Suzanne Lacy and Kathleen Chang (San Francisco, 1977)

Part of a series curated by Lynn Hershman’s Floating Museum, this performance took place on a ferry to Angel Island, the historical point of entry for Asian immigrants, a schooner sailing alongside, and on a hilltop on Angel Island. The audience was both art supporters bound for a one day series of installations and miscellaneous people on their way to the tourist site. As they boarded a ferry everyone received a broadsheet with turn of the century photos and stories of women, those smuggled into the country, Japanese war brides, and so on. Approaching the island, a schooner sailed past with two women—a turn-of-the-century missionary and a Chinese woman dressed in period clothes.

Landing on the island, the two women walked slowly up the hill with an audience behind them. At the top they presented two perspectives. Donaldina Cameron, a social reformer, told of rescuing Chinese girls smuggled into the country for prostitution and slavery; and Chang’s fictional recreation of a past relative, spoke of an escape from China to come to the new world. She offered indictment, challenge, and understanding to the complicated cross-racial organizing process, commenting on how the very missionaries who transformed and subverted Chinese culture in their subjects were often the only hope for women’s education and health.

Leaving character, Lacy and Chang shared a cup of tea while revealing the current race/gender barriers, aesthetic differences, and developing friendship they encountered in the creation of the piece.