Practicing Ambivalence

The chapter uses autoethnography and personal interviews to illustrate the experiences of white and black women in taiko. Given that a majority of taiko players in the United States are Asian American, taiko is a rare site in which white bodies are seen not as normal but rather as remarkable. Some black women, however, are seen as more American than their Asian and Asian American groupmates. In addition to the impact of racial identity, white and black women also experience taiko as open to a range of gender expressions and as an empowering art form. The chapter examines the ways white, black, and Asian American performers are triangulated and how taiko players experience whiteness and blackness as embodied, lived experience. The chapter traces the history of Iris Shiraishi’s song “Torii” to suggest that taiko has potential to forge productive cross-racial intimacies.