The assignment for Design Studio 1 was to create a piece suitable for social media encouraging young Americans to vote. The first step of this process was to collect information; I decided to focus on young Asian-Americans and sent out an online survey for friends and family to take. Through the survey, I found recurring comments from survey participants explaining how they felt a disconnect within the Asian-American community and how their parents’ apathies to political participation influenced their view on politics and voting.
Using this information, I intended to consolidate young Asian-Americans’ sense of identity within the United States and connecting ethnic identity with national identity. Vote, or Die appropriates Benjamin Franklin’s political cartoon Join, or Die with a traditional East Asian dragon instead of the snake, bringing in familiar imagery of both historical American illustration and traditional Asian symbol. I also created a second piece that appropriates the historically negative phrase “yellow peril” that white Americans used to demonize Chinese immigrants and introduced the expression “Power over Peril”. The phrase is reminiscent of the time Chinese immigrants forged a community to combat racism and grew stronger as a group, which is what I hope young Asian-Americans can also do in a time of political turmoil.
I later posted this on my personal Instagram account.
I later posted this on my personal Instagram account.
