A Seattle-based visual communication & interaction designer with roots in Saigon, Vietnam. may (aka midi) has the most fun when creating packaging and websites.
RESUME.PDF
Experiencepari passu, 2024 – present
Creator & Designer
Smeoow, 2021 – 2023
Artist Assistant
Depop, 2019 – 2020
Lead Campus Manager
Education
Bachelor of Fine Arts in Design, MAY 2024
Cornish College of the Arts
Seattle, WA
bananaland
Academic
3.5 weeks
Print Design
Typography
The term banana is sometimes used in a disparaging manner to suggest that one is “yellow on the outside but white on the inside.” It is not an accurate representation of asian experiences, especially given the diversity of native and diasporic cultures within the "Asian" population. Kathleen Tso and Vicki Ho criticize its dichotomic quality, noting how “white on the inside” does not typify many American experiences, and “yellow on the outside” effectively marginalizes Southeast and South Asians. Nonetheless, Tso and Ho suggest that the banana metaphor embodies the commonly shared experience of exposure to eastern and western cultures. They thereby chose to reclaim the derogatory term and named their magazine banana.
Like (and unlike) Tso and Ho, I have frequently felt insufficiently Asian and yet too much of it simultaneously. Feeling this way about myself, I would look at other bananas and see nothing but the shame of “surrendering” to westernization. Through my eyes, I was the standard by which one should measure others’ displays of Asian-ness. Gatekeeping became a means to keep something close that I felt was being gradually drained from me; or worse, getting lost in translation.
This pair of Anzaldúa-inspired essays explores the roots and growth of the metaphorical banana tree. How do we address our anti-blackness and mobilize local and international action to augment class, racial, and political divides without indigenizing ourselves on stolen land through settler colonialism? To what extent do refugees experience the effects of modern warfare? What do we know about, and more importantly, what can we do to address the cycle of parent-child trauma in the asian community and its diaspora?
These questions, lest addressed, will cause rot in both the tree and the soil on which its livelihood relies. Unbuilding Nation-state and Silent Shout are reflections of an ongoing negotiation with what it means to exist in a material reality where Asian success often comes at the cost of Black failure and displacement of indigenous peoples. Welcome to bananaland.
Updated Feb 2025 Directory