2022 AAPI Newsletter by Windward School

AAPI Newsletter 202 2

Photos from Windward's 2022 AAPI Heritage Month Celebration

My Red Envelope My goal in this piece is not only to bring attention to the cultural norms but also to highlight the gender implications formed by my intersectionality as a Chinese American who doesn't necessarily wish to fit into the restricting heteronormativity. It is more of a symbol of emotions than a critique of my culture. A hand hangs at the top of the drawing, decked in a jade-green sleeve. The hand's fingers cling onto a red envelope, which dangles in front of it. Red envelopes combine the gold color associated with prosperity and the color red, commonly known for love, joy, happiness, and luck. A red envelope is a wish of luck for the receiving individual. But a wish's foundation lies in a person's expectations. The porcelain faces are inspired by china dolls, with its pale faces and eerie eyes. China dolls, similar to western dolls, are designed with the "ideal woman" in mind. They are to be graceful and confident, yet domestic and quiet. The faces represent that "expectation." The person in the center is constrained by the red envelope. They are somewhat a self-insert; they are decked in a plain ponytail with earrings, clothed in a modern qipao. They are juggling how much their cultural identity means to them, what part of them they are willing to sacrifice for acceptance. Their "luck" is defined by the hand holding the envelope. The way the dolls stare at them with its lifeless eyes says more than what words can. They wish an ode of luck to all except personal autonomy and happiness.

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Artwork By Meiyi Wang ’23

We All Count Down

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"Nothing brings me more joy and strength than my family, who only gets the opportunity to gather together a few precious times a year. This was Halloween 2021." - Daniel Koh, Performing Arts Co-Chair; Vocal Teacher and Music Director for Productions

Seventy-six. A slim lilac car the size of my thumb raced by on the street twenty floors down, blinking in the dazzling crystals of the bile colored sun as it fell behind the East River. Seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine. A family sized honda, roadrunner Toyota, and a clamoring clamshell hooded truck all roared below the window and vanished along the seam where the glass gave way to the apartment’s careful ornate papering. Twelve years old, maybe more, the two hundred square foot Long Island City apartment breathed in the skyline on the banks, carefully tended to, enough so that it carried the smells of a decade: orchids and mahogany dressers, simmering broth and burner smoke, hoarded treasures. Eighty. A beetle green convertible whizzed away into the smolder of red city lights beginning to flicker on across the water. My birthday was in three days.

actually was for it, counting cars and not wanting to cry. Not in front of anyone. Not even by myself. In my grandmother’s empty apartment everything still felt the same, smelled the same, looked over the streets from the 18th floor the same: like it had been there forever, waiting, watching, but never weeping. It was Thanksgiving break and I’d finally made it to New York, reunited with my mother and family, my sister far off in college in the MidWest, my cousins sprinkled between the coasts. I was tired of staying with my friend for the past week, alone in the autumn wind as the rest of my family pooled in the East, abandoning me in a hollow home with a heavy heart. Eighty-one. A pale blue convertible zipped away. Of course I loved my friend to death, but the constant company forced the grief down, stomping it away into the safebox of my chest, and it seemed, as I hovered close to the closed window, I’d swallowed away the key to feeling anything at all along with it. To be in mourning is to feel the layers of reality rip

I was fifteen by then, pretending to be numb to everything and thinking I was smarter than I

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By Audrey Sachs ’24

wearing pale pale skin, an exotic koi laid out on a deathbed of rice and eaten raw by painted lips, aorta red of course. This was only exaggerated by the fact that I was mixed, not quite this or that in the first place. When she died I assumed that bridge, to that bleak existence, what I assumed people assumed of me, the posterity of Asian American immigrants, the motherland, wherever that was, had disappeared, and left me all alone in the little Long Island city apartment. Alone in the cold streets of New York City,

When Halmoni passed I quite honestly didn’t think I was Korean anymore. I didn’t understand why I had to exist with this heritage balanced on my shoulders like blue fired porcelain plates, ornate chopsticks winding up long silken hair, obsequious pretty girls

like this before, and let me tell you, I’ve been saying it wrong my whole life). To be honest, I liked Japanese food better, but this was too shameful to admit to my Korean grandmother who lived at least in part through the Japanese annexation of the Korean peninsula, in which her culture and history were reduced to a burning flag, stomped over and over by heavy soldier boots. To make matters somewhat worse, my only Asian friend was a sproutly JapaneseAmerican girl who I’ve been friends with since we were introduced at around age four, and while my Grandma did consistently ask about her, I’m sure she would have loved to hear about some idyllic Korean friendship of mine: seemingly rare to find. I won’t lie, I didn’t look too hard.

alone on the North East corner of the United States of America, sinking into the Atlantic, under the waves, the sea, the storm until washing up wherever I’d come from, slicked with salt. Eighty-two. A black food delivery scooter revved on the corner. Naturally, sitting there, gazing out the window into the impending darkness, I couldn’t see far out into the distance. Or the future, or even the past. I only knew the stories. My grandmother owned a toy store in Flushing around the time she was raising my mother and her three siblings. I still believe that the clutter and crush of the market influenced her infamous reputation as a collector, a keeper, and an overall hoarder, the extent to which we realized when we emptied the shoe closet and found the entirety of the early two thousands and an untouched toilet roll dispenser, still packed with its receipt, from 2012. Eighty-three, Eighty-four, Eighty-five, Eighty-six. Evening traffic all the way from midtown was beginning to flood the streets as the lamps flickered on.

Eighty-nine. Ninety. Two Prius race, streaks of silver twining together. What I remember most is the golden clock situated on her bedroom dresser, its base, two extended arms attached to a metallic trunk, spinning back and forth in perpetual motion. Only when we cleaned out her apartment and I held it in my hand for the first time, did I see that it wasn’t gold but plastic, light yet still gleaming like a trophy, unashamed. I wonder if it’s still going. Do clocks stop when their time runs out? Or do they run themselves into the ground, driven mad by the endless ticking forwards, never back. Who’s to know? We don’t understand, or realize, or care when our time runs out because we do not feel. Just fade. We are not clocks and we cannot always move forward.

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Although Halmoni had moved from South Korea only years before she gave birth to my mother, the third child and second girl, she raised her children the American way: no Noonas no Oppas, and certainly no Eommas or Eommonis. The room for tradition in a house built by immigrants is like the room for water on the face of a penny, gathering on the face of Lincoln and clinging for dear life. Korea was far away, a castle in the fog of the past, its tendrils snagging on the generations, pushing us back and forth in the cocoon of the American Dream. My mother speaks only english.

Ninety. A siren splits the cobblestones with eerie red and blue. The air conditioning flips on. It’s cold in the empty apartment; everything is gone. It’s a deep wrenching nostalgia that blocks the air in my lungs, beats at me, collides with my temples like marbles, sets my eyelashes on fire. She’s gone, yet I’m still sitting there, peering out the window at the darkening water, the eternal night, and sifting through hypotheticals, wondering if someday the doorbell will ring and I’ll be back to where I began in the first place. Burning memories like records. Waiting in this sweet home.

Eighty-eight. Rolls Royce. I can’t remember my early years, glorying in the air conditioning and watching the doorstop split in two. All I know, is that ever since I was young, I’ve been cultivating my palate through the strong and expressive taste of korean cuisine, navigating the playground of hot oxtail soup, salt soaked bulgogi, stretching rice cakes, and the sweet salty crackle of myeolchi bokkeum(I’ve never seen it written out

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off one by one like bandaids, damaging the wound again and again with each intrusive thought. To be human is to hate grief. We hate the sadness, we hate the fear. We hate to feel anything but happiness. In the end, all we can do is hate.

Click the image to view the video.

Indian Recipes

Steps: 1. Mix yeast and warm water in a bowl, leave for 10 minutes. 2. Combine both flours in another bowl and add the yeast mixture 3. Knead dough, continually adding oil to make it softer 4. Oil a bowl and place the dough ball in, cover with plastic wrap and let it rise overnight 5. Once risen, form little balls and pinch all of the dough to the center, it should resemble something like a circular dumpling 6. Then, roll out the balls into circles on a floured surface 7. Heat your pan to medium heat and add oil 8. Cook the rotis using a spatula to continually flip until both sides are golden brown. 9. Feel free to add butter as needed. Enjoy!

of Indian food my grandma has made for me. I feel like this is “Arirang”, Korean traditional song that expresses love, yearning and deep human emotions. My grandmother used to sing this powerful song, Arirang many, many times—I think it was her spiritual vitamin. I hear it occasionally at food courts in Koreatown by elders, which instantly takes me back to my childhood. Dedicating this rendition to the first generation of Korean-Americans who worked so hard in the new land to continue their dreams and provide new wonderful possibilities to the current.

Performed by Chan Ho Yun, Windward Parent

a representation of my culture and identity as an Indian because it is sharing some of my personal favorites and commonly known Indian food. I hope people like these recipes! - Anonymous

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Ingredients: • 1 tbsp yeast • 1 cup warm water • 2 cups of whole wheat flour + 1 ½ cups of white flour OR 3 ½ cups of atta flour • Oil (as needed) • Butter (for serving)

These are a few digital recipes

Arirang AAPI NEWSLETTER

Roti

Dal

Nani’s Famous Samosas

Note: Pairs well with basmati rice

Ingredients: • 3 cups all purpose flour • ¾ cups Crisco or any shortening • ¾ cups frozen peas (boil them for half the amount of time said on package) • 2 tbsp mango powder • 3 tbsp ground coriander and fennel seeds • Salt and chili’s to taste • ½ a bunch of cilantro (finely chopped) • 1 ½ lb red potatoes • 4 tbsp olive oil • Oil for frying

Ingredients: • ¾ cup chana dal • ½ cup urid dal • 1 lemon (juiced) • 1 tsp turmeric • 2 tbsp dried methi • Salt & chilis to taste • 1 small can of tomato sauce • 4 tbsp Greek yogurt • 1 medium onion • 2 in. of ginger • 4 tbsp of olive oil

Family Photos Antoni Family, Nina '25 and Michael '27

Steps:

Dough 1. Melt shortening on low heat 2. Mix melted shortening with flour ½ cup at a time 3. Add water and salt slowly until the texture is a little harder than playdough

Steps: 1. Soak chana and urid dal together in water overnight. 2. In the morning, rinse them together 3 times 3. Boil 4 cups of water 4. In a slow cooker/instant pot, put the olive oil and add dal, salt, chilis, turmeric and 4 cups of boiling water 5. Cook in the slow cooker/instant pot for 4 ½ hours (time may vary) on high heat 6. Use a food processor to grind the onion and ginger together 7. Next, in a frying pan, add some oil and fry the onion-ginger mixture over medium heat until the onions become translucent 8. Then, add the tomato sauce and greek yogurt 9. Continue stirring for 6-7 minutes 10. When the dal mixture is finished cooking, add the tomato mixture and methi into the pot 11. When ready to eat add lemon juice and enjoy it with your rotis.

Filling 1. Boil the red potatoes for 20 min 2. Let cool 3. Peel them and finely chop

Beautiful bridge our family spotted on a walk. Busan - 2018

Assembly 1. In a frying pan, add 4 tbsp olive oil, chopped potatoes, ½ boiled peas, mango powder, salt, fennel and coriander seeds, and salt/chilis to taste 2. Mix well and cook on medium heat for 7-8 minute 3. Form balls out of the dough 4. Roll them out into round circles 5. Cut the circles in half 6. Fold each semicircle into a triangle 7. Fill the dough with potato filling 8. Using water to join the sides together 9. Heat the frying oil and deep fry the samosas until golden brown

Family reunion - Busan, 2018

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Enjoy!

My mom with my wife Beatrice and I at our wedding in August 2021.

Senior Reflections By Joy Cheng ’22 and Maddie Doi ’22

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By JP DeGuzman, History Teacher

My mom is part of the vast wave of Filipina medical workers whose almost boundless expertise, labor, and compassion have upheld the modern American healthcare system for over fifty years. In the shadow of America’s conquest of the Philippines she came to this hostile shore in the early 1970s, where she worked as a nurse in Mobile, Alabama. As a single, brown woman she entered a fraught world where the legacies of Jim Crow segregation were all around her. She remembered, for example, not knowing which bathroom to use: the ones marked “colored” or “white.” When she moved to Baytown, Texas she confronted the racism of white superiors who questioned the intellect and professional quality of Filipina nurses. But, she survived and persisted, motivated by an unstinting dedication to support her

family back in the Philippines and lift them out of the poverty in which she grew up. In LA, she spent almost 30 years treating oncology patients at the USC Norris Cancer Center where she developed a reputation as a tough boss but a compassionate healer. In that time she also was a single mom, raising me. Hers is a story shaped by global forces of colonization and exploitation, all too often refracted through gender inequality, but also one of inimitable strength. She’s been retired for almost 10 years now and currently enjoys the world of ballroom dance, a life never imaginable when she worked three jobs to bring us material comfort. I am grateful for all that she has done to hold up the entire sky for our family and I.

Maddie I have celebrated Lunar New Year with my family for as long as I can remember. The exchanging of red envelopes, sharing of dimsum, and greeting of “Gong hay fat choy!” are familiar and comforting traditions I engage in every year. This past February, the APIDA affinity and parent group organized a school-wide Lunar New Year celebration, where we indulged in the new year festivities with food, cultural crafts, and a wishing tree. I loved educating the Windward community about our culture and sharing with them a holiday I typically celebrate with my extended family. Joy I didn’t realize how important having an APIDA community was until I attended the Student Diversity Leadership Conference with Windward in 2020 and had the opportunity to hear from Asian American peers across the nation and revel in shared experiences. From then on, I sought to help build the APIDA community at Windward with the affinity group through food and stories and will always treasure our time spent together. My favorite memories include getting to know APIDA students in other grades, hearing from empowering guest speakers like Rosetta Lee, and further exploring my Asian heritage! As Seniors, we hope to leave a legacy of cultural celebration as we have enjoyed planning and participating in affinity group activities throughout the years. We are excited by the growth of the APIDA community at Windward and look forward to seeing what else the future holds. We would like to thank Garret, JP, and the rest of the Windward family for all of their support!

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Gratitude for my Mom

We can’t believe our Senior year is almost over. It’s been a wild ride, and it wouldn’t have been the same without the support of our APIDA community! Before we graduate, we wanted to share a few of our favorite memories and words of advice as a tribute to our APIDA peers and mentors and cultural heritage.