3Arts Foundation 3AP crowdfunding campaign for Laura Kina, Okinawan Princess: Da Legend of
Hajichi Tattoos
Crowdfunding with a Match
3AP (3Arts Projects) is a unique crowdfunding
platform with a built-in match that helps Chicago artists finance new creative
work. 3Arts matches 1/3 of each project goal, charges no fees to artists, and
offers mentoring and technical support.
- The campaign is running from March
23–May 7, 2018.
- Visit the 3AP site to
learn more about my project and make a tax-deductible donation to support
"Okinawan Princess."
STRETCH GOAL! I’m overwhelmed by the amazing response to this campaign! Thank you to everyone who helped me reach my initial goal in record time. This has opened up so many more possibilities for this book that I’m excited to announce that we’re going for a stretch goal of $10,000! With continued support, we will be able to expand the project to hopefully include things like a Spanish translation, an annotated glossary of the hajichi symbols and their meaning, an e-book and/or an audio book, and targeted outreach to Okinawan ethnic communities in the diaspora.
I am illustrating my first children’s book, Okinawan Princess: Da Legend of Hajichi Tattoos. This is a bilingual feminist fairy tale set in Hawai‘i and Okinawa that illuminates an ancient tradition and pushes back against white normative standards of beauty. Growing up mixed-race in the rural Pacific Northwest, I didn’t know much about my own Asian culture or our family history as Okinawan migrant sugarcane plantation workers on the Big Island. For the past decade, I have been making paintings inspired by my travels back to Hawai‘i and Okinawa, Japan to reconnect family roots that were severed during World War II. Over the years those roots continued to drift apart as we assimilated into our respective American and Japanese cultures. This book is part of that reclamation journey. Okinawan Princess is written in Pidgin (Hawai‘i Creole) by Lee A. Tonouchi (aka Da Pidgin Guerrilla) and translated by Dr. Masashi Sakihara into a mix of Japanese and an Okinawan language called Uchinaaguchi. The book will feature over 35 of my original watercolor illustrations. Your contributions to this campaign will help cover costs of production and printing and ultimately enable us to share this little-known indigenous custom with future generations.
