asian storytellers and their lack of awards BY A. MANA NAVA @books.with.mana A. Mana Nava is a freelance writer and a dog-walking-while-reading hazard. Their fiction has been nominated for the Best American Short Story anthology. The nominated piece can be found in The Hopkins Review (issue 13.4). Currently, they are an editorial coordinator at Overachiever, contributor for the Drizzle Review, and editorial intern for the Macmillan Economics Team. Nava has received support from Kundiman, Asian American Feminist Collective, and Representation Matters Organization.
h
istorically, women and nonbinary/third gendered people were the storytellers that held society together. The role of a storyteller is still alive in our families. When our aunties begin to start to make a list of potential spouses or gossip about that family member we all have who is well into their 30s and 40s living hundreds of miles away from their biological family. We grimace through these spiels, waiting for it to end. However, what they’re doing is reinforcing and keeping alive the family tree and history—even if their intentions aren’t always benevolent. Gossip is one of the oldest forms of storytelling, often dismissed because of its proximity to women. It’s been deemed frivolous by men. The truth is that spreading idle gossip is a form of preserving family stories. So why is it Asian women and nonbinary/third gen-
24 | overachiever magazine
dered people rarely receive accolades for their narrative prowess?
thick-accented hyper-sexuals and Filipina/e actors played Latin roles.
Within the last thirty years, I yearned for BIPOC TV and Asian women finally started would watch reruns of Fresh getting recognition for their Prince of Bel-Air, Sister Siscontributions to contempo- ter, and That’s So Raven. TV rary storytelling. With the Os- stopped investing in diverse car season recently over, I was stories and would instead pour interested in looking at past money into all-white casts like nominees and winners. There Friends, NCIS, Gilmore Girls, is plenty of discourse about and The OC. how award ceremonies are performative and an inaccurate People who looked like my portrayal of the work being family always played supportproduced. While I know this is ing roles until Grey’s Anatomy. true, I also know that when a The show was created, promarginalized group wins a ma- duced, written by, and featured jor accolade a wave of diversity a diverse group of characters. follows. Investors and produc- I was blessed with Chandra ers will take a chance on “risk- Wilson, Sandra Oh, and Sara ier” stories because of the win- Ramirez. Their characters ner’s success. All of a sudden, weren’t reduced to racial stethese stories are marketable to reotypes and were allowed to the mainstream. be complex, flawed individuals. The cast of Grey’s Anatomy Growing up, I yearned would go on to win Emmys, to see myself on television. Screen Actor Guild Awards, It was an impossible wish Golden Globes, and more. The when Latina/e charac- success of a show created by a ters were portrayed as the Black woman started a wave
