Taiyo na biography for kids

by Taiyo Na

There have been many, many Asian American artists who have inspired me along my short way, so to keep things succinct and perhaps more interesting, I’ll only talk about a handful of artists who have made an impact on me through some sort of personal encounter in my life.

Peeling the Banana
http://www.myspace.com/peelingnyc

They were the first Asian American performers I had ever seen I my life.

Circa 1996, when I was a little 13-year-old high school freshman, I attended an Asian American youth conference held at NYU, and I saw a group of four guys—Gary San Angel, Bertrand Wang, Parag Khandar and Michael Kang—all who are venerable artists, movers and shakers in their own right now, perform a collection of scenes, stories and songs.

This blew my mind. I couldn’t really articulate it then, but I know now that seeing them at age 13 forever changed the way I viewed myself in the world. They performed this number that day called “Asian