aida guo (she/they)

In Sick Woman Theory, Johanna Hedva writes that oppressed bodies have been rendered sick due to the weight of trauma they must constantly carry. My 妈妈 is a single mother, cast inferior throughout every space in her life: as a child of ill-tempered parents, as a Chinese immigrant in the American south, as an employee of corporate drains.

Even in spaces where she sought to find comfort and community, she was met with disgust and pity.* People who we celebrated holidays with and carpooled to Chinese school with would attempt to question her reasons for raising me alone or leaving her marriage: “If it were me, I’d never leave such a handsome man.” “I would never let my son date someone who was raised by a single parent.” “You can still remarry.”

But Hedva also discusses how mutual care and community could end the cycle of trauma. I hope I can share this radical act with my own mother. For if we can share our wounds with one another, listen, perhaps we won’t die the way exploitation designed us to.

* In Contagious Divides, Nayan Shah mentions how the absence of nuclear families in Chinatown “revealed that the Chinese were at odds with the social structures and classification that organized the dominant white society.” (40) When women and children lived on their own it was described as, “where the family relationship leaves off and prostitution begins.” (41)

jocelyn la force regli (she/her)

dear mama, i miss you there are so many things i would give anything to tell you i would tell you of my hopes, my dreams, my accomplishments, and my failures. i would tell you thank you for sacrificing her happiness for mine. thank you for giving me the life you could never have i want to tell your story as much as i want to tell mine.

dear mama, it hurts, mama, it hurts. how could you do this to me? how could you leave me? i thought you loved me, this isn’t what love is.

dear mama, how can i miss someone who was never mine? how can i miss a life that was never mine? it’s almost like you have died, i mourn your loss in my life as one would mourn the death of a loved one. i miss home, but what is home?

dear mama, the homesickness has crept in. a desire for a home i barely had and a home i don’t remember. i don’t remember anything of china. i wish i could still feel the summer heat on my skin, taste and smell the thickness in the air, watch and admire the hundreds of surrounding people who look just like me.

dear mama, today, someone told me that you didn’t want me. she asked me how it felt. but you didn’t, right? you had to, right? my mom always told me that you had to give me up i don’t want to be unwanted... “how does it feel knowing your real mom didn’t want you?” i am ridden with shame as I am rendered speechless; i don’t have an answer.

Dear

mama,

淦波锦 淦波锦 淦波锦 淦波锦

i want to hear my name, will you say it for me?

dear mama, look at the way my pen scratches the paper. look at this character? is it good? is this stroke right? i don’t think it looks right. do you like it?

mama, can you help me? mama, my hand hurts. is it enough? am i enough? how can i be enough?

dear mama, i had a dream about you last night. you were looking for me, hanging posters up with my birth name on it. and just like a shadow, you slipped away. like water running through my fingers, i was going to lose you again. i ran after you, grabbing your shoulders, mouth open in a silent scream. i fell to my knees with tears streaming down my face, begging for your forgiveness, for you to love me, for you to stay.

dear mama, there has been a great act of violence a grave injustice done against you that will never be recognized by either nation china or the united states this violent system and act of injustice bore me at the expense of you our histories of mother and daughter live only in our memories dear mama what do i owe you? heavier heavier i feel weighed down by all the things i owe so tell me, what do i owe you? what was my price? what am i worth? what did it cost? everything dear mama how could you do this to me? how could you let this happen? i am angry, but at who? at you? i am sorry i wasn’t enough and i forgive you thank you