‘Thank you … for being a face for us’: Lolla gives Asian American artists stage to increase visibility
August in Chicago unfurls in a big way each year thanks to the four-day Lollapalooza festival. Come Thursday, festivalgoers from across the nation will pour into Grant Park to see artists like Childish Gambino and Flume.
But performing at an event as widely attended as Lollapalooza also means visibility.
For Asian Americans — who comprise 6.7% of the U.S. population — visibility has a particular gravity. It means being seen in a country that little mirrors your heritage.
There are things you tell your parents, and things you don’t.
For electronic artist Yultron, some secrets were innocuous, like the tattoos he’d cover with long-sleeved shirts, even in the California heat.
But others, like his dream of becoming a musician, were bigger.
And it was something that couldn’t quite translate across the cultural rift separating the American-born artist from his Chinese immigrant parents.
So in 2010, when Yultron, fresh out of college, turned down law school to tour with his then-band, his mother “freaked out.”
“She was like, ‘What are you talking about? … Why are you doing this?,’ ” the Chinese American artist said.
“[My parents] wanted me to go to school, you know, follow this route,” Florida-raised Yeek said, citing his parents’ “underlying traditional Filipino mentality.”
Coincidentally, his first-generation parents were also the ones who instilled his love of music, saturating his childhood with everything from The Beatles to Tupac.
Recognizing music as the one “consistent thing” in his life, Yeek moved to Los Angeles in 2013 to pursue music — while telling his mother he was continuing school.
Now, years later in 2019, both Yultron and Yeek are performing at Lollapalooza for the very first time.
And Yeek’s parents — his “best friends” — will certainly be there, as they have been every step of his career, even if that has meant being “at the club” for release parties.
Yultron’s mother, too, has warmed up to her son’s musical aspirations.
As his career climbed over the years, his mother sensed subtle hints of her son’s
fame, like when fans would interrupt dim sum dinners at Din Tai Fung to ask for photos.
You could say Yultron’s mother — who attends almost all his shows, including his set at Las Vegas’ Electric Daisy Carnival last year — now “gets” her son’s fame.
“She even knows who Marshmello is,” Yultron said. “She’s taking it in and enjoying it too.”
Another Asian American face this weekend is Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast, whose music prods and tempts the lines between her identities. She plays Friday at Tito’s Stage.
Japanese-born Mitski, whose gracefully somber vocals shone in last year’s ‘‘Be The Cowboy,’’ plays Sunday at the American Eagle Stage.
There’s also New York native Yaeji, playing Saturday at American Eagle, and Chinese American Elephante, playing Thursday at Perry’s Stage.
Even so, visibility for Asian Americans is “very uphill,” says Oliver Wang, cultural writer and professor of sociology at California State University-Long Beach.
“You see acts getting into Lollapalooza not because they’ve been given permission to enter those spaces — but because those artists have been grinding for those careers,” Wang said.
Performing at mainstream spaces like Lollapalooza just “moves the needle,” Wang continued, but true acceptance is with not years, but “generations.”
“On the grand spectrum of invisibility to acceptance [in American culture],” Wang said, “we’re still more on the line of invisible.”
And it’s the fans who remind these artists the impact of their presence.
“More than ever, Asian Americans have come up to me, and said, ‘Thank you so much for being a face for us,’ ” Yultron said.
“I’ve been trying to make it more of a point now — yeah, I’m proud to be an Asian American. And I’m first generation, and it was hard for me to get here.”
Sometimes that means being a little tongue-in-cheek — just look at Yultron’s usual set visuals (think the “little Asian guy emoji with like, a Chinese hat”).
It can still be difficult to sit with the “stigma” of being Asian American — something that manifests in “a pressure put on us that we’re a certain way,” Yeek said.
“For me, the only way to destroy that stigma is to just let others see you as a person — we’re all human,” Yeek continued.
“I just want to do what I do, how I do it, and whoever that inspires — it’s a blessing.”