Transcending Ignorance

February 22, 2019

Article originally written for class.

As you wander through the biannual ASUO Street Faire, hosted at the University of Oregon’s campus, you’ll often find Modern Tribe’s tent stationed past the health care tents and hippie looking shops. Even with its simplistic set up, the pop-up shop stands out amongst its neighbors, being the only place that sells streetwear, the increasingly popular sector of fashion, especially among college students.

Modern Tribe was founded in 2015 by University of Oregon alumni, Nam Hoon An. With his passion for design, An got the idea to start his own line, but he didn’t want to create “just another streetwear brand.” He wanted to be different, he wanted to make a statement.

Upon entering his tent, you are greeted with an array of designs. T-shirts imprinted with the face of a woman with her finger to her lips, beneath her chin, the phrase “I will not stay silent” beckons your attention. Hoodies portraying an image of a man with a speakerphone for a head, fist in the air, yelling the word “RISE” urges you stop to stop in your tracks. Jackets stamped with designs of a square box, throwing hands in the air, words “I have done nothing wrong” written inside provokes you to think about the society we live in. One glance and you know Modern Tribe’s designs are unique, meant to capture attention and send a politically charged message.

“I did a lot of research and starting from 2012, that’s when cultural awareness and cultural appropriation was starting to show up. It really had an impact on the media and fashion industry. A lot of lawsuits were made against big companies like Nike, Adidas, and other fashion brands for cultural appropriation. It gave me inspiration.”

An found America’s general ignorance towards minority cultures relatable and wanted to create a brand that would, in a sense, counter cultural appropriation.

“As an Asian growing up in the states, even though I told all my good friends that I’m Korean, they always come up to me and show me Chinese letters or Asian characters and ask me, ‘Hey Nam, what does this mean?’ And I’ll go, ‘Dude, no. I told you. I’m Korean.’” He shook his head, “They’d then say stuff like ‘Don’t you all know what it means?’”

“There is a lot of ignorance among everyone,” he said, “By creating a design, I wanted to subtly educate other people.”

Even though An’s friends never intended for their comments to hurt him, experiences like these stick, and An isn’t the only Asian in America to face such ignorance.

In June 2018, two writers for New York Times encountered an apparent case of racism, a man mocking Asians and doing a “slant-y eye” gesture. Horrified, the journalists decided to published a two-episode podcast titled “Asian-American Talk About Racism, and We Listen.” The podcast interviewed Asian-Americans who were willing to share their stories and an alarming number of testimonials and confessions poured in. While many of these cases were never made into breaking news stories, it was undeniable that racism against Asian-Americans is a large problem that just isn’t talked about enough.

Recently, An had a disheartening experience at Starbucks where he ordered an Espresso Frappuccino. The server loudly remarked, “What?” and made An repeat himself twice before mocking his accent. “Ablah blah blah Frappuccino?” the server condescendingly replied, before bursting into laughter and proceeding to brush it off as a joke.

“I called the Starbucks headquarters for that, they told me they’re going to do something about it, but they haven’t done anything yet. So I’m going to call them back and keep harassing them.”

Though a part of An knew that getting the big corporation to pay attention to him was a long shot. It is the cases of subtle racism like these that have driven An to fight against ignorance with his creativity.

Since the founding of his clothing line, An has collaborated with other artists to create artwork that honors different cultures from Native American to Chinese. His next step is to expand to the world of food. An plans to collaborate with friends of different background ethnicities to create a YouTube channel targeted at American consumers, “We plan to cook food from many cultures. I want to show people how to cook, but also talk about my experiences and the history of the food like where it came from and how it’s used.”

An plans to focus on finding ways to create authentic tasting food with the ingredients readily available in America so that people will no longer mistaken Americanized Asian food for being authentic.

“I want to educate people,” he said. “Through Modern Tribe and this cooking channel, I just want to show people that we’re not that different. Every culture has similar aspects, similar values. We’re all not that different.”

Perhaps the fight against racism begins with understanding that there are differences in cultures and lines that should not be crossed. But ultimately, it ends with us understanding that we’re not that different from each other.