Spa Night explores the lives and inner turmoil of a Korean American family struggling to fit into the expectations of the community around them. The individuals in the family learn how to navigate the parts of themselves that are seen as taboo— from economic struggle to being queer— in order to exist in this community while being authentic to themselves and their hidden experiences. By telling the stories of individuals so often excluded from narratives on “Asian America”, Spa Night contributes to the important work of dismantling the notion that Asian Americans are a monolith.

Within our exhibit, we seek to further break Asian Americans out of this box and show that the experiences of individuals on the margins are paramount to understanding the complex reality of Asian America. This exhibit will walk through the historical discriminations against Asian Americans that keep them from the American Dream, but are hidden by mainstream stereotypes like the Model Minority Myth. This historical lens of discrimination will provide background for understanding the hardships and experiences of people who do not fit into these stereotypes and narrow understandings of “acceptable” Asian Americans— especially Queer Asian Americans. Finally, we will look at how Queer Asian Americans and other Asian American “outsiders” are reacting to and resisting these stereotypes to build authentic futures through the reclamation of tools of oppression, like Silence. 

Through the use and analysis of videos, images, and statistics, we will shed light on the hidden challenges Asian Americans have faced throughout time both from outside and inside their communities, and how they are making active change for their own prosperity. Ultimately, this exhibit seeks to fill gaps in the Sociology of Asian America created by the concealment and overlooking of minorities within the Asian American community.