the United States.

Miko Lee: [00:31:51] Thank you for sharing that. talk to me about the title of the book, Advocate, and what does that mean to you?

Eddie Ahn: [00:31:58] So the title of the book was always meant to have multiple meanings. It was about advocating for oneself, one’s own identity, one’s own career choice against, very different family expectations. And then it’s about professional advocacy. It’s about advocating for diverse communities. The nonprofit I work for is called Bright Line Defense, and we do a lot of environmental justice work. And environmental justice is oftentimes the intersection of issues on the environment, race and identity, and the economy, and then grappling with the intersectionality of those issues. There’s a lot of complexity in what I do. And part of the title of the book reflects that and advocating again, for oneself. And for other communities.

Miko Lee: [00:32:46] I love this. And I related to this a lot in terms of nonprofit work. I’m wondering if you could share a little bit more about that, about Asian American expectations, particularly your family, Korean American, and the value of nonprofit work.

Eddie Ahn: [00:33:01] For my own family, my parents in particular, I think their expectations for me and what I was going to do with the educational degrees that I obtained. So I went to a really good school, Brown University in Rhode Island, and then I obtained a law degree at UC College of Law, San Francisco. For them, their expectation was, go out, become highly credentialed, and then go make money. Their metrics of success in the US was about a financial metric of success. and for myself, I never quite took to that, for better, for worse, perhaps for myself, which is also covered in the book, but it’s also because I valued social work and the active building community, so much and for them, they struggled with that choice. It wasn’t exactly what they saw as succeeding in the U S but for myself, it was always incredibly important to do and pursue.

Miko Lee: [00:33:53] I think that power of your convictions really shows up in the book strongly because I think the classic Asian American story, you did the things, you got the Ivy League degree, you got the law degree, and your connection with your grandfather. I’m wondering about your family’s feeling about your connection with your grandfather in terms of being an advocate. What was that like for them and the expectations for you?

Eddie Ahn: [00:34:18] That’s a great question. in many ways, they saw the connection that I had with my grandfather early on. So even in the book, I describe moments where I’m reading at his feet, you know, from his library collection, and we would talk about different topics. My Korean back then was always, you know, a shaky, maybe at best, it was conversational. But a lot of what he would relate to me were about complex subjects that, at the time, even as a child, I didn’t fully understand. But at least I understood the feeling, the depth behind them, which is why I really enjoyed talking to him. I think my mother reading the book has been actually really surprised at the moments of connection I found. For instance, I drew a photo of myself with my grandfather that she didn’t even realize existed. So, Seeing how that relationship has unfolded even through the creation of this book, um, for my mother has been actually really interesting to do.

Miko Lee: [00:35:14] Oh, I love that about your mom and kind of getting a another vision of the history just by seeing a photograph but an image you drew of a photograph. There’s a beautiful resonance there and the style of illustrations that you do has a, a soft beauty to it that’s kind of lyrical. I really appreciate that. I’m wondering if you could talk with us about the inspiration for creating this memoir and in the style that you did in the graphic novel style.

Eddie Ahn: [00:35:45] I love comics because a lot of it is not just about the art and the panel itself. It’s how the story actually moves from panel to panel and how the art gets juxtaposed against larger scenes, for instance for myself in doing this graphic memoir, it was a big jump. for myself, like I’m self taught as an artist to begin with. So understanding, you know, things like. Perspective, coloring, anatomy, those are all things I had to learn as I created this particular graphic memoir. and part of the storytelling technique I use in this graphic memoir is also heavily relying on color to move the time periods of the story. So, for instance, my childhood is represented in shades of red. My days in college and up until law school are represented in shades of green. As I start to go through a more transitional stage in life, like getting more deeply into nonprofit work and trying to figure out how to use my law degree, those are all represented in So for me, like I really want to use color to create that sense of era changes and then also create. Flashbacks and flash forwards in the narrative as well that I think you can really only do in comics. I do think comics is a really unique medium in the way, especially if you’re evaluating it or reading it in printed format allows you to turn the page back and forth and enjoy it.

Miko Lee: [00:37:12] What came first, the story that you wanted to tell or the images?

Eddie Ahn: [00:37:19] The very first comic I ever posted, because I originally started publishing these graphic memoir comics on Instagram, was about my Oakland Chinatown work. So my first job out of college was as an AmeriCorps member, working as an after school programmer. I taught arts and public speaking for elementary students, third through fifth grade. I think very nostalgically about that time. It was a really great experience overall to work with youth who were really into receiving the best education possible. They went to Lincoln Elementary School in Oakland, Chinatown. it was a lot of thinking about the joyful moments and then balancing against the difficulties of nonprofit work. So I was an AmeriCorps member, and if folks know, how Financially stressful that position can be. It’s essentially at the time it was less than a thousand dollars a month for 40 hours a week. So it was a very under-resourced position. Maybe it’s one way to put it, as you know, one tries to serve the community as well.

Miko Lee: [00:38:20] So can you share a little bit about your artistic process?

Eddie Ahn: [00:38:24] So I started with fiction when I worked in comics. And in fact, one of the first zines I ever created was, essentially collected comic strips for hyphen magazine, which was a great, Asian American issues magazine. And I really enjoyed telling stories through the lens, essentially the lens of fictional characters. So for instance, I had a talking turtle character that was trying to sell coffee across San Francisco. again, going back to my grandfather, very much patterned after my grandfather’s failed entrepreneurial ambitions. So for me, there was a lot of joy in creating these comic strips, mostly illustrated in black and white. so just simple inks. When I started writing my own, graphic memoir, I was thinking more like what were big, ambitious kind of swings. I wanted to take at storytelling, which is why I started doing the more complex color scheme I described earlier. and then part of it was even trying to figure out what was the tone that I wanted to adopt when I even, was creating these comics on Instagram. So for me, like, it started very early on, perhaps in 2016, I started illustrating the first pages on paper. And then I didn’t even publish them until February, 2020. So that was roughly like a week or two before the pandemic where I posted the first, comic and then the audience for it on Instagram grew a lot. So from a couple hundred from back then, to now what’s probably over 80,000 followers.

Miko Lee: [00:39:56] Oh, that is so exciting. And by the way, I think, you know, this hyphen magazine, we’re part of the same family because hyphen is part of the AACRE network that Apex Express is part of too.

Eddie Ahn: [00:40:05] Yes. I’m, I’m a big fan of AACRE to begin with. And yes, I’ve always had a lot of affection for the generations of leadership that, have essentially built up hyphen over a long period of time.

Miko Lee: [00:40:16] I love that. Can you talk a little bit about how you combine your artistry with your community organizing?

Eddie Ahn: [00:40:23] Yes, I, in the past I created my art through a series of zines, but then I had to learn how to market and essentially promote myself. And I think my community organizing skills did come into play when I was either going to say zine fests or local arts festivals, as well as Essentially creating art shows, solo art shows in San Francisco. So for each, self published comic book, I would essentially do an art show centered around it. and they, the venues ranged, you might know some of these venues like 111 Minna, marvelous coffee and wine bar, which is now closed, dot art bar and gallery. so there were a number of venues that I would set up essentially, a larger kind of act of community building through art. So I think a lot about those days because, this is all pre pandemic. I really enjoyed bringing together, folks in my nonprofit world, as well as, family and friends to come and appreciate, you know, essentially two or three years worth of art creation nowadays, the book tour has been a very different experience. So that’s very much, you know, through a more established publisher, Penguin Random House, and then going to, a number of bookstores across the US has been also a really fun experience to do.

Miko Lee: [00:41:41] What have you learned from going to all these different bookstores?

Eddie Ahn: [00:41:45] I’ve gotten a better sense of history, how book selling actually happens, and New York, for instance, I did a, a large event, over a hundred people came to The Strand, in Manhattan, which has its own very long history in New York’s literary scene.

Miko Lee: [00:42:00] Ah, one of my favorite bookstores, The Strand. Yeah. It’s so exciting.

Eddie Ahn: [00:42:04] It’s a really beautiful venue, where they hold their literary events. So, I’ve been very fascinated by how people come together around art through the book tour. And, the Strand event itself was a huge joy because it was, Set up as in conversation with another author, and I like to do those events because it feels less like I’m talking at people and more like I’m talking with a person and then seeing the audience’s engagement with material, either through some audience members just flip through a couple pages, and then they’ll immediately have questions, or they might have come to the event having read the entire book at this point with their own kind of set of nuanced questions. So seeing the whole range of questions through a number of events has been also a very fun experience.

Miko Lee: [00:42:55] And in the book you write about your family’s expectations around non profit life, what do they think now about you as an artist, as a graphic novelist, and kind of going on this book tour? Where are they at with your career now?

Eddie Ahn: [00:43:10] My father actually got to experience some public art installations that I’d done in San Francisco. So, there are these utility boxes which are in the middle of the street. And then my art was blown up to essentially be wrapped around them and then displayed. And the art still exists. This was installed way back in 2019. And it’s still around today. So for my dad to see that, take pictures of it, touch it with his own hands, I think was a really good experience. He really did appreciate the physicality of that art and how it’s displayed in such a public way. Uh, unfortunately nowadays he’s too sick to enjoy the book. but my mother on the other hand has read the book and I think One nice coda to, everything that’s described in the book, you know, despite all the conflicts with my family about non profit work is that my mother has grown to appreciate what I do a lot, as a result of reading the book. She says she’s read it three times now and has cried on each reading, which initially I was worried about because I thought, you know, She was really perhaps, sensitive about our family and how I describe our family conflicts in the book, but it was really more in her own words about how underappreciated nonprofit workers are at times and how she felt. A lot more empathy for them. As a result, I was really surprised by that observation. I really didn’t think she would ever care much for what I do for a living. But, yeah, I thought that was a really nice, reaction on our part.

Miko Lee: [00:44:38] Oh, I love to hear that. switching a bit to you as a young organizer, you started pretty young, you know, with AmeriCorps and then working in nonprofit world. With your experience now, what message would you give yourself when you were just starting out as a student organizer?

Eddie Ahn: [00:44:56] Oh, I think at the time I was fairly cheerful about everything. And I, I think that attribute still, endures to this day. I think it’s a really important a character trait to have when one does nonprofit work, because I think it’s easy to go through life expecting a lot of things to wonder why you aren’t getting X, Y, Z, for myself. What I would tell my younger self is, you know, continue with that cheerful attitude, perhaps have better boundaries at times to on average, my employers have been quite good in the nonprofit sphere, but I do think generally it’s easy also to work. Perhaps too much, and to demand too much of oneself in service to community. So maybe, one thing I’ll tell my younger self is, to pace yourself too and just be more focused on things that, really excited me at the end of the day. you know, the flip side of that, maybe a counterpoint is like, it was important to try out a lot of stuff too. So, I think it all worked out in many ways, just trying out things that it may not have been the most efficient use of my time, but I still learned a lot.

Miko Lee: [00:46:02] Speaking of pacing yourself, you currently have more than a full time job as an executive director of a environmental non profit. You’re on several boards and commissions, and just have written this graphic novel. What do you do to take care of yourself?

Eddie Ahn: [00:46:19] Um, I do enjoy, you know, like most people streaming shows and, even one quirk of mine that I enjoy relaying is like, I’m very much into the let’s what’s called the let’s play movement. it’s watching essentially other people play video games on YouTube and myself, like I can play a video game. I have, played several, over the last few years that I really do enjoy, but there’s something very kind of therapeutic about watching someone else be productive or. perhaps entertaining themselves, without me having to, figure it out myself. So I think part of it is like just being able to relax and just watch a screen is, is, relaxing a form of meditation.

Miko Lee: [00:47:00] Okay. Thanks for that. What do you want folks to understand after reading your graphic novel?

Eddie Ahn: [00:47:08] One interesting thing I’ve thought a lot about is how the book describes non profit work is not about saving communities. and that sometimes it’s referred to in academia as like the savior complex or messiah complex. I do think just being Aware of the complexity of our world and how difficult it is to resolve or fix issues is a core message of the book I hope comes across, and in many ways, comics, you know, is dominated by the superhero genre too, which I think a lot, and of course I love superhero comics to begin with. I do read quite a few of them. And then what I’ve been fascinated by is thinking through like, Superheroes themselves as characters are out to often fix the world or save the world and so thinking through that dynamic and how this comic is not about that, I think has been a good thing to go through for myself as an artist. So I hope that message comes across despite it being a comic.

Miko Lee: [00:48:15] Thanks for that. I think it’s, as opposed to the superhero genre, I see your book more in the personal stories like Pee Booie’s The Best We Could Do or Marianne’s Persepolis. I see it more in that genre of like really personal family storytelling as opposed to a superhero genre. It’s so powerful.

Eddie Ahn: [00:48:38] Thank you. Yes, I agree. I really appreciate those books as well and how they’re able to essentially highlight the perspective of the protagonists alongside the environments in which they grow up in, whether it’s family or a nation state, etc.

Miko Lee: [00:48:55] And I appreciate how your graphic novel really has your trajectory, you know, going from understanding family, but also really your adult life as somebody that works in the nonprofit field. I think it’s really new in that approach. What’s next for you?

Eddie Ahn: [00:49:12] Oh, gosh, I am still drawing. I am never wanting to give up on art at the end of the day. I think it’s how I’ve improved as an artist is that I do drive myself to think through, a larger, better project. On Instagram, I’ll continue to publish more comics in the future. I am planning through a potential mural project in San Francisco. Uh, it would be very different than the utility box art installations I’ve done in the past. as for my nonprofit work at Brightline, I’m still very much enjoy it. I have a incredible, team that I work with and I. I’ve really come to appreciate everything that Brightline has as a result of early years of grinding work that I put in and then to see other people also put in really high quality work for the organization has has been a joy to me personally. So I hope to keep on doing what I’m doing at Brightline for a long time to come. And yeah, I guess we’ll find out in the coming years ahead.

Miko Lee: [00:50:14] I like, I, I, one, I’m curious to find out more about the mural, excited to learn more about that, and it sounds like you’re going to hold these, both sides of yourself as the artist, as the non profit leader, you’re going to continue to do them both. I’m wondering, so much of non profit life is, we’re learning by experience, you know, we’re, and so I’m thinking about, The connection with being a self taught artist like you’re always just learning something. How has being a self taught artist impacted your artistic work and your work in nonprofit world?

Eddie Ahn: [00:50:47] I think it’s improved my patience, both in non profit work and in evolving my art style. everything I do is drawn by hand, so I typically just work pencil to paper, ink over pencils, and then finally, Copic markers, their alcohol based art marker, to lay on the color, and that technique essentially evolved over, gosh, uh, eight, nine year period to you and get to where the book is now, the book itself is the culmination of well over 5,000 hours, and each page, you know, on average is probably somewhere between 20 to 30 hours. So just having that kind of discipline to develop everything around the book, has really taught me a lot, I think about life. And then also it’s been a nice form of meditation unto itself to just to be able to create art. For that long of a period, over, you know, essentially a long, timeline has, has been really good for my own processes, thinking processes around nonprofit work, because it pushes me to, be creative in the nonprofit work itself.

Miko Lee: [00:51:59] Well, Eddie Ahn, author of Advocate, tell our audience how they can find out more about your work.

Eddie Ahn: [00:52:06] The book can be found, in a number of local bookstores at this point, Penguin Random House has done excellent work in distributing across the US of course, it can be found at most major booksellers, such as Barnes Noble, bookshop.org, et cetera. and they can also find my art online for free on Instagram. The handle is at E H A—those are my initials, Eddie Ahn—comics, as it sounds.

Miko Lee: [00:52:37] Thank you so much. We so appreciate hearing, from you more about your book and we look forward to seeing your murals and seeing the work that you do out in the community.Thank you so much.

Eddie Ahn: [00:52:48] Thanks again for having me, Miko. Really appreciate you.

Miko Lee: [00:52:50] Please check out our website, kpfa.org To find out more about our show tonight. We think all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is created by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preti Mangala-Shekar, Swati Rayasam, Aisa Villarosa, Estella Owoimaha-Church, Gabriel Tanglao, Cheryl Truong and Ayame Keane-Lee.

The post APEX Express – 8.29.24 – Retelling Stories appeared first on KPFA.

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