Luis Osuna: The Line Between Race and Culture

By Gitanjali Mahapatra

April 25, 2021 丨2:29 p.m.

Like many biracial children who struggle with their sense of identity, Luis Osuna was met with a sense of apprehension when he decided, not too long ago, it was time for him to confront his Asian heritage.

At the age of 26, Osuna started a documentary about his family tree. More specifically, he wanted to focus on the roots and life of his maternal great-grandfather who immigrated from the modern day Guangzhou province in China to Mexico City, only to be used as a labor force for the Mexican government.

As Mexican-passing, Osuna has been able to remain comfortable with his Mexican heritage. He has never been the victim of anti-Asian sentiment. Most people don’t even realize he has a heritage past Latin-America

Osuna has been an activist and social justice advocate for years. Primarily his efforts are focused on issues near the U.S.-Mexico border.

During his research of and immigration the coronavirus pandemic grew rampant. At the same time, anti-Asian hate crimes have grown across the country. Almost 4,000 crimes have been reported by the Stop AAPI Hate organization over the past year. “You see all these patterns of violence and racism towards migrants that started coming into this continent to work,” he explained.

He has always had Asian ancestors, but now Osuna finds himself faced with a new perspective on the struggles Asian Americans are facing right now.

He believes the current aggression and hatred towards Asians is a direct result of the normalization of hatred against Chinese immigrants who first arrived in the mid 1800s.

Osuna said the exploitation of Chinese workers in gold mines and railroads fueled the flames of the dehumanization they would face once they tried to settle in cities across the country. Present day San Francisco is a hub of Chinese culture, despite the cruel efforts of White Americans who tried to excise Chinese immigrants from their homes and businesses. Osuna explained it as a negative and pervasive system.

“It’s set up for folks to be looked down upon, for folks to be used for their labor, for their culture, everything,” he said.

Osuna talked about his great-grandfather’s story, who migrated to Mexico in 1911, 29 years after the United States Chinese Exclusion Act was enforced.

Upon his arrival in Mexico City, Osuna's great-grandfather was faced with rampant anti-Asian racism. Despite his family's eventual migration to California in 2001, Osuna recalls that not much has shifted in the way Asians are treated in Latin countries like Mexico.

Racism against Asians by Mexicans isn't the same as racism by white Americans, but the history of oppression and antagonism perpetuated by the United States government has undoubtedly exacerbated the degree of hatred intersectional discrimination has.

“Folks that don’t look American but very much are, and are ingrained in the DNA of the United States, get pushed away,” Osuna said.

He spoke about the dangers of nationalism that he has seen reflected in Mexico and the U.S.. When the verbally aggressive rhetoric spoken by supremacists with power like former President Trump gains traction, they turn into the physical violence Asians face today.

With three generations separating Osuna and his great-grandfather, his personal knowledge of his Chinese lineage has faded away. He wants to bridge the information gap with art.

Following the footsteps of his family, Osuna intends to explore his own heritage of migration by visiting the places his family lived. Tijuana, Mexico for his parents, Mexico City for his grandfather, and eventually Taishan, China for his great-grandfather.