Tahoe Arts Project
- Artist/Author/Producer: Brenda Wong Aoki
- Confronting Bodies: Parents
- Dates of action: 1991
- Location: South Lake Tahoe, California
- Description of the Art Work
- Brenda Wong Aoki is a storyteller-actress who performs tales of the
Pacific Rim and stories of the Asian experience in the United States. She
appears on stage in black clothing and has long black hair. Members of a
local fundamentalist church raised concerns after seeing a photograph of
her performance in a brochure.
- Description of incident
- Parents in two counties in the South Lake Tahoe area of California
objected to a series of performances in the local public schools,
requesting that the artist remove "controversial" parts of her program.
Challengers charged, among other things, that the performer's stories
about witches and demons were "anti-Christian."
Responding to the challenge, a parent liaison at Meyers Elementary School
in Eldorado County requested that the vice principal contact the
sponsoring Tahoe Arts Project and request that the performer delete the
"demon" story from her repertoire. The story has a Halloween theme in
which a mother tells her daughter to avoid the lake because demons live
there. Local parents equated the story's demons with the devil and were
concerned that the story is anti-Christian. The Projects' board decided
against censoring the program.
- Results of incident
- In neighboring Alpine County, parents of students at Diamond Valley
School lodged similar objections and requested that they be allowed to
pre-screen future multicultural programs, which the school board
accepted.
Source:People for the American Way
Record no 15