Letter to 妈妈 Peiyun Jiang

Letter to 妈妈 after you’ve been told to get married to an American dude and have an American baby and read George Orwell the 4000th time

Peiyun Jiang

妈妈,

How do I explain to you why I cannot lay myself beneath an American dude and let him into my body-land? Do you remember the night when I screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed your name? You and 爸爸 patted and patted and patted and patted my face wet and slimy with tears and sweat. You soothed my crying, telling me it’s just a bad dream. You never asked me what I dreamed of. And I forgot time and time and time and time again. But forgetting doesn’t mean They’re not here: Your screams. The red sun and their scorching light on sword. 爸爸’s rolling head. The red sun on top of you. Your screams. My dead brother coming to life, coming on top of you. The red sun behind him laughing laughing laughing laughing

How do I explain to you why I am no longer going into English, why I refuse to have Orwell’s gaze on the red sun that he had never lived under, the scorched bones that he could care less about, but nevertheless is famous by? That the bluewhitered cannot and will not save our scorched body-land. Do you remember how I refused to talk to you after you told me never to return home? I was not mad at you, but I had to shield you from the reality of this bluewhitered world that your Yellow spirit has long been floating on while your body is still back home. Well, you don’t consider our scorched Yellow land home. Or not you would not

have dragged my Yellow spirit with you and pushed me out of your Yellow womb into this bluewhitered world. 妈妈, I cannot tell you that this bluewhitered world is not and will never be my home. I cannot tell you that I was thirteen and was slapped in the face and was told that from now on I had to do things the American way. I cannot tell you that I was eighteen, 160cm in height and 50kg in weight, and was asked if I was pregnant when going through customs the first time of the many to come. I cannot tell you that I was twenty, having lived afloat on the bluewhitered for eight years, and saw the plea, “Please don’t categorize Asian Americans, Koreans, Japanese, South Asians with those stupid people,” and frantically looked through the folder of my high school and college straight A transcripts, Mock Trial and Debate prizes, 116 TOEFL score, and listed the things that I have eaten my whole life one by one by one by one… until I saw my blood red passport, until I realized that the blue passport wouldn’t make a difference. I have a bat sewn to my tongue and a lotus for vagina.

you? How do I explain to you that I am already a mother, like

As I am birthing Them the way They birth me And I will not exile Them, uproot Them, hide Them, be ashamed of Them, abandon Them, kill Them, forget Them ever ever ever ever again. The way I did when you dragged my Yellow spirit onto the bluewhitered, when you pushed my Yellow body into this bluewhitered world, when you told me to never never never never return home.

How do I explain to you that I live through my children as They live through me?

I am a mother, like you.