One Year Later

Soon Chung Park. Suncha Kim. Yong Ae Yue. Hyun Jung Grant. Xiaojie Tan. Daoyou Feng. Paul Andre Michels. Delaina Ashley Yaun. #restinpower

One year later.

Where are we?

One year later.

What is better?

One year later.

Are we still invisible?

One year ago, I held my child as they sobbed in my arms. Enraged, frustrated, afraid, hopeless…targeted. I cried with them as they tried to understand why their smile, their hair, their eyes, their skin, their existence would be reason for them to be murdered. Would be reason for people to say that wasn’t the reason of their death. That “it’s about someone having a bad day.”

One year later.

I am embroiled in a conversation about business development for the City of Grand Forks that has taken a sharp turn from a business not being welcome to an entire people group not being welcome based on their ethnicity and heritage. Somehow, people still refuse to acknowledge the nuance of a government from its people, over its people, and instead dog whistle those who would gladly harm our neighbors while professing apologies for the incendiary impact of black and white language. What should we do with these apologies? Are they?  

One year later.

One year later, anti-Asian violence and racism continue to verbally assault, physically attack, and brutally kill. Between March 2020 and December 2021, almost 11,000 hate incidents against the AAPI community have been reported to Stop AAPI Hate. Anti-Asian hate crimes rose 339% in 2021 across major U.S. cities. 74% of Asian American and Pacific Islander women have experienced racism or discrimination in the past year.

One year later.

To my non-Asian friends and family, colleagues, and neighbors, I’ve been holding my breath for so long I ask, I want, I need you to clear and hold a space for me and others to breathe. Include anti-Asian racism in your anti-racism work. Take bystander training and intervene when you see harassment taking place. Demand and hold accountable policy makers to create equitable change. Educate yourselves and others about the history and current affairs of anti-Asian racism. We may not be in the place to speak on how we’re feeling or willing or able to explain how you can support us, so do the work.

One year later.

My grief remains. My anger remains. My fear remains. As an Asian American, as an Asian immigrant, an Asian woman, I’ve felt unsafe, I’ve been unsafe for a long time. This is nothing new, yet the weight bears heavier and heavier. And I see all my fellow Asian and Asian Americans out there, some fighting, some mourning, some grieving…some just trying to survive. And I’m right there with you. And as we remember and honor the lives of those lost on March 16, 2021, we remain here.

And perhaps, here is enough for today.  

Am I Invisible?

I had the opportunity to speak on my experience as an Asian American last month in a listening circle put on by the NACRJ – National Association of Community & Restorative Justice to acknowledge anti-Asian violence. (Many thanks to my friend, Joel for the connection and asking me to participate.) They graciously shared their recording of the initial welcoming remarks, including my story.

Because…we live in volatile times.

Which is unnecessary to state, but I say it to remind and emphasize how important it is for allies, would be allies, co-conspirators and the like, to SHOW UP. Hold space for the communities that are hurting right now from generations and generations of violence. We may not be in the place to speak on how we’re feeling or willing or able to explain how you can support us. And that’s ok. But you making space and then holding it tight so that we have a place to process in the way that is best for us…that is something.

Because what you are seeing in real time from your friends, family, and other hurting community members is 한 (han).

Han’s complexity lies in its composition of deep loss and profound sorrow, unrequited rage, bitterness, and stout resoluteness…an all-consuming, all-encompassing state of being. Han is a Korean concept that does not have a literal translation to English but is one that marginalized communities within the United States will no doubt recognize and understand in their own context from the heavy burden of injustice on their neck…it is the dull lingering ache in the soul personified. As a transracial adoptee, and an Asian American, this is the fire that burns as steady as ever in my belly as I look to what could be and what should be for my kids, your kids, and the next generation.

#StopAsianHate #StopAAPIHate

Put a finger down if…

_{Illustration by Grace D. Chin}

• You hear “Chinese, Dirty Knees, Look at these!” and it makes your cheeks flush and ears run hot in a shame you’ve known intimately since you were a child.
• You vainly hoped to believe that being rubber would really bounce all the “slanty eyes” back onto your tormentors and stick to them like glue.
• You’ve been accosted ten times over regarding “where are you from, no really…where are you from? No, no, I mean originally, where did you come from?”
• You’ve claimed your Americanness and been told to hyphenate.
• You were told you just didn’t have the “right look” for parts in your school plays.
• You were called a chink for not dating a boy.
• You were told that you’re the “good kind of colored person.”
• You were assumed to be your parent’s mail-order spouse.
• You were told unsolicited stories about stranger’s friends and relatives who adopted someone from South Korea or China or Japan or…
• You never learned about your ethnic heritage in history class, despite asking why you learned the same European and European American history every year.
• You shied away from relationships with people who looked like you and would have perhaps been able to share the burden of your experiences because God forbid someone assume you’re all related.
• You were nicknamed based on a sexual prowess you certainly did not have and yet because you were born in your skin, it’s a funny joke and assumed to be true. “Hey Asian Sensation, you love me long time? How about five dollah fo a sucky sucky?”
• You’ve had unsolicited stories about the Korean War and Vietnam War told to you by complete strangers.
• Male strangers have greeted you with “Ni Hao” and an exaggerated bow.
• You’ve been told that others should be more like “your people” because they’re a model. #notyourmodelminority
• You’ve been told you have a small shoe size because people bind feet in “your country.”
• You’ve had an entire classroom and teacher laugh at a joke made at the expense of whether you could even see the board from the front row because your eyes are almonds.
• You’ve had a substitute teacher demand you stand up out of your desk because they were making a point about diversity…you and the one other girl, neither of you daring to look at each other should your pain fall from your eyes.
• You’ve had a significant other’s parent tell a racist joke at your expense to you, in front of them and their family…and everyone laughed.
• You’ve been told to “Go back to where you came from” for stating an unwelcome opinion…or just for daring to show your face.
• You’ve wished for skin and eyes and hair that just wasn’t yours because “it’s not pretty.”
• You’ve gotten school pictures back and your face isn’t recognizable because someone thought they’d brighten up your skin (whitewash) and open your eyes (rounder with double lids).
• You’ve been told someone likes “your kind” because you are obedient and serving to your spouse.
• You’ve been asked if your vagina really is sideways.
• You’ve been told “you’re basically white” as a compliment while being told “I don’t even see your skin color.” (I don’t see you, is what they should say.)
• You have been welcomed to town with a “You’ll like it here, we have a Chinese buffet.”
• A male colleague has touched your hair and told you that “your people” have such nice hair.
• You have been asked where you learned to speak English so well.
• You have been spoken to so very s-l-o-w-l-y and LOUDLY to make sure you understand your native tongue.
• You have been called a “Dragon lady” because you dare to show up with a voice.
• You’ve had your accomplishments boiled down to affirmative action and because you’re KoReAN-AmERicAn. (It’s Korean American.)
• You’ve had teachers, professors, interviewers look right past you as they call your name because it doesn’t “fit” your face.
• You have been on the receiving end of “Ching chong Chinaman” as a child, an adolescent, a teenager, an adult in front of your children.
• You just finished wrapping up a rally for social justice because #yellowperilsupportsblacklives and a truck full of teenagers drove by and called you a “chink.”
• You worry about whether you should make a copy of your naturalization papers and laminate them to carry around…just in case. Nevermind you’ve been a citizen of your country for over thirty years.

• Someone asked your white spouse where your children came from and where they got them?
• Someone asked your white spouse if you met while overseas (Why yes, yes we did…), in the military (Oh, no. Does Bible school count?).
• Your children have been told the President doesn’t like their kind of people and that they’ll have to leave.
• Your children have been coughed at and called “Corona Virus.”
• Your children have been bullied because their “eyes look weird.”
• Your children have been tokenized in a play that was supposed to show God’s love and instead featured them as paper lantern dancers for a woman in yellowface.
• Your child tells you they wished they didn’t have their eyes. Their hair. Their pieces of you.

• Your child sobs in your arms because they don’t understand why the shape of their eyes makes it okay to murder them.

Oh, I’m sorry. I guess we’ve gone through all our fingers. Our toes. Our limbs. Every strand of hair on our heads. If we’re lucky we’re left with our souls.

Scratch that.

We fought for our souls because we are resilient and because we have the audacity to exist. To build community, achieve, and bear down through years of systemic erasure and injustice…generations of “bad days.”

Put a finger up for all those that have doubted, disbelieved, and still seek to erase the Asian American experience.

I’ll let you guess which one.

In Which, Once Again, I Am the Ching Chong Chinaman

Open Scene: Community Picnic, Fall 2017

“Mama, mama, mama, mom, mom, mom…”

“Can I have more rice?”

“My hot chocolate is too hot. I burned my tongue, see?”

“Okay, sh…. Please, just eat some of your food because it’s going to get cold and you won’t want to eat it.”

*Spoons toddler son a mouthful of rice in a second of silence*

“Hey Ching chong Chinamen…”

WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCKING HELL.

“Excuse me, what?! Get a life!!”

“Oh shit….” *Scamper* *Scamper*

“Mom, what did they say?”

“Mom, you said we were supposed to be nice to people. That wasn’t nice.”

“Mom, what did they say? Why did they say ching chong?”

Scene Fades Out.

*************************************************************************************

     I have recently had multiple conversations with people in which the forefront of them has a veiled excuse (or screaming microagression, it just depends on which side of the looking glass you are) that the racist things said and done to me and others, should be looked at on a case by case basis and that I should give people more of a benefit of a doubt because I live in North Dakota. Because maybe people haven’t traveled or people don’t know anyone of color outside of their movies and television screens.

.B-U-DOUBLE L.SHIT.

     I will not excuse you from saying something or doing anything that is racist and allow you to say “I’m not a racist because I have a [insert token friend/family member/coworker/teacher/I-don’t give a shit].” Or “I’m not a racist, can’t you take a joke?” Or “I’m not a racist, you’re just too politically correct and need to get over ‘it.’”

Because…do you even know what ‘IT’ is?!

     I have taken up my cross to bear in this conversation, in this acrimonious section of American life to, for the most part, educate. But to be honest, it’s mostly because I don’t have a choice. Because the day I was conceived my DNA dictated my browner skin, my dark hair, and my almond eyes. I cannot scrub the brown off, I won’t wear my sunglasses at night, and I can’t change that I’m not white anymore than you can change your genetics. And I’ve taken it on because I don’t want this for my kids. I don’t want this for your kids or any other adult.

     And I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face, the victim should not have the onus of proof placed upon them in any situation. The victim should be able to call a spade a spade and then the burden of proof should be placed on the perpetrator—including obtaining the education to simply just be a better person. Damn, strive to be a better person by learning and educating yourself to live in community. We all live in communities and they are increasingly growing in a global way, and yes, even in North Dakota.

     Because I can remember the first time kids pulled their eyes back with their fingers and with each passing year how the kids may have changed but the subject of their ridicule never did. I can remember the first time someone asked me if I liked “flied lice” and the triumphant look of someone who had just thought up the funniest joke they’d ever heard. And their face afterwards when I didn’t laugh. How offended, how angry they were at me for not being able to “take a joke.” I can remember the first time I was called a chink by a boy that I didn’t want to date. I remember the nicknames alluding to my sexuality, which is obviously ferocious and dragon-like. I remember my substitute teacher making all of the kids who weren’t white stand up to prove a point about immigration—and waiting until myself and the lone bi-racial girl in our class were forced to stand as exhibit A and B. I remember being mistaken for my father’s mail-order wife. I remember the first time someone told me my “English was so good” and I “spoke so well” in a loud, exaggerated voice—to make sure that I could understand

     And even still, do you know the worst thing about all of these examples? The worst thing is that I can’t remember the number of all the other times that these exact and barely varying scenarios played out. Scenarios that included myself being subjected to someone else’s ignorance and expected to forgive and forget or “educate because they don’t know better.” I can’t remember because they happen so damn often. Regardless of where I live or where I visit or where I go. Of who I am.  It doesn’t matter how much slack I give in conversation, how “understanding” I am in response to racist jokes and spoken stereotypes. It doesn’t matter how often I give a benefit of doubt when it’s never returned based on the color of my skin.

Because I don’t look like someone’s “American,” I am not.

I couldn’t be.

I cannot be.

I am not.

I’m always still the Ching Chong Chinaman.

Are You Tired Too?

Since the election I have felt at a loss for words. Despite what you may see or read from any of my social media or even in person, I have felt a loss of words…a loss of energy…a dimming of…something…which has impeded my ability to emote in the ways which typically come easier to me. The 2016 election, the new presidency, Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, PULSE, and now this…Charlottesville…high profile snapshots indicating and peeling back just the thin skim of the broader festering in our American values. And unfortunately those examples are only a sampling of what has come (will come) so far.

So I’ve retreated. Or it feels that I’ve retreated. To try and regroup, re-center, orientate anew in this season unknown.
*
We recently had the pleasure of visiting family in South Dakota and my kids spent their days to the hilt with their cousins; their differences and similarities quite obvious, sometimes comically so to their parents. We were there for a week and pictures were taken, the obligatory cousin picture of course taken a few million times to get at least five out of six of the cousins present looking somewhere near the camera. It’s these cousin pictures that I keep coming back to during and post Charlottesville.

It’s a picture like this one that I keep returning to, mulling over the faces that I so dearly love and desperately want to protect. These smart, funny, imaginative, and compassionate little people who have little knowledge of what’s “out there.” Hopes and dreams largely untainted (though Nellie now knows she does not indeed have super powers—she’s still holding out for her owl), their aspirations set high bolstered by the love and support received from our family. They are different and unique in the best and most annoying ways that only parents will tolerate.

And when I look at this picture, my heart swells a thousand times over…and breaks in a bittersweet *han that only parents of color will ever fully understand. Because when I look at this beautiful picture of my family I also am reminded in times such as these that the precious people here will not be seen for the family that they are. They will not be treated as the family that they are. They will not experience life for the family that they are. They won’t be treated for their unique preferences or personalities. They won’t be treated for who they are. They’ll be treated for who someone else thinks they are. Who someone else thinks they should be. And for my kids who are both equally parts of their mother and father, who have already felt the stinging smack of racism towards themselves and others…it’s just too much for this parent who has also walked this pot-holed road of race in America. Of race in the Midwest. Of race in small-town, apple-as-pie, nice MN/ND.

It’s too many feels.

And I am tempted to continue retreating. To continue insulating and consciously hedging my life experiences in order to avoid finding myself on the blunt end of those humiliating, demoralizing, and de-basing moments that the out right hateful and the blissfully ignorant would inflict. And truly it’s those blissfully ignorant, willfully ignorant comments that burn the longest. That feel the deepest. And I have the right to retreat, don’t I? To retreat to protect myself and my family?

No.
No, I don’t.

I’m mostly told and sometimes asked over and over that it is my job to educate others. To give them opportunities for learning and growth. …How can I judge them if I’m not willing to speak with them? Teach them? …Be their target? Be their mea culpa? Be their “safe” space? Use my experiences for the greater good they say. And while I try, and I offer myself up for that scrutiny day in and day out in real life conversations, in relationships, in organizations, marches, and through my keyboard…what work is being done by others who do not live this burden? Those who continue to ask me, demand from me “How can I help?” “What can I read to learn?” “I don’t hear about that stuff, how did x, y, and z affect you? (And while you’re at it, convince me to believe differently otherwise it’s your (my) fault for being a reverse-racist, liberal, snowflake-y bitch who thinks they’re better. Because what’s an insult without a little misogyny thrown in?)”

How can I fight this fight for my children who deserve so much more? For my family and other families and a community of beautiful people who deserve so much more?

I am tired.

But I will press on.

I will continue to fight through my loss of words. I will wrestle with my table-turning-in-the-temple anger and wretched despair. I will put up with the lazy questions and some (I’m only human) blatantly ignorant statements and I will continue engaging them in conversation. I will continue to speak and will not retreat.

I will push through this battle because I don’t want Charlottesville to be a legacy for my children to bear. Or yours. I don’t want this hate, this bubbling, festering, virulent wake to pour over. Charlottesville cannot be a rallying call for white supremacists, bigots, and Nazis, to be emboldened in their hate. Take note that it is not a rallying cry for those opposed to the white supremacists agenda either. The rallying call for equity has been ongoing and continuous with each deep, unjust loss felt by the communities delegated to the back of the proverbial bus. But don’t allow being late to the party assuage you of the importance of showing up now. Do not bow out saying that your contribution is so small it wouldn’t matter. Start your work now. If you choose to sit on the sidelines, understand that the movement for equitable treatment will carry on with or without you but that you have then made a conscious decision to be complicit with those who carried out the torch-carrying riots in Charlottesville and their message.

So all of these “no words” to say that–I’m tired. And I don’t always have the right words, hell, most days I don’t even have words. And certainly I don’t always know where to go or even where to start from. But I do know that all people deserve to live in a community in which they have equitable rights, treatment, and opportunity regardless of their skin color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability, or political affiliation. My children believe it. And I will work into the grave so they might be able to live it.

*Han: Han is a difficult concept to describe and the context in which it’s used must be understood in order to really “know” it. I borrow from Wikipedia (yes, I know, I hear the eye rolls) to explain what I can’t but know to be true here: “Han is frequently translated as sorrow, spite, rancor, regret, resentment or grief, among many other attempts to explain a concept that has no English equivalent. Han is an inherent characteristic of the Korean character and as such finds expression, implied or explicit, in nearly every aspect of Korean life and culture.” [Though I believe that han, even without an English equivalent or having Korean ancestry, many people of color or largely marginalized groups will be able to understand in their own unique way.] “Han is sorrow caused by heavy suffering, injustice or persecution, a dull lingering ache in the soul. It is a blend of lifelong sorrow and resentment, neither more powerful than the other. Han is imbued with resignation, bitter acceptance and a grim determination.”

What’s Old is New

It’s been one baby more.

It’s been two years since the last post.

It’s been three years since we became a part of the homeless Church.

It’s been a new house, new jobs, new growth.

It’s been (what feels) a lifetime of change.

#BlackLivesMatter

“Better a little righteousness than much gain with injustice.”

Proverbs 16:8

Tonight my heart burns so deeply there aren’t words to describe.

A Tender Reminiscence

I had all the intentions of writing some thoughtful, well versed piece tonight in commemoration of National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day.

But 1 tea party, 2 children and 1 sick husband tucked in bed, 2 grant proposals, and a million work emails answered-later my brain is fried. All that’s left are just some wandering thoughts.

October 9th came and went with little recognition.

I bought an ivy.

I named her Gretchen.

She sits on my desk hutch at work, basking in the natural and florescent lights. She’s spoiled.

I thought about taking the day off but then decided I would work the first half and then maybe take off early. But then I ended up staying all day. It was probably better that I did that.

Dylan and I went out to eat at Olive Garden with the girls and enjoyed some family time together. It’s so rare lately that we’re all in one place together without one of us rushing out the door and blowing kisses in passing. Such is this time of life.

And it hits me that she (I’ve decided that she would’ve been) would be around four months now, give or take a couple weeks.

And that’s hard.

But not as hard as it was last year.

Or last month.

But still hard nonetheless.

And so I press on, acknowledging the truth and finding solace in the Psalms. In my husband and my daughters. In Moses, the ever constant, neurotic pug companion of mine. In my friends and family. In books and music. In the experiences of the everyday constants. The routine. The surprises and unknowns.

I’m not sure if it ever gets easier, I can’t imagine experiencing this type of ferocious emotion again. I pray I don’t. But I think that, in hindsight and with the strength of being a year out, I’ll be okay and life has and will continue in this new normal. A normal that changes and gains meaning each day because of and not because of October 9th.

What a darkly funny date to be emblazoned in my memory alongside mine and my husband’s anniversary, our children’s birth dates, our family’s birth dates, my airplane day, all these dates that I’ve committed to memory for one reason or another.

But Gretchen’s charming. And healthy. And she purifies my dry office air.

She’s got long, graceful limbs and her leaves arch in the most delicate way. She makes my desk seem inviting, and soothing.

A tender reminiscence.

Just Some Things

I can’t believe it’s already mid-October.

Dylan and I celebrated our eighth anniversary on the eighth. <–That sounds surreal.

Nellie is going to be a tiger for Halloween, we found a cheap second-hand costume from Old Navy that is super cute and will be so warm and snuggly–both points that fit the bill for this North Dakotan mama. Dylan and I are still working on Ada to agree to be a tiger trainer/circus trainer. We may have ideolized (I just made that up) so well that she’s unsure she wants to be someone who’s “so mean to animals” and that “animals are meant to live in the wild and not do tricks.”

We’ve picked up our “Eat the World” Challenge again and are trying to at least get through the “Bs” before the end of 2013. Right now we’re planning our Brazilian meal and combining it with another new dinner theme (apparently, I really like theme-y things, well actually, I always knew that)–movie nights. Movie nights we watch a movie together as a family and eat dinner at the same time and have cutesy foods to match the characters/setting of the story line. The girls love it because it’s so against the grain of eating together at the dinner table. Anyhow, Brazil will be combined with movie night because we checked out “Rio” at the library this weekend and thought it would be a fun tie-in. The girls will be boggled. Minds will be blown.

Work is going great–it’s been busy up to my eyeballs but I continue to love it just as much as when I started. I’d consider myself one lucky ducky in that realm.

Dylan is half-way through his student teaching at one of the highschools in town. It’s been hard to juggle the schedules but  I guess it’s boot camp for when he graduates and becomes a teacher of his own domain. Word on the street is that he’s doing pretty awesome, but that’s no surprise here. (I can hear him rolling his eyes now. Literally, hear the movement.)

Ada has started kindergarten and she’s a rockstar. Learning her letters and phonics, she’s so excited to read. She’s been coming home with little “I Can Read”-type books and showing off her new sight-word skills. I continue to be amazed at the collective knowledge she’s gained in such a short period of time, what happened to my baby?

AND speaking of babies (no, not that), my Nellie’s one month or so away from turning 3! THREE?! In honor of the occasion she has chosen to have a “Kung-Fu Princess” themed birthday party. Thankgoodnesstobetsy for Pinterest.

Ufta.

And then there’s this whole shutdown business…

Maybe that’s a good place to stop for now.

Fear not, I will be back.

When there are NO Words

I feel the need to write today.

There are too many thoughts in my head and they need to get out.

I find that writing is cathartic, when it’s unplanned, when it’s most needed.

And today…well today is certainly one of those days.

I’ve been avoiding news sources like the black plague. So much pain, so much hurt, so much injustice these days that this poor Mama’s heart just breaks and re-breaks every time I scan the latest news header. Tornados, rock slides, car accidents…all of it unbearable to me and I feel a wash of pain and grief come over me in solidarity for the people and families who have been affected irrevocably.

In an instant.

A.mere.instant.

And so I hug my children a little bit tighter, selfishly and thankfully, tearfully acknowledging that I have no control over anything other than how I live now.

As a talker, I know that words are the first thing that I want to offer to people, hurting or not. However, all too often I hear things like “Be strong” tossed around to the hurting or “God’s plan…” or “Don’t forget about how blessed you still are…” immediately during these trying times, as if a verbal-one-for-all-bandaid could do any good…if there was even such a thing. (And you know me, I love a good cliché.)

To those people I would say, SHUT UP.

I have no time for you, the hurting have no time for you, and there simply is NO TIME for you.

There is a time and place for everything. God is everywhere always, I truly believe that, and I truly believe that God gave us a wide range of emotions to express our lives to one another, our souls. When grief, when sadness, when despair are so very, very fresh (and even lingering) these are not the words that those of us on our grieving journeys need to hear.

What we need are our communities to come alongside us and to hold us up in love. To comfort…to hold… to deliver the standard Midwestern hotdish or pan of bars. More often than not, the last thing that we need are words. Because really, how can you explain away lives taken too soon? Evils and accidents, natural disasters with consequences that rend God’s heart? What words can you give that would comfort a parent left to live their days without the joys and pains of their child?

If anything, perhaps, we should hug our children and our spouses, our family and friends a bit tighter, and revel in the blessings that permeate our lives; and in doing so as a community, honor those who grieve by extending our ears to listen and shoulders to help bear the burden.