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After a year of working together at Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) as Chinese Youth Initiative (CYI) interns, we wanted to keep in touch and share our stories with each other. We hoped to record bits of our lives where we could express our true selves despite being isolated at home. What started with conversations about news and how COVID affected us in the summer eventually turned into a year-long film project, as the return to “normalcy” seemed further and further out of reach. We filmed little moments with our families, moments when we were overcome with emotion, mini adventures, and celebratory times with our loved ones. We slept over zoom. We graduated. We finally saw each other in person again. We kept saying that this year is going to be in the history textbooks. Now, it’s in this zine!
Sometimes when I stare at myself when crying, I stare too long and can’t recognize myself. Everything on my face seems foreign, like a completely different person in the reflection. Sometimes I wish people would see me at my most vulnerable, because for once I want people to realize how I’m really feeling.
The government is providing fundings for safety courses and things to support the community, but what can we do to stop future attackers? One of the solutions that were brought up was an increase in policing in Chinatown. As concrete as that sounds, I, myself, growing up in a neighborhood with a lot of police enforcement whenever something happened, felt more intimidated than if there weren’t any. Do we increase the severity of charges against the attackers? But that would add onto the school to prison pipeline. How do we fight for our people without breaking the morals we originally had? One of the adults was right, a lot of older Asians read the news, get sad/ scared for a bit, and then move on. It’s not like they don’t care, but they definitely have taken the news as something normal to intake. I’m starting to get scared. I want to buy myself a pepper spray bottle because this isn’t a joke anymore.
I can’t believe I graduated. The amount of times I thought I was going to drop out is unbelievable. Nothing too crazy about today, but definitely felt a lot of love and joy from the people around me.
Emily Huang Feronia Mei Chloe Zheng + Daphne Xu Aug 2021