Arts editor Jada Nguyen recites her original poem “The Question” based on her experiences as a mixed-race Asian and dealing with the trauma of the Atlanta shooting where six of the eight victims were Asian.
You’re a mixed-race Asian questioning your identity.
You’re witnessing, firsthand, ethnicities being pit against each other like the illegal chicken fights that your father boasted about. You’re wondering whether your experiences are comparable to those whose ‘mother tongue’ is to mother country as your own mother is to whiteness is to unidentifiable is to gone. And while your only connection to your culture is through a father who was far too angry, far too drunk, far too stepped aside, you’re sitting here wondering if that’s valid enough. Is the broken, unspoken Vietnamese valid enough? To my family I look white and to the white folk I look pretty damn Asian- and that’s what matters. The white folk don’t give a damn about you, your opinions, your pleas and cries, your safety, if they have to question your whiteness. Is the slight tan on my arms; blackened, dark, grown-out roots; and almond eyes valid enough to get me by. Getting by without a hitch in my breath, a shiver down my spine, and a fear that slowly consumes all that isn’t white.
You’re a mixed-race Asian questioning your identity.
Fetishization has been the bane of my and many’s existence but let’s get some things clear. No, I’m not your object and I sure as hell am not the quiet, petite Asian of your dreams. No, I’m not submissive and I’m not sorry for that poorly done joke… because if the punchline involves racial slurs or ‘broken’ English then it was never really a “just a joke”. No, I’m not ‘Chinese’ and No I won’t tell you ‘where I’m really from’. No, I don’t want to hear about your Yellow Fever and even after all that—just know I’m full of ‘Nos’ and now know how to say it. The Nos don’t stop the white men though. The Nos fuel their egos and puts on many good shows. For the nos mean resistance, and arguments, and everything far from innocence.
You’re a mixed-race Asian questioning your identity.
And to top it all off, you’re pissed. You’re angry at your own community—the ones who stay silence as elders are being attacked for standing at the side of the street, silence as Asian women are the fantasies of sex dreams, sex depravity, ‘sexual addiction’. You’re angry with the people that are consumed, engrossed, and obsessed with all things Asians—questioning why they don’t stand up for the lives of Asians yet will take all our belongings. Questioning why our lives should even be up for consideration. Questioning the worth of our lives at the cost of your silence. The complacent behavior of people that I thought cared about my kind, I’m angry at how wrong I was. I’m left questioning the judgments and morality of my friends.
You’re a mixed-race Asian questioning your identity.
Realizing that White is such a powerful color. Realizing that when the textbooks said white was a tint, the tint wasn’t enough to erase the yellow neutrals in my own skin color. You’re a mixed-race Asian questioning your identity.
