A season of finding my words

I’ve been holding the pieces of my life, and letting them tell me things — this past week (plus) being one of them.

The latest escalation in violence against the Asian American Pacific Islander community, including the death of 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee & the police shooting of 19-year-old Christian Hall during a mental health crisis, has had me in a pendulum between feeling and distracting. Many moments of loading up the news, and needing to shut it down — for the prickling and the freeze, woven deep within my body.

“Not now.”

Yet the hardest times are the ones where we need to listen.

For years, my work has been an interplay between grind culture, questions of purpose, and productivity as my own soothing & avoidance tactic. Last week, rather than giving myself to deadlines: I sat down instead, to write.

(I did stay up late to finish the rest of the work afterward, though. Old habits die hard.)

I’m in a season of finding my words.

Because for the longest time, I decided sharing with people wasn’t worth it. A relic from a time long ago — when I spoke, and it went unheard. It went misunderstood. It went wrong.

And so I adopted silence as a way of being, and forgot about it.

As we all do.

It looks a little different, the things we take up to survive — our patterns hammering and reinforcing our armor. But for all of us, they’re there. (Just maybe not yet held to the light — until we parent, or romance, or harm. Follow the string, and this brings us to abolition.)

Over the years, social media as a conversation has particularly confused me, and agitated me. Are we just speaking into space? Vying to be heard? To be right? To have something to prove?

In reflection, I realize that social media is the proxy. But really — people as a conversation have particularly confused me, and agitated me. To participate is to wish a certain disappointment. I’d rather be fine on my own.

This has been surprising to many; known by some; and voiced by two — at least, in recent memory. You let others feel known, but you let no one know you. They said this humorously, as if in on a secret. Maybe because this is them, too.

I say recent memory, because sometimes, I think I only have recent memory. So often I’m wandering in space, occasionally guided by slow-motion corners of pinball machines. The rest is lost in the untold.

I drove to my high school boyfriend’s house the other day — or rather, the house where he grew up & where his parents still live — to drop off a gift. The first in years. An olive branch of sorts, though I didn’t say that, and I don’t know if it was known or understood. An ask for forgiveness. I’m not sure if the request was to him, or to my self.

He texted me the address, but I decided to test myself and not look. I got the intersection right, but went too far and ended up in the hills — gradually winding my way there, through the neighborhood back door.

And so, I trace my avoidance. And I name it.

A fractal for the rest of my life.

I had hoped to study anthropology in college. The closest I got was a class where we called the professor by his nickname, bestowed by MS-13.

From my scattered notes, I have a single quote saved, and the story of a man — Polish-Mexican, upper-middle class, from Pasadena — who went from president of his elementary school to juvenile hall to prison to probation to prison from age 13 — continuously fighting to save his life.

“If you want to understand gang violence, you have to understand human violence. And if you want to understand human violence, you need to understand human evolutionary theory — who we came to be.

Because a lot of biologists and evolutionary scientists argue: our biology either determines or very heavily influences the way we behave. Sophisticated theorists say it’s an interaction — culture and biology, it’s always a feedback loop … And the ones who still call themselves sociobiologists are kind of strident — ‘No, fuck you, we explain everything.’”

Sitting in that class, and in all my interconnected work at the time: I held and considered and turned over this concept of anthropology, and being the insider & the outsider at once.

I didn’t expect that I would first become an anthropologist for my self.

There are concepts in the Korean language — han & jeong — the latter of which, for the longest time, I didn’t know how to spell, but eventually found through Google.

Like many things learned, I hold an imprecise definition — more feeling than fact.

It feels like contraction and release in the body.

It feels like the time and the time and the time and the time that I’ve let my sorrow swirl and settle in my chest.

It feels like Baldwin and the rock.

And so I feel my numbness. And I am still inside of it.

I’ve added these words to the list of things that I still need to ask my grandparents, before they are lost in translations, lost in generations, lost in migrations.

It is an unearthing of the individual and the collective — a process that calls for theory, slowness, and care. It is here, that I have placed myself in a self-imposed limbo, cycling through currents of love, shame, and desperation all at once. Not allowing myself to rest until I’ve done enough.

It’s the same love tinged with fear that has me say “I love you” before we hang up, every single time.

From this place, I have been writing. Or trying. It is where I struggle with my perfectionism the most. It is so much so, that I can’t start, and when I start it’s not good enough, and when it’s not good enough I get stuck, and for that I beat myself up too.

Because I have to get it right. Because I don’t have time for a do-over. Because I am holding someone’s life, and it is the life of someone I love, and that someone is a part of me. And so, I am holding my own life too.

From this place, I will share a single detail, pulled from audio recordings from high school until now. From Haba’s crossings between California and Michigan in the 50’s — summer seasons in the fields stitching together semesters at school. It is somewhat unedited, yet only a snippet. And I let it take space, in its full form.

“You get on the truck, and they take you to a certain field. And start picking either peach or grape … 90 cent an hour rate. 105 degrees. Picking peach or grape, 8 hours, is not that easy.

Lot of guys are working real professionally. They are the undocumented labor from Mexico. That time. They are doing fast. And you gotta catch them up otherwise you get tired! It’s tough. And — but I was young, still young. You drink, I don’t know how many gallons of water a day, but sweat. Grape picking, grape yard, is very hot. Peach, you have a bit of shadow. Grape, no — no shadow. You get in the wrong shadow, the bees come. So the sun is there all day.

So I figured — 90 cents an hour, work three months plus, not enough. So I got a part-time job at the coffee shop called counter attendant in the evening. Then daytime in the farm. So I saved up about $1,000 that time. That’s big money.

So came back after the summer work; and without any worry about the visa violation. I attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo class, one semester. I remember there was a guy, really nice guy at the campus post office. As a really, so nice. And helpful. But the first semester I thought, I’m not satisfied with Cal Poly. (laughs) You know, I hate to say that. I had too much dream.

No, I want to go much better, known university. I applied two — University of Michigan is really well known in Asia. Even now. And had largest student population, even that time. And believe or not, Harvard University …

So both place — Harvard accepted, Michigan accepted. But Harvard sent me, they need some financial statement. Eh? Such a complicated papers. You have to fill in all that, so I filled in all fake information. (laughs) Then they responded that — ‘Financial statement is not justifiable. We regret so-and-so.’ Michigan, they don’t ask, that time, financial statement. But Harvard is the one really digging into — can you afford?

I gave up Harvard. Then I got Michigan.

My question is — how do I go to Michigan? It’s a long way to go. So again, I’m a good customer for the Greyhound. Greyhound, it took me three days to get to Ann Arbor … And when I got out the bus, I couldn’t walk because you know, three days when you don’t stretch your feet or move around, your joints won’t work well …

My time, I’d ride the bus. I had to go to the back seat, back door. That time, white is front. Half of back is either Asian or Black. Basically, it’s for the Black. But sometimes Asian gets mixed up. Where should I go? Then driver says ‘C’mon the front, c’mon.’ Some nice guy driver.

Albuquerque, New Mexico. New building had a big restroom, two different restroom. Restroom for Caucasian. Asian is, always don’t know which one I should get in. They take the safe way, restroom for the Black. That’s safe, instead of trying to go to Caucasian restroom. And then, they — ‘get out of here!’ Embarrassment. Like that. That’s a terrible insult, right? So that was our time. My time. Very, very different.

Unless you are living within that society, you can’t tell. In our generation, there’s no way they say anything about this. Yeah. Because they are busy with all these electronic so-and-so, they’re busy. But they’ll never be insulted. Being insulted in the human life, isn’t a really big … big thing.”

Was that time so different, from now? Or can we see ourselves in his story?

In sharing this, I am conscious of simplification. I am conscious of misinterpretation. I am conscious of giving power through reaction to a white gaze. Another fuck you to the white guys complimenting my accent in Seoul.

Yet I hope this to be more than that. To me, it’s about telling single stories, and letting nuance be known. It’s about interweaving our stories, and letting us see ourselves in each other. It’s about knowing we’re all the same; and we’re also not; and that holding both these truths at once is an expansive thing.

And in a trajectory toward violence, division and hate — it is these truths that can arc us toward care, solidarity, and love.

From this place, I name my own silence, avoidance, and numbness. I offer my secrets as gifts to you.

It’s an admission that makes my body scream. It’s an opening. A weakness. A chink in the armor.

Yet we cannot heal what we cannot name.

So from one chink in the armor to another — what is your armor?

Can you see yourself inside?

Discomfort. Numbness. Anger. Pain. Our resistance marks the spot where we’ve hidden what we don’t want to know. So what is underneath? What will you find when you look?

Unmasking is freeing, though it is not so easy. In these moments, I feel like I am falling backwards through time. I feel like I am in a period of slow release — of a known substance called “sadness” trickling out. Yet I trust that my pain is taking me to the places I need to be.

To move through healing is necessary, yet nearly impossible to do on our own. We take up independence as a form of protection. Yet protection enfolds harm. I’ve come to understand community as an abundant & political practice. We are hurt in relationship, and we heal in relationship.

And so, I put down my silence, avoidance, and numbness.

And so, I choose language.

And so, I choose trust.

And so, I choose interdependence.

And so, I choose my self.

In time, I’ll continue writing between the lines. For the present, I’ll let it be.

In underlying words:

We must make Asian American experiences visible. We must lean into love and transformative justice rather than carceral systems. We must interrupt anti-Asian and anti-Black racism and the erasure of inter-community solidarity; and collectively dismantle unjust systems in an arc toward liberation.

I hope in understanding how we came to be, we can understand how each other came to be.

Resistance and revolution is lived, starting with how we practice healing and liberation in our own lives, narratives, and relationships. I do believe that if we cultivate love here; then we can cultivate love elsewhere. To quote Grace Lee Boggs — “to transform the world, we must transform ourselves.”

Some references that I speak from, and into — and additional reading (though the list doesn’t end here):

• On Anti-Asian Hate Crimes: Who Is Our Real Enemy? — Michelle Kim
• For Asian Americans, Sharing Our Grief Is An Act of Revolution — Bianca Mabute-Louie
• Invisibility is a Natural Disaster: Reflections of an Asian American Woman — Mitsuye Yamada
• Minor Feelings — Cathy Park Hong
• The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action — Audre Lorde
• Notes of a Native Son — James Baldwin
• Theory as Liberatory Practice — bell hooks
• A Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy (PACT) — Stan Tatkin & Tracey Boldemann-Tatkin
• Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities — Black Women Radicals & the Asian American Feminist Collective
• Black and Asian-American Feminist Solidarities: A Reading List — Black Women Radicals & the Asian American Feminist Collective
• Transformative Justice // Mariame Kaba, Mia Mingus, Adrienne Maree Brown, Grace Lee Boggs
• We Want Cop-Free Communities: Against the Creation of an Asian Hate Crime Task Force by the NYPD — the Asian American Feminist Collective (update: Cop-Free Communities: Safety Resources)

AAPI Community Organizers & Educators:

• @stopaapihate
• @advancingjustice_aajc & bystander intervention trainings
• @asians4blklives
• @aapiwomenlead
• @compassioninoakland
• @oaklandchinatowncoalition
• @18millionrising
• @teachandtransform
• @michellekimkim
• @beyonkz
• @asiansformentalhealth

In a forwarding: the way people, words, experiences have left an imprint upon me, I hope my words gift something to you.