aasia spring 2017
COLORS COLORS COLORS
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COLORS COLORS COLORS COLORS COLORS COLORS COLORS
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Journal Committee
AASIA Board
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table of contents
Letter from the Editors
... Mary Estrera and Pa Lor, 5
Canary Yellow
... Sabrina Ko, 6
Migrant Objects
... Selena Zhou, 7
February 12, 1995
... Eloise Nimocks, 8
Untitled
... Onji Bae, 9 - 10
<Unoriental>
... Christina Wang, 11
Pink
... Natalie Conte, 12
alternate names for brown girls
... Aria Pahari, 13
Sunrise
... Jaemarie Solyst, 14
You are my sunshine
... David Ke, 15
this is what i knew
... Mary Estrera, 16
push/pull
... Sam Xi Wong, 17 -19
Pinoy at Tisay
... Stella Elwood, 20
12 thoughts from the 12 point platform
... Vicky Chon, 21 - 23
Crying
... Sasha Braverman, 24
Be bold, be bright
... Annie Choi, 25 - 26
Blonde
... Kalea Martin, 27 - 28
Millet-i SadÄąka: Loyal Nation
... Emma Shooshan, 29 - 30
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Letter from the Editors
Dear Readers, In Asian American Students In Action (AASIA)’s third journal release since its revival in Fall 2015, you will find poems, essays, and artistic works from members of Mount Holyoke College and the Five College Consortium that address the Spring 2017 theme of “Colors.” With this journal, we celebrate the rich histories and cultures that shaped, changed, and colored contemporary Asian America. The theme of “Colors” speaks to the insight and vibrancy we can extract from our memories and experiences to redefine ourselves beyond normalized depictions of Asian America. In doing so, we validate and honor the struggles—past, present, and future—that enhanced the ways in which we understand our own narratives. The existence of this journal is testimony to our individual agency to reclaim our histories, and it is witness to the legacy and resilience of AASIA since its revitalization. We give special thanks to all of our contributors, our diligent Journal Committee, and AASIA’s inspirational Executive Board. This journal would not have been possible without all of your patience, creativity, and enthusiasm. Sincerely,
Mary Estrera and Pa Lor Journal Co-Chairs 5
Canary Yellow
You said my voice was like a canary; I thought maybe Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d become the sunshine dancing on your skin in January when our paths had crossed in the old coal mine. Did you know I used to love sunflowers? Or my sweat and blood taste like Lemonheads? Is that why you saw the color of sours as I talked sweetly from your garden beds? Or did you realize I spent half a year scrubbing my chest, porcelain bone pipe-dream? But instead, my bamboo ribs would appear, I learned canary lives in my bloodstream. Porcelain could never replace bamboo, yellow is not that easy to break through.
by Sabrina Ko 6
Migrant Objects
by Selena Zhou 7
February 12, 1995
February 12th marks the adoption anniversary for my mom and I, along with about 10 other families whose parents were in a group together to pick up their kids from China. Since then, we try to meet every year near that date, to celebrate our lives and stories together. While the kids did everything from practice karate on the staircase to hide Barbies under couches, our parents would sit together and reminisce. Although these meetings have become less frequent over the years, I still see the other kids pictured here with me, and whenever we see each other we share nostalgic memories of these gatherings together.
by Eloise Nimocks 8
photo by Peter Phan (@peerphan)
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Here in America I have claimed new words to define how I am feeling inside: foreign, queer, compulsive. But when I go to Korea, these words translate into nothing but failed attempts.
Teach me how to love every curve of my identity. Even when they ache every time I visit home.
by Onji Bae 10
<Unoriental>
by Christina Wang 11
Pink
‘What’s your favorite color’ is a very important question to children. It’s one of the first questions you learn to ask. Not only is your favorite color important, but also what your first, second, third, fourth, fifth and so on favorite color is. If you asked me my favorite color when I was 4, I would have proudly proclaimed it to be red. When I was 6, my answer changed when I found out what pink was. Before I knew about pink, I was
living in a world of primary colors. Pink is a tint of red. Something in between. When I was in second grade, one of my classmates, a little white girl, pointed to one of the two black kids in our class and asked me if I was like them. I had never been asked a question like this. I knew I was Chinese. Did that make me black, or white? How was I to answer this. I know! I spent a lot of time in the sun, at the beach. Maybe that’s why they thought I was black. “Um, no… I think I’m like you. I’m just tan,” I told her. For a while this weighed on my mind. Was this the correct answer? Was I white? I didn’t have curly hair or facial features that mirrored the dark-skinned kids I knew, but I had dark hair, skin, and eyes. I pushed away the thoughts to get back to my life of learning how to read and of drawing two dimensional landscapes. After thinking back on this encounter many years later, I laugh. I laugh at how absurd the question was. I laugh at how little we knew as kids. I laugh at how little I knew. I wonder what was more ridiculous: the question, or the fact I didn’t know how to answer. No one taught me how to categorize myself, like the other children. She didn’t even really know the question she was asking. How do children go from asking favorite colors to questions on race? Back then for me was like the time before I knew what pink was. Before I knew you could mix colors. I was living in a world of black and white. A palette with craters to hold each color apart from each other. People are so much more than that. I now live in a world of colors (including pink). I am something in between.
by Natalie Conte 12
alternate names for brown girls inspired by â&#x20AC;&#x153;alternate names for black boysâ&#x20AC;? by Danez Smith
1. first to bathe in gold 2. cool breath over tea 3. carving knife stashed under cloth 4. gori [pale] 5. kali [black] 6. mango sunset 7. cracked mud by the river 8. goddess of whispers 9. where were you 10. flame-licked 11. sting of incense smoke 12. abundant yet exotic 13. peaks pierced through mist 14. giggle tucked behind an ear 15. (I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think I would make it this far but who am I to doubt our multitude? 16. bursting bud & folding blossom 17. honor ripped & resewn
by Aria Pahari 13
Sunrise
by Jaemarie Solyst 14
You are my sunshine “I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay Watching the tide roll away Ooo, I’m just sittin’ on the dock of the bay, Wastin’ time.”
- Otis Redding ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dear Ma, I am writing a letter to you asking for you to comeback. You are my sunshine. Your light has brought joy to my life. It has guided me throughout the years, But not so much anymore. Your sunshine ceased to exist the day my skin became two shades too black. It’s as if the color of my skin was something to be ashamed of. And so, I’m left here sitting in darkness waiting for you to come back. Ma, I am writing a letter to you asking for you to comeback. To come back into my life and to remind me that I am wanted. I sometimes scratch at my skin, searching for of layer of color like yours, But all I see is red. My fingers run red with my flesh and blood. Momma, can’t you see that I am your flesh and blood? That I am the living human being that you brought into this world. I wish that you could just see that. I just hope that one day your love will come back, That one day you’ll look at my right in the eyes and tell me, “My son, ahvik I love you. I love you for who you are. You my sunshine will never cease to exist.” But until that day comes to be, I’ll remain here. Sitting on the dock of the bay, wasting time. Your son, ahvik David Ke 15
this is what I knew
by Mary Estrera 16
push/pull
How odd it was that the first time I realized my “Asian-ness” was also the first time I was told how “white” I was. At this point, I had been living in the United States for several years, clearly rocking the style of that time (my middle school colored skinny jeans phase...which I only regret slightly), and fumbling my way through a pidgin language-mash to speak to my relatives back home. I don’t know what bizarro growth hormones are in American food, but during my time in the States I grew considerably fleshier and taller than my cousins in Asia (though this would not translate quite the same in American standards). I don’t remember who first pointed out how “white” I was, but I know it was from a family member. It was a lightbulb moment, but not one that came from the joy of, say, inventing sliced bread or somesuch. In retrospect, it was actually more of a frying-pan-tothe-face moment, a la old-school Tom and Jerry. I was confused! And of course it would be confusing to hear from someone who looked like you, shared the same family as you, to casually mention how unlike them you were. “But I am Asian!” I later thought. Of course I was! I just...was! After all, back in the U.S., I’d always been told how Asian I was to have a report card full of A’s, how Asian it was that I ate rice, how Asian I was to be so studious and serious and subdued...and of course those were the very quintessential traits of Asian-ness, right? Or perhaps not. This was the beginning of a strange and complex thing that would toss me back and forth between “being Asian” and “being American”—because being both simultaneously, smoothly, equally, was not quite possible. I can only liken it to pushing and pulling…push/pull, if you will. Push/pull precisely because it feels that way: I’m not the one choosing where to go as much as I am being subjected to two opposing forces. In the process of “being Asian-American”—whatever that may mean to you—we may have lost something from our parents’ culture along the way. Perhaps it’s the language they speak, or food that they eat. Maybe it’s the mannerisms, something in the way they walk
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and talk. Or you might not have ever had your parents’ culture in the first place. At the same time, we’ve also been living in this Western world, with its own values and customs that can be at odds with Asian culture. There is no defined portal, no clean entryway between these two spheres, no perfect fifty-fifty of “being Asian” and “being American”. It can feel like you’re simultaneously being pushed and pulled at the same time, towards or from either place. For us, the ethnically confused, push/pull feels strongest when straddling the border between cultures. Push/pull is trying to hold onto or learn about one culture while living in another very much unlike it. Push/pull is that feeling of particularly potent gravity when you’re about to tell your parents something you know they won’t like hearing. Push/pull is never quite walking and talking the same as everyone else. Push/pull is simultaneously living up to and failing to meet expectations from two different groups of people. Push/ pull can happen subtly or in more jarring moments, and can leave you feeling like a paper-thin sheaf of standards instead of a fully-formed personality. More than once I’ve heard Asian-Americans squirm when they talk about trying to pinpoint their identities. I hear journeys that began as early as kindergarten and are still unfolding during their college years (and beyond!). I hear about labels, stereotypes, miscommunications, and frustrations. Layered among those things are also satisfaction, warmth, cherished relationships, and personal discoveries. One thing is clear, though: many of us experience some sort of conflict with the cultures we are sprawled across. With these push/pull forces at work, I doubt anyone’s ever been totally at peace in identifying as “Asian-American”. Being “Asian-American” hardly feels concrete in this way. Instead, it can be a cultural no-man’s-land, an awkward in-between zone at times. But if we really are floating in this cultural grey area, a space that’s as indefinite as it is puzzling…could we also think of ourselves as explorers, then? After all, whatever balance each of us chooses to strike will be dependent on our individual selves—and perhaps we should also embrace the ways
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in which we can change in all different environments we come across. We have experiences and insights that cross cultural perspectives; we have people in our lives that come from near and far, and we can hone our flexibility to maneuver ourselves from one group to another. These borderlands have the potential to become a space for creation, to see what kind of people we can shape ourselves to be. Push/pull will likely never go away, and I have an inkling that our identities might not ever truly solidify, but in the meantime? Start creating—whatever you would like! Whoever you would like! You have two worlds at your disposal; who says a new one can’t come out of it?
Note from the author: Sam Wong is an aspiring wordsmith and accomplished eater. When she is not bushwhacking through cultural identity undergrowth she can be found reading, painting her face, or busting a move. She is a self-identified Third Culture Kid and invites anyone who wants to know more about that to contact her at xwong@umass.edu (which is also where you may direct your critique, comments, and questions on this piece). She is kind of sick of drinking bubble tea, but if pressed, won’t say no to honeydew milk tea with fresh boba. This is for anyone who has ever felt not x enough for x culture but also not y enough for y culture. If you have felt the push/pull, regardless of what is pushing/pulling you, I hope you relate.
by Sam Xi Wong 19
Pinoy at Tisay
When I was small and did not yet know the intricacies of the world, I did not understand how my skin, pale white as the rice you served with every meal, could share ancestry with yours, the color of the earth you worked, both here and there; in the garden and on the carabao farm; after the war; And Before.
by Stella Elwood 20
12 thoughts on the 12 point platform and program
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i. the red white and blue will not save us. ii. “This is un-Amerikan.” Pain and suffering are the only gifts Amerika can give to this world. iii. Our dream of liberation Will forever stay a dream If we so choose to cover our eyes in the hopes that Amerika can change. iv. masculinity = ownership, entitlement, power. transform yourselves. we will not save you. v. our people were not born to be used. our people were not born to have so little. our people deserve freedom. who is our sovereign? we are. vi. amerika: on the human rights council until 2019. laughable, isn’t it? vii. why should lifespans be determined by the oppressors?
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we deserve life, not slow death. viii. freedom is a war. will you fight? ix. Amerika has used its soldiers to ruin countries. split countries in two in plays for power. korea. a lucky meeting. a brother from the south cries goodbye to his sister in the north. all they have are memories. x. used to shit on other racial communities. we say no more, don’t weaponize us against the black, brown, native peoples. turn to your Asian neighbor, tell them “no more!” they can’t hear you. the white noise is deafening. xi. living on stolen land. the blood in the ground screams. xii. i would like to live in peace for everyone to grow old happily with no fear to always have enough
by Vicky Chon 23
crying
by Sasha Braverman 24
Be Bold, Be Bright
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NYX Retractable Eyeliner in Purple
Colourpop Super Shock Eyeshadow in Crenshaw
NYX Duochrome Illuminator in Chrushed Bloom
Wet n’ Wild Mega Liner in Voltage Blue
Colourpop Lippie Stix in Parker
NYX Matte Setting Spray NYX Micro Brow Pencil in Chocolate
NYX Doll Eye Mascara Wet n’ Wild Makeup Stick in Where’s Walnut & Follow Your Bisque
Wet n’ Wild Photo Focus Foundation in Golden Beige
by Annie Choi 26
blonde
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I remember very vividly the first time I dyed my hair. I was in 7th grade, and my mom brought me to Walgreens. As I stood in the aisle staring at the boxes of dyes, my mom chatted with a worker, who also happened to be Filipina, lightheartedly teasing me for wanting to look more American. Except I was already American. I just wanted everyone to see the Americanness I felt on the inside, and according to my 12-year-old logic, that would be possible if I dyed my hair an American color so that the outside could match the inside. My mom did it for me in our kitchen. I remember my dad, who rarely even smiled, emerging from his office and exclaiming, “Wow, anak (daughter)! You’re going to be blonde!” My parents were amused and went along with my decision, but I was not excited in the slightest. I had a solemn focus on the end result that would surely change everything. My classmates would finally look past my Asianness, flat nose, “exotic” looks, and see me as a real person. This memory brings me sadness because I know that little girl dying her hair for the wrong reasons is still somewhere inside me and because figuring out what it means to be Asian American, understanding this identity, never ends. It was once a struggle, but now a joy, and I am glad I am able write my story and find strength in being a part of our Island of Misfit Toys.
by Kalea Martin 28
Millet-i Sadika: Loyal Nation
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by Emma Shooshan 30