So that begs the question: do we really need to have art shows organized by ethnicity or race anymore? Do we need to have film festivals and music shows and magazines for that matter?

I'm guilty of doing all of the above. I've been curating short films by Asian American filmmakers for 7 years. One year I also put together a visual art show. I didn't look for works dealing with any particular subject, but what emerged in my search were quite a few artists exploring ideas about the body and body image.

And every year when I screen entries to the film festival that I work on, I ask myself what exactly does “Asian American film” mean? Must it present Asian American characters? If the filmmaker is Asian American, is that enough to qualify the film as Asian American as well? Is it a particular kind of story that gives a film this label? Do we even want this label? I mean, no artist wants to be known merely as a great [enter ethnicity or sexual orientation or gender or whatever identifier you may have here] artist. It's kind of insulting. You just want to be known as a great artist. Period.

In the end, I go with a loose definition of "Asian American art" and try to put together programs where the works share a theme or play off of one another. Identity and culture are undoubtedly important. But who among us goes around thinking about her identity all day long? So, some of the works may explore identity. But many more of them revolve other things: like love, or loss, or family, or the toll of the human condition, or um, spectacular gun battles. You don't even have to be Asian American to make Asian American art in my book. Last year I showed a film made by a Latino filmmaker in my Asian American film festival.

So I'm glad to see that this new show in Houston deals with themes other than identity. I think it's an example of growth. Dealing with your identity is good of course. You should do it (I recommend it). But at some point it's dealt with and you want to move on to other things. That's partly what Hyphen is about. It's about the things that people do, not the thoughts they have on being. Still, I think we do need these kinds of ethnic and racially-based art shows, at least sometimes. I don't think we're living in a post-identity society. I don't know if we'll ever.