Sherry Tseng Hill (b. 1957, Taiwan)
Forgive But Not Forget (2020)
Acrylic on Canvas, 48 x 18 in.
Donated by the artist.
Location: Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University.
Imitating the form of a traditional Chinese handscroll, this work is a documentary of the key events and figures of Asians in America from 1871 up to 2020. From the “Yellow Peril” to the Chinese Exclusion Act; from the L.A. Riot of 1885 to the killing of Fermin Tobera in 1929; from the Japanese internment camps in 1942 to the death of Vincent Chin in 1982; from the shooting death of Joseph Ileto in 1999 to the murder of Srinivas Kuchibhotla in 2017, Hill illustrated a national history riddled with racial intolerance, in dialogues through time with Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica” in 1937.
Highly critical of the Trump administration's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and their use of racially targeted terms towards Asians, yet Hill calls to reject the hate quoting Dalai Lama, “forgive but never forget.”