These are the words we needed when we were growing up inside of the heart of American empire. This is how we have experienced America as Asian America. immigrants - children of immigrants - grandchildren of immigrants. American, by birth or chosen naturalization, by green card or lack of documents. perceived as perpetual foreigners, forever suspect, rejected, othered. queer folk - mixed race folk - survivors - secondary survivors - young folk brought together in North Carolina living in a region where black and white renders anything else as other. We are neither model nor minority. We refuse to be held over the heads of our cousins of color to “prove” that “minorities” can make it in white america. Thus, when we say Radical Asian we mean we actively work to decolonize our interactions with the world, our relationships and community, ourselves. We write to tell and share our stories, putting the “Asian” in Asian American. We write for ourselves and for each other, for other radical Asians who find themselves alone or in communities we can draw together, simultaneously imagined, loved, and lost. We write to join with other radical folks doing similar work, weaving a web of resistance across this campus, this community, this nation. We continue the work of those that came before us. We are here for those who come after.
**Holly Sit Ra(i)ze
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Dear Impossibly American Tongues
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Mitch X They pitted us
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Lauren Bullock Phở you
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Emily Yue Every Time
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Kia Mantey Westward
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Hieu Nguyen Everlasting Grove
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Jun Chou Yellow Fever
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**Kim Hoang I was 11, 12, 13, 14 Fuck your white-washed sex positivity
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Tomkio Hackett What am I?
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•Lauren Bullock Notes on the Rapist’s Nose
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•Anne Zhou To my Rapist
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•Linda Vu: My Mother Country
**Insert**
Trigger Warnings: • Rape, Sexual Assault Body/Gender Dysmorphia ** Suicide Mention/Suicidal Thoughts
Yuman Wang Home
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Lauren Bullock Conversation in Transit
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Kia Mantey Between
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☆ Dylan Su-Chun Mott Bodyrock Y’all
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Anne Zhou The first word I ever learned
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Lydia Nguyen Long Me
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Annie Chou The relationship between
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Kia Mantey Skeleton
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Linda Vu What it must be like
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Serena Ajbani Headphones
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Dylan Su-Chun Mott Dec. 2012
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Anne Zhou A recipe for Self Love
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ra(i)ze [reyz] did you mean raze?
raze [reyz]
verb (use with object), razed, razing. 1. to tear down; demolish; level to the ground 2. to shave or scrape off
what does it mean to be razed in [ white ] america? I cannot tell when people meet me, if they see me or my race first. can they see that I still struggle to claim my ancestry, from toisan to hong kong to toronto? can they see all of my south chinese ancestors behind my eyes? do they assume I belong to one category, one monolithic asia, blackhairyellowskinslantedeyes? can they see the shame when I cannot speak to my 嬤嬤 or 婆婆 because only english can spill off my tongue while theirs slip away with the years? what do you do when you realize that everything you are is not valued in this land? you are the odd puzzle piece that cannot be forced into the open spaces that are too small for you. those spaces were never meant for you. a white friend admits once that she sometimes forgets that I’m asian. what does it mean when I have to wonder if people don’t approach me or if I’m not distinguished for something I actually care about because I’m not white? do white people ever think about that? what does it mean when white people think that I’m privileged just because I’m asian when white people colored us yellow and brown in the first place? while I eventually realized I was razed in america, it came as a shock to be razed in asia as well. first experience passing in the majority but that dissipated as soon as I opened my mouth. it only takes one person to throw into question my identity, just a simple “where are you from?” will do. where am I from if I never grew up where I claim as my hometown? where am I from if I grew up where I cannot claim as my hometown? how do I explain that it’s more complicated than a single location? how do I explain that I don’t know where I’m from?
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what do you say when your people question your authenticity? I tell the student from the mainland that I’m from america: “but you look chinese.” I tell the man on my first day on the job that I’m cantonese after he tries mandarin first: “you’re not cantonese if you can’t speak it.” I stay with 舅父 (my maternal grandmother’s young brother) and his family in kowloon. he laughs when I eat too many 蛋挞 and when I tell him I don’t know cantonese. they don’t understand what it’s liked to be razed in america without your mother tongue. it took a while to find other people like me, razed in this land of america. -(薛)-
raise [reyz]
verb (used with object), raised, raising 1. to move to a higher position; lift up; elevate 2. to set upright 3. to cause to rise or stand up; rouse 4. to build; erect 5. to set up the framework of 6. to set in motion; activate 7. to grow or breed, care for, or promote the growth of…
I’ve been brought down quite a few times in my life: by gravity, by loss, by depression, by worry. it's hard in those moments to find whatever flicker of strength to pick myself up, dust myself off, and keep moving. what does it mean to raise up in white america? finding those who were also razed in america because they do not fit in the cookie cutter man dusted in white. it may take months-years friend-of-afriend admired-from-afar-but-I-want-to-be-your-friend but you will find them, those pulled in too many directions because they don’t look or do or feel x-y-zed. they will shine the brightest and make you shine the brightest you have ever known even when the imbalances in your brain are telling you to let go of it all because you don’t know how you’re supposed to be. but they will let you be. they will let you do you and let you be even when they cannot say the same things to themselves. here is to all of my friends, my chosen family. 父母, 家姐, 家庭. everyone who has stuck by me for years-months-days and believed in me.
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to you who was razed in america- to minus-one-year too-many-falls-tocount on all-of-your-digits-and-then-some- just because you are razed does not mean you cannot raise up again. you cannot raze us any longer. we raise each other up no matter how many times we’re brought down. we raise up ourselves together. we rise up. We ra(i)ze.
holly sit is a canadian chinese american feminist wonder. holly will gift you cute birds, baked goods, and/or bad puns depending on the circumstance. doofy is the loyal stuffed shark companion that keeps holly company through the good and bad days.
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Hieu just wants peace of mind and people to be kind but reality apparently has other plans, and so he finds himself in the company of great rad Asians.
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I was 11, 12, 13, 14 when the angst was so much that I took it out on you. I screamed because I was embarrassed of wearing secondhand clothes that never fit me quite right, Wal-Mart clothes when you were able to buy me something new. I was embarrassed because my elementary school knew we weren't well off, and gave us a turkey every year for Thanksgiving. I was embarrassed of asking my friends for forty cents every time I forgot to bring money for my reduced lunch. I was embarrassed when you started making chả chiên so you could have money to buy groceries for our 6-person family. I was embarrassed because you struggled with the language of the country that helped uproot you from your home…and I was the one who had to translate. To my naive middle school mind, it didn't make sense that you couldn't go to college like father had, even though you got here 9 years after him. I thought things could been simpler if you had learned English better. I didn't get that you couldn't just put my older sister, who has down syndrome, in daycare somewhere, out of sight and out of mind. I wanted to be normal so badly. I often thought about how everything would've been easier if I was born into a white family. My self-hate went so deep that my first suicidal thought came at age 11, and continued on until the summer after my sophomore year of college at 20 years old. I’m sorry for all the times you watched me hurt myself and the times I told you I didn't want to live anymore. I blamed you for the longest time when I should've been learning how to love instead. My relatives are going to laugh at me for not knowing how to properly speak Vietnamese, like you said. They will know that I had made a choice to try to abandon what is still running in my blood. I don't feel Vietnamese, but I don't feel American either. But I guess that's something I have the rest of my life to figure out.
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fuck your white-washed sex positivity my body is not my own when my calves are “too big” or my shoulders are “too broad” or my eyes are ‘too slanted” too skinny too yellow too awkward too asian somehow my excess means that i am lacking my body is not my own because sex is supposed to be giving and taking but i can feel your eyes gnawing at me plucking the best parts off “i love your haireyesbuttskinlips” take it. take it all. i only know how to give.
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Notes on the Rapist’s Nose i. Thought I saw its silhouette in an armchair by the big windows while leaving work today. Also a month ago at a red light in the rearview. My mind kept replaying a glass rainfall that refused to happen. ii. Aquiline, I think. but also absured like proboscis. Less elegant than picking off the easy prey. iii. Its shape is the only thing headbutting could have changed iv. The woman at the nail salon always know I’m part Vietnamese by the shape of my nostrils. This kind of reconition is wasted on good people. v. Once, it nuzzled a lazy circle around mine, an almost perfect mimicry of intimacy.
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To my Rapist: I will never know if what happened that night would have happened if my skin was a different color but it does make me think.
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Yuman Wang is a Han Chinese immigrant to the States. Now that she has evenly divided her life in China and the U.S., her identity belongs in neither. Too Chinese for the States and too American for China, living in the borderlands. When she isn’t comtemplating all of this deep shit, she draws, codes, jogs, cooks and plays the ocarina in a quiet place.
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Where is HOME? No, before that. What is HOME? “A home is a dwelling-place...a place that is close to the heart of the owner...Places like homes can trigger self-reflection, thoughts about who someone is or used to be or who they might become.” I found myself asking “Where’s home?” rather than “Where are you from?”, hoping that others could give me a clue. All of this started when I realized that I had lost the meaning of home and panicked. It wasn’t until I reflected on that one homely moment when a woman from the community wholeheartly cared for me like a grandmother, when a close friend said that she will take me in in a split second if I’m ever in trouble, when an important person texted a reply to all of my despair with an obvious answer that I missed:”There are friends who will accept you.” that I no longer frantically searched.
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The first word I ever learned was Eraser. ee-RAY-sir Adjective. strange, unknown. A promise of new beginnings, Learning to Speak. The first word I ever forgot was Eraser. Xiang.. Xiang... Xiang…. ⼤大象! No. That’s elephant. Eraser. Verb. to lament, to mourn. A four-year-old’s panic. Too small for two languages. Is this how English works? Learn one and forget the other? Is this how America works? Meet one person, forget another?
Eraser. Noun. an object that Removes mistakes. Erased: 爷爷 奶奶 外婆 外公 叔叔 婶婶 姑夫 姑妈 舅舅 舅妈 弟弟 哥哥 Erased: 家 No. My heritage is not a mistake. My family does not fade. Dark red lines will never wear away.
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Dylan Su-Chun Mott Dec. 2012
A Recipe for Self Love Ingredients: Mung Beans Water Sugar
Rinse Beans thoroughly Place into pot and cover with 2 inches of water. Cover and Boil until softened Add more water to get the desired consistency. Bring to boil. Sweeten to taste. Serve at room temperature
You don't have to be revolutionary to be radical. It's okay to take time and step back for yourself. you are not less of anything when you rest. Ground yourself. re-center. There's no time limit on this, and if it's hard to learn, that's fine too. I'm right there with you. you're doing great. I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a first generation immigrant in America. I've been thinking a lot about what I've lost. I haven't really thought about what I've gained. At the end of the day self love is the most important. Come to terms with you. Take care of yourself. Sleep a little more. Make yourself a bowl of soup from your childhood. Everything else will come with time.
anne zhou is a first generation chinese american who works to create an easier world for her little sister.