WE SING FROM THE HEART

The story of Simon Tam, a Chinese American activist who took his fight for the right to trademark his rock band’s name to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Born in 1981, Simon Tam grew up loving music and working in his parents’ restaurant in San Diego. His early experiences with racism informed his worldview, so when he decided to pursue music and didn’t see many people in the industry who looked like him, he named his rock band The Slants in order to “take ownership of hurtful words and give them a new meaning.” When the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected his trademark application on the grounds that the name was racist, Tam decided to fight back. The legal battle went all the way to the Supreme Court, which in 2017 ruled in Tam’s favor. Wenjen’s writing is forceful and emotional but doesn’t explain the specific legal arguments, reducing them to generalizations such as “Asians [were] being treated differently by the government” and “the judicial system was racist.” When dialogue is used, it’s sometimes unclear who is speaking. Where Wenjen shines, however, is in communicating the passion with which Tam dedicated himself to fighting for equality and combating racism. Gómez illustrates the narrative with dyanmic, collagelike digital art in a limited palette of muted colors. Each spread also features a quote from the song “We Sing From the Heart” that The Slants wrote about the experience.

Inspiring in spirit, if not in specifics.