To Be Asian American | Vol. 2, Issue 7
I have many breakthroughs throughout this newsletter.
Author’s note: I had a fun and exciting newsletter prepared, then shit happened that I talk about in this introduction paragraph. I planned to edit another video to include here, but that is not going to happen. I promised to stay true to myself and share my humanity in this newsletter - to not edit myself to be more palatable. Thank you to those who make space for me in your day, to those who really try to hear and understand me, and also to those who go out and exercise their influence to make the world a better place.
Click on links to go to the link (duh), but you can also click on the Instagram/Twitter handle to read the captions/thread (which I recommend otherwise I would not put it in the newsletter).
*** This is a long newsletter - you might as well hop over and read the full post. ***
This Asian American is not okay. I am sad, afraid, angry… I am broken and exhausted.
A 21-year-old White gunman targeted 3 Asian Atlanta spa massacres, killed 8 people (6 of them Asian women) on Tuesday, March 16th. Every single day since then I woke up crying, and the crying comes and goes throughout the day.
I cry because I was sad about the lives lost, like Xiaojie Tan who was going to celebrate her 50th birthday with her daughter the following day.
I cry for the families of the victims, like Hyun Jung Grant whose mother was killed and left behind two sons who now need to find new living accommodations in the midst of everything.
I cry because when my social media feeds have been looking like the image below for the last year and yet life moves on, I feel like my community is invisible and does not matter. (Also, follow NextShark. They are doing the work telling the news and stories of Asian America that national media does not seem capable of handling.)
I cry because back in 2020 when all the Asian American community asked for from our political leaders was to see us and help us by condemning attacks against Asian Americans which have skyrocketed since the beginning of the pandemic, there were so many who did not believe us and gaslit us and denied our humanity. Re-read if you need to: We were not asking for funding. We were only asking for public support.
I cry because I sent an email out to a few of my coworkers, and I was met with mostly silence. This is a team that I spent a good four years with. I felt invisible. It made me think about all these other times in my life where I felt crazy and I was the one with the problem. Racism against Black and Brown people and racism against Asian people look different. It’s still racism.
I cried as my Asian friends and I peeled back layers of sinophobia and micro-aggressions and “model minority” myths and our Asian cultures and erasure that we have accepted as part of our lives.
This one event has so many layers. Here is a non-exhaustive list of what I’ve been grappling with:
A witness told Korea Times Atlanta that the murderer said he would “kill all Asians”, however American news did not report this because they did not have somebody who could speak in the language of this witness. This is a form of erasure. Thinking about the lack of stories about Americans who are also Asian because these national media newsrooms do not staff to accommodate.
How white American media and institutions portray white and white-passing people versus people of color:
Also:
The Atlanta terrorist purchased his gun the same day he murdered 8 people. You cannot register and vote on the same day in Georgia.Sex work and the fetishization of Asian women, a starter:
Yes, Trump’s anti-Asian rhetoric heightened and emboldened individuals to attack members of the Asian community, but anti-Asian sentiment has been around way before Trump. Also, this is not just an America issue - this is a sentiment many people in the global Asian diaspora feel.
Maybe you thought that Asians are apolitical and quiet. Sorry, you bought into the “model minority” myth. I once did too. It’s the work of white supremacy - I first hinted about this in Issue 5. Even not teaching about Asians in America besides the 3 paragraphs about Chinese working on the Transcontinental Railroad in history classes growing up is an act of violence because it is erasure. To get started:
*** DEEP BREATH ***
Before I move onto the lighter parts of the newsletter:
Music
Life has been incredibly difficult when I share four videos instead of two.
My friend’s commentary: “for the relaxation you deserve”. Now I am forwarding this energy to all of you.
孫盛希 Shi Shi is a Korean-Taiwanese singer-songwriter who has a lot of great songs in Taiwanese dramas I love. I have been digging her entire discography on Spotify:
What I’ve Been Consuming
I’ve got a lot to share. For me, now is a season of growth and compassion and exploration of my identity… the events I have been attending and things that I have been consuming speak to me on many levels. Let me know which ones you check out from my list!
ATTENDED
Luvvie Ajayi Jones is many things, including truth-teller and author. Since I saw her speak at a conference years ago, I have been a huge fan. She’s got this energy and charisma that very few others have matched. If you know how much I love Trevor Noah… I love Luvvie just as much.
I received a free ticket to one of Luvvie’s virtual book tour stop for her second book “Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual” with Glennon Doyle (author of “Untamed”) as guest. There were so many golden nuggets that helped me make connections about the changes I am going through my own life, including:
Friendship is a verb. She’s shown me what radical friendship looks like, and I want to give that to the people in my community.
I commit to never letting the world tell me that I am not enough.
Forget “I want to have the confidence of a mediocre white man”. Instead, say “I want the confidence of an older Nigerian woman with all her swag, all her fashions, all the style, all the fierceness…” Also, now I want to go to Nigeria.
LISTEN
“Happy Lunar New Year” on Childhood with Chanel and Tiffany was such a good podcast episode to listen in the morning. They both have such soothing voices, and hearing their childhood memories brings back my own. I was reminded of some Asian snacks that I haven’t had for years and now I’m on the hunt for them again.
This podcast episode “The Trail” on Ear Hustle is intense but has lingered on my mind for a while since I listened to it. Ear Hustle shares stories about the “daily realities of life inside prison… by those living it, and stories from the outside, post-incarceration”. The episode I am talking about is graphic (trigger warning): it is about a man who attacked a woman hiking alone and brutally sexually assaulted her on a hiking trail.
It brought back memories of my solo trips. Even though I felt lots of freedom and I had a lot of fun, I knew in the back of my mind that I had to be much more careful than many other travelers. No matter how many boxing or self-defense classes I take, I will always seem like easy prey because of my smiley demeanor and small stature. I have run into many kind-hearted strangers, but I have come across enough men who tried to take advantage of me for me to be skeptical of everything. And being skeptical of everything is exhausting. Real rest while traveling solo as an Asian woman? Have not experienced that yet.
Y’ALL. I think I just untangled another mental barrier. Oh snap!
My takeaways from the podcast episode is not just about the sexual assault, but I also learned more about what true accountability does and does not look like. This podcast pairs well with what I share in the “READ” section.
READ
Highly recommend Four Parts of Accountability: How to Give a Genuine Apology Part 1 and How to Give a Genuine Apology Part 2: The Apology - The What and The How: I am learning and thinking more about transformative justice, especially as of late with the increased visibility of anti-AAPI hate crimes. It is still difficult for me to process how transformative justice works in practice on a societal level. These articles break it down even more and show how we can practice transformative justice on a personal level in our relationships just by being better at apologizing.
If we cannot handle the small things between us, how will we be able to handle the big things? Learning how to address these smaller hurts or breaks in trust, can help us learn the basic skills we need to address larger harms. It can also help to reduce and prevent larger forms of harm and violence (e.g. hurt becoming conflict, conflict becoming harm, harm becoming violence). For example, if you cannot have a direct conversation with your friend about how they hurt your feelings or the toxic language your roommate used, then how will you be able to respond effectively to sexual violence or abuse in your community or family?
Now I feel more more aware in situations where there should be some sort of accountability. In the past few weeks, I got to practice accountability and also felt a lack of accountability from a friend.
WATCH
I keep flip-flopping on if I’ll ever buy a house. During the pandemic, so many people I follow on Instagram have been buying their homes or renovating. I watch their YouTube videos to be inspired.
Aimee Song (most known as a fashion blogger but is also an interior designer) has two playlists that are worth checking out: My First House and New House Tour 2020. I love her style!
If I were thinking practical and chic, I would probably go with Jen Chae aka From Head to Toe’s style. She has a playlist called From House to Home. I learned that I should go for porcelain.
To my Asian community (but sharing here so the White people in my life can hear what kind of conversations we’re having, hopefully see us and our humanity, and hopefully be more cognizant and wield your privilege to make spaces safer for all people of color):
You never have to justify the emotions you feel to anybody, including yourself. We can live with multiple truths: that Black people face the worst of racism (including systemic and institutional racism) & the micro-aggressions and racism you have experienced are real too. If you feel guilty like speaking about your pain diminishes the experience of Black people: that’s the “model minority” myth in action. Your experiences and pain are valid. This is not Oppression Olympics. Go through the following gallery:
Processing your life experience and reflecting is emotionally intensive and an iterative process. As I learn more from activists and community leaders, I uncover more shit from the events of my life - sometimes it’s the same event that I keep finding layers to. Grief is layered.
It is okay to ask for help such as a safe space to talk. Asking for help does not make you weak. Life is already exhausting as a person of color. (Also, East Asian friends, we are people of color.) I ask you to challenge the notion of needing to succeed at life alone. It sounds tiresome and lonely. Find your communities - you’ll know they are right when you feel completely safe. Safe to talk. Safe to put down your burdens.
An overview of things I’ve thought about, and I tried to organize it into layers:
Layer 1: How your Asian cultural values & the environment you grew up in plays into who you are and your beliefs
Layer 2: How you have internalized white America & the “model minority” myth. Were you ever ashamed and tried to suppress your Asian-ness?
Layer 3: How interactions with non-Asian POC have gone in your past and present. Were you supported or felt gaslighted like “your pain is not as serious as my pain, stop crying”?
Layer 4: How you have pushed your own feelings aside
I was in a healing circle, and someone described this as “excavating decades of shit”. Agreed.
You may struggle to vocalize your feelings, even to yourself. This could be a result of many things like the layers I described above. Do not fret. It is okay to sit back and read and listen and watch other Asians / Asian Americans who are courageous enough to share their stories. It is okay to find your feelings through other people’s words. It’s almost as if we are finding our voices, and that takes time and practice. If you ever feel up to sharing your story, the community welcomes you.
Read: Why This Wave of Anti-Asian Racism Feels DifferentThere are so many different kinds of Asians. I’m not talking about Vietnamese versus Chinese versus Korean versus Hmong… I’m talking about how we grew up. I used to think that all Asian Americans were like me, who grew up in a predominantly Asian community. Actually, the environment I grew up in is more rare. There are a lot more Asians living across America who were one of very few Asians in their classes and neighborhoods growing up. There are a lot of transracial adoptees in America (often white families adopting Black or Asian children). Each experience has it own challenges, and we should be open to hearing all the stories.
There are individuals of other communities who are speaking up for us. Yes, there is a lot of anti-Black sentiment in the Asian community and there is a lot of anti-Asian sentiment in the Black community. We all need to realize that this is what white supremacy wants. That pain from those arguments are valid, but it is not how I choose to move ahead in community solidarity.
After thinking about all of this and more, how do you feel right now? How do you want to move forward from this point in time? A note here: there is never one right way to show up for your community. Everybody has their own talents: words, art, cooking… show up in the best way you deem fit. But please, show up once you have done all the work - for yourself, for your friends and family, for your community, for other marginalized communities.
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Y’all. I love the heck out of you. Take care of yourselves. If you ever need a person to hold space for you, please reach out. **a long and beautiful hug**
Juliet
I'm a 5-times over privileged middle aged white dude. The past 5 years have been revelatory. The racism, the woman-hating, the everything backwards from what it should be. The loved ones I thought were tainted with outdated beliefs are shown to be full on zombie virus infected cultists. The denial runs deep. The denial of reality by the racist woman-haters (plus the other things they hate) - that they are racist, that they were left behind for good reasons, that even if their privilege is the only thing keeping them from the edge, it's not something they ever deserved... the flip side is denying whiteness (trying to be 'color blind'), thinking we ('whitefolks', but using that term disrupts the denial) are farther along than we are, denying things large and small, trying to hide with layers upon layers of sanitized stories we (I) tell ourselves. I'm so sorry I ever minimized anti-Asian racism. I'm ashamed I ever believed it wasn't at the magnitude of the other evils. I'm struggling with the fact that the evils were always worse than I wanted to believe. I'm struggling with the fact that the evil can't be contained, can't be sequestered until it dies out. I'm struggling with the fact that pretty much everything I thought was more-or-less ok (including myself) is actually fairly far down the sewage pipe. This cray-cray denial is clearly a Thing - I don't know if it's a whitefolk Thing, or if it's everyone. It's not just males, and not just older folks (I tried to tell myself that for decades). I know many parts of my life are backwards and harder than they have to be (even wealthy people can't get decent health care) - I go bananas when I realize just how much better my life is than others. I dread finding out the next thing I've been ignoring. I'm jumping at my own shadow. I've gone to marches. I've donated money. I try to be mindful. I try to reach out to my delusional family. I've reached out to lefty loved ones living in a sanitized bubble. I've shut down coworkers when the evil leaks out. I've kept an eye out to protect those that are vulnerable. I know on some level it's important and even helps. But it feels like 95% bullshit. I thought we were winning the greater struggle, and now I'm faced with things being much worse than I'd allow myself to believe. Anyway. I'm on physical and emotional lockdown for more than one reason. I've been keeping to myself, but I do care. You and all the others struggling with real life evil, and all I can do is talk about myself :(