Dear Asian Americans Gold Prize

The Masque of Contemplation

by Hyunyoung M.

The Masque of Contemplation is a piece I created to reflect the difficulties surrounding Asian communal identity whilst growing up. Within the piece, I’ve included elements of Korean “탈춤“ (talchum), a form of Korean performance, to represent the Asian society I was brought up in and was expected to participate in as I became older. The pressure to assimilate and become more “Asian” despite being raised simultaneously in an American culture raised clashes within my American and Asian identities to the point where I felt depressed and anxious in order to make a decision. Therefore, the mask and perspective of the piece shows the main subject (me) in the mirror, hesitant to put on the mask and join the daunting performance. By putting the mask on, I could finally feel assimilated to Korean culture but the hesitance and cultural differences prevent me from making a definite decision to do so. The internal turmoil has been included in my journey in finding where I belong, anxious to commit to one identity. However, it can be inferred that my piece offers options: one could choose to assimilate to Asian culture, omit doing so, or identify with both. Therefore, a significant part of my journey in finding solace in incorporating both aspects of my cultures into one identity was understanding I do not have to follow any choice set for me; I can choose my path. With my piece, I hope to bring attention to the pressures of Asian society and express the importance for other Asian-Americans to take time to decide for oneself in terms of their identity, because they have the power and liberty to do so.

Tanghulu

Tanghulu, also called candy haw is a snack that’s commonly found in Northern China in the winter.

Ingredients:

Fresh handpicked hawthorns, bamboo skewers, edible thin rice paper from the closest Chinatown, 2 cups of sugar, and a cup of water.

One of my happiest memories is munching on my tanghulu with my classmates.

We would tear up the rice paper, Lick it and stick it under our nose like little mustaches. We were policemen that caught the bad guys, superheroes that fought the villains, pirates that sailed the ocean.

But when I finally sailed across the ocean one day, I found that I was all alone. A captain without her crewmates, surrounded by riches that didn't shine anymore.

Step one:

Wash the hawthorns thoroughly, dry them, and put them on the skewer.

Washing is the first step of assimilation. You throw away all parts of you that used to make you proud but now are deemed to be weird and Chinese. Take in the American culture as fast as possible. The faster you assimilate, the quicker you’ll have friends again. Put on a new look. Hollister, American Eagle, and Lululemon are your new favorite stores. Get some new lunch.

Chicken nuggets and PB&J are okay, but wait, all the cool kids only eat salad for lunch. Pierce your ears like piercing the hawthorns with the skewer. Those silver hoops will make your face look smaller like all of your other “friends”.

Step two:

Prep the tabletop with a piece of parchment paper. Lay it down lightly just like how Chinese women talk. How they always talk and walk lightly in tradition, how they always have to be elegant, how your mom tells you that you are too direct, too fierce, and too loud to be a Chinese woman.

Step three:

Mix the sugar and water like how you mix your smile with depression. Set it on the stove and let it heat up, but don’t make it boil, because there is sugar in there that oppresses your true feelings. Because your Chinese mom keeps telling you that,

“No, you’re not depressed, you just want attention like all other teenagers in this country.”

But mom, I’m not like the other teenagers in this country, my culture keeps coming back to haunt me instead of bringing me joy, my accent keeps coming back and getting made fun of, my country keeps appearing in the news headlines, my depression is not validated by anyone except the dark voice in my own head.

Step four:

Dip the hawthorns into the syrup while holding the skewer. Rotate quickly while dipping to cover the fruit entirely with syrup, then place the sugar-coated Tanghulu onto the parchment paper that you have prepared.

Step five: Wait.

When I was little, one day my mom brought me this big tanghulu on our way back from the park. I was so happy, and I started munching on it like a little chipmunk because the hawthorn fruits are so big compared to my little face. But when I was going upstairs to our apartment, I tripped and dropped the tanghulu onto the ground. I started crying like a petulant child, and my mom thought it was because I scraped my knee. I wasn’t crying because of pain, I was crying because I dropped the tanghulu on the ground.

Now I cry, and my mom thinks it's because I oppose Chinese culture, I wasn’t crying out of disapproval, I was crying out of shame.

Step six: When the candy coating hardens, remove the parchment paper, then wrap it with thin rice paper, completing the final touches of the tanghulu.

I am not ashamed of my culture; I am ashamed of loving it so deeply, of embracing the things that I truly love.

When you take a bite of the tanghulu, you bite through the crunchy layer of sugar, and just before you savor the crispy sweetness, you are greeted by the soft, sour, mealy hawthorn fruit.

Like my Chinese American identity, I wear a hard, loud, and independent armor on the outside, while inside, I possess softness, elegance, and strength.

Like the growing awareness of mental health within the Asian American community, we cry and break, but we are together. We speak and rise together, fight and unite together, love and belong together, grow and thrive together, persevere together, and get back up together.

Like my journey to better mental health, I almost gave up on the hard and sticky hardships, but I was uplifted and saved by the love of friends, family, and culture.

“I love you!”

“Everything is going to be okay.”

“It's not your fault.”

“Mommy can be harsh sometimes, but she loves you!”

“Thank you for everything you've done, and for giving our community a voice.”

For a long time, I searched for ways to heal, and I discovered that more than love from others, there is love from within.

For me, that love began with expression.

It all started with a stage, a place, a chance, a representation, a declaration, a liberation, a voice to speak, to love myself, to save myself and others from mental illness.

Dear Popo

by Jupiter Z.

This song and this poem illustrate the importance of communication, storytelling, and vulnerability as it relates to my relationship with my grandmother.

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Prize

Lost Cause by Reihinna H.

This song is about a personal experience I have had with my own mental health, especially during quarantine. It is written in the second person and is addressed to my mother, so that it is as though I am speaking directly to her.

Before COVID-19, I would silence my thoughts or ignore them, but, being inside a quiet house every day, I was forced to listen to what was going on inside my head. When I noticed this, I was afraid of telling my mother at first. Many people from her side of the family, who are all from the Philippines, did not want to admit each other’s mental health problems. They would deny that these problems even existed, and their solution to them was to either ignore them, or pray to God for help [Verse 2/Prechorus]. This is a common belief within the Filipino-American community, but many do not realize the harm that comes with this.

In my song Lost Cause, I utilize the repetition of “silence” in the beginning by saying how it may seem that it’s easier to remain silent than to express your feelings, but at the end, after witnessing how my family has tried to silence a family member, I realize that silence just constricts how you truly feel. I have been lucky to have an understanding mother, however, who does not give into others’ harmful mindsets.

When I approached my mother and told her about how I was feeling down, she told me how she’s felt the same way before [last chorus]. Both my mother and my father opened up to me about their mental health struggles and made me feel seen, and I believe that is something that the AsianAmerican and Pacific Islander community can learn from. To approach mental health, we must first understand that it is a real problem that must not be ignored. Only then can we share our voices and make noise.

Night Walks by Lila M.

We step out into a dark night. The humid Houston air immediately surrounds us. Which way today?

Our tradition started during the pandemic. Like many other families, we got a pandemic dog, a scruffy little mutt named Wizard. My dad was against it. Not the dog itself, but the idea of feeding him meat he found thoroughly unethical. “I don’t believe in killing one animal to feed another,” he would say. But we got a dog anyways, under the agreement we would research healthy, mostly vegetarian diets for canines.

Naturally, the dog needed walking. To avoid the oppressive heat of that summer, I chose to walk at night. I didn’t want to walk alone, so I asked my dad to join me. And in this strange COVID summer, where the days seemed to stretch and twist around each other, we had time for very long walks.

Despite the dark, we found ourselves noticing many little wonders in the night. Two great horned owls, spiraling around each other in a mating dance. The city of frogs living underneath the cracked sidewalks. The moon, bright and fat in the sky, casting dappled shadows through the trees.

This is what my dad loves. He is an editor for our city’s newspaper. It’s a grueling job, and often, I was frustrated with him for constantly working. But walking with him, I could see why he keeps going: he is a man who lives in his city, he is a man who cares deeply. On these nighttime walks, I learned how to truly be a part of my place, and how to be a part of our place together.

But most importantly, on these walks, we talked. I told him stories of my online high school. In return, he traded stories of his own high school days, stories I had never heard, even some stories he hid from his mother. I learned how he was similar to me, a high achiever, and someone who cared deeply about words, language, and how he fit into them. I told him what I struggled with somehow, the words came easier walking side by side in the dark. He told me I’m proud of you. I told him of my worries for the future, and he told me his life story, slowly, like a river of stories trickling over the weeks. He told me why he quit medical school to become a writer, how his mother reacted. I asked him for advice, often. I didn’t always agree with what he gave, but I always valued his words. We talked about writing. He told me choose one writer and read them deeply. See what you learn.

We talked about where we fit in America. It was a question that had been weighing heavy on my mind, as a biracial third generation immigrant. In a world so often divided by race, who was I? Did I deserve to claim an identity whose language I did not speak? In response, my dad told me his own lived experiences. What the kids in his hometown of Mobile, Alabama told him, often a mixture of racism and ignorance. Helping my Dada practice jokes in English. All of these seemed how he fit into them. I told him what I struggled with somehow, the words came easier walking side by side in the dark. He told me I’m proud of you. I told him of my worries for the future, and he told me his life story, slowly, like a river of stories trickling over the weeks. He told me why he quit medical school to become a writer, how his mother reacted. I asked him for advice, often. I didn’t always agree with what he gave, but I always valued his words. We talked about writing. He told me choose one writer and read them deeply. See what you learn.

We talked about where we fit in America. It was a question that had been weighing heavy on my mind, as a biracial third generation immigrant. In a world so often divided by race, who was I? Did I deserve to claim an identity whose language I did not speak? In response, my dad told me his own lived experiences. What the kids in his hometown of Mobile, Alabama told him, often a mixture of racism and ignorance. Helping my Dada practice jokes in English. All of these seemed like quintessentially “more” Asian-American experiences. But to my surprise, he felt the same way I did. He understood my feelings of disconnect, and of not being enough. He described his sense of shame he felt not knowing Gujarati, his despair at not being able to talk to his own grandmother. And he told me a story: When his grandmother almost died of a heart attack, he dedicated himself to learning Gujarati enough to write her one letter. He worked hard with the limited Gujarati learning resources he had, he even traveled solo to a small town in India to truly immerse himself. And eventually, he succeeded in his goal: He wrote his grandmother a letter in Gujarati. This story had a powerful impact on me. It showed me that I couldn’t let other people define my identity. That was up to me.

As the pandemic eased, we were both drawn back into the chaos of life. I took on AP classes, and his work intensified. We both worked late. Yet every single night, we still made time for our walk. Whether an hour or five minutes, whether we were mad at each other or tired out of our minds, we still walked. They meant: I will always take the time for you. I care about you. I love you.

These walks, these conversations were now vessels for understanding. They had become almost ritual, a way to ground ourselves in this ever-chaotic world. And so, each night, as I step out into the dark, I know it doesn’t really matter which way we go, where I walk. What matters in this world is that we walk side by side and talk.