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Kristina Wong didn't know what it was like to be white until she spent a month in Uganda. The Wong Street Journal is part standup, part TED Talk and part hip-hop show, and centers on her Uganda visit. Wong, who is Chinese American, claims she was treated "like a white woman for three weeks," and suddenly found herself "the beneficiary of American colonialism and privilege."
WW: What was your background with encountering white privilege in the States before visiting Uganda?
Kristina Wong: Right before I left, I wrote these xoJane articles about white guys and Asian fetishes. I had briefly dated this white guy who argued that Trayvon Martin was as likely to be shot for being black as he was for having tattoos. I tagged this guy in the post of the article—because he was an idiot. He still doesn't understand how he shouldn't have equated his situation to a black kid getting shot. So, I outed him as a fetishist. But, with this show, I don't want to stand onstage and yell at white people for what they've done wrong.
What was this privilege like in Uganda?
My second day in Gulu in Northern Uganda, I made a rap album. I met these boys in the street, and they invited me back to their music studio. I got pegged for a music career because they saw me as somebody who could give them publicity as a "mzungu," or white person. One of the boys told me that he thought he deserved a mzungu wife due to his music. I had many experiences where children would gather around me and sit on my lap just so others could see.
How did Twitter play a role in your visit?
People unfriended me while I was there by telling me that my visit was "problematic." The character I'm setting up in the show is Kristina Wong before she leaves for Uganda, but she's this activist who's always fighting people on her iPad. I don't want to create a show where everybody comes after me; I want to be honest about how naive I was. I thought the best way to confront this would be by becoming the person who would protest it before it would even go up.
You recently said in an xoJane article that you thought life was supposed to be miserable as a Chinese American via Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Do you find being a comedian depressing?
I don't want to belittle people who are actually bipolar, but doing theater is like giving birth. When women describe postpartum…that's what it's like. Everybody leaves the theater, and you're kind of alone. The nature of survival in this profession can come with a lot of lows.
What's your best coping mechanism for dealing with online hate?
You need to exercise being your biggest critic. In some countries, we've seen revolutions enacted by Twitter. It's not a completely useless thing. I've seen a lot of activists hate themselves. That's why I do theater—you are allowed to see the whole process of how you keep getting it wrong, and then sometimes you get it right. I think that's what we're missing with online activism.
SEE IT: The Wong Street Journal plays at the Headwaters Theatre, 55 NE Farragut St., boomarts.org. 7:30 pm Thursday-Sunday, Oct. 20-23. $20.
Willamette Week