Dear Y’all,
This month we would like to invite folks to write and share “letters” to all of the people they have loved before. You don’t have to be Lara Jean Song Covey (or Jenny Han, author of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before) to have had an encounter requiring a “love letter”.
Loves, likes, and crushes — we’ve all had them. Who was that unattainable? Why were they unattainable? I’m lookin’ at you Nkauj See and Tsim Meej (Yoon/Choi Eun-suh and Yoon Joon-suh played by Song Seung-heon and Song Hye-kyo from “Autumn in my Heart”). Be sad, be salty, but don’t just think about romantic love. Think about love for family and kin, sisterhood, brotherhood, and other kinds of hood-life. What is passion for work and community? How is your heart engaged on the daily — listen to it a little more?
You can even write a love letter to your favorite season like winter in Fresno when temperatures drop, but all of the passengers on airlines are elderly little Hmong people, and girls deck themselves in silver coins and the jingle jangle of coins on their skirts compete with the many songs of kwv txhiaj being blasted on speakers. Smoke from food vendors warms the air and Hmong boys try their hand at love, culture, and ball toss.
Write a love letter about failed endeavors, missed opportunities, and/or historical legacies (my rice and water!) that you have felt so strongly about you couldn’t sleep at night for a week, a month, a year. Why did or didn’t you comment on that thread? Write about the ones that got away, the ones that will never be, and the ones yet awaiting you — whoever and wherever they are.
To all the people who have loved, clapped, and/or hated us before, this month we invite you to write and share letters to everything and everyone expressing how you feel. (Right now) we’re listening.
Love,
maivmai
Read the current submissions:
- To all the Hmong boys who have asked me before: why don’t you date Hmong guys? — By Lilian Thaoxaochay
- Radical Love for Our Hmong Community: Searching for an Agent of Change — By Soulspired
- Speaking English in an Elementary School Gym Class — By Kong Pha
- This One’s to my Father — By Kia Vaj
- A Hmong Father’s love for his Hmong Daughters — By Mx. Vang
- “Our Old Clips”: To the Girl That I Married (But Didn’t) — By Liam Song
- What A Broken “Tsev Neeg” Has Taught Me — By Kia Vaj
