#That story is also So Much in the context of anti south Asian racism and Islamophobia

[rotzaprachim]

Nimona is. A very good movie but also one of the contextually for-it’s-time precise movies I’ve ever seen

[wrotelovelytears]

Pluto might be in Aquarius

But that's only half the story.

Now I'm not one to believe only the planets inspire change in people but the environment they live in, their disposition and their current state of being impacts them just as much. Astrology without the consideration of culture and context is just astronomy. It has the body but not the soul.

I start with that because of all the current global happenings. I understand the importance of spiritual and religious practices, and they don't exist in a bubble of their own. It is highly related to the cultural movements and ethnic practices of a region. If we are going to be honest religions/spirituality would not exist with out those cultural foundations. Literally there would be nothing if ethnic and cultural differences didn't play a role.

Hoodoo wouldn't exist if African Americans didn't. The Greek Pantheon wouldn't be a thing if the ancient Greeks didn't interact with the Egyptians, Nubians and Macedonians. And it should be very well known the Romans stole their whole flow and rebranded. The same Romans who took Christianity and set the foundation for the many versions we see today.

I say all that because I've noticed a lack of connecting between the social/political climate, traditions and belief systems. We can't pretend that Vedic astrology isn't an actual part of Hinduism because it wouldn't exist if Hinduism wasn't here. And Hinduism is the result of two very different populations interacting with one getting colonized and pushed south and the other needing a system/ belief to justify it. We can't pretend that tropical astrology isn't a more Eurocentric method because the signs, planets and their meanings are not the same outside of Western/Eurocentric ideology. In fact it's heavily based off of Roman and Greek interpretations, the base of Western Society as a whole.

I'm not going to pretend that Pluto moving into Aquarius is the only reason why we suddenly "see" more social changes, more standoffish behavior, more coldness to our fellow human. All Aquarius is doing is putting it on the internet. It sent a tweet out and we all saw it. These issues aren't a magical happening, they are the result of centuries of bs pilling up. Of cultures merging in ways that weren't possible before modern technology. Of colonization. Imperialism. Chattel Slavery. The Arab Slave trade. Ethnic cleansings.

People weren't passive before the shift into Aquarius, people were ignoring it. It's really easy to do when you have no personal reason to care, in fact it's probably something all humans can relate to on one topic or another. Trust me I was heavily into activism spaces a decade ago, everything being talked about in media now was talking about then. It was talkes about when my parents were growing up in the 60s. My grandparents in the 20s/30s and so on. Aquarius just put it in our faces (again, and will continue to do so) and said "now what? ".

I want people to not just lean in to spiritual/religious practices because they are popular but to look into the actual meanings they have. I want people to understand that yes you can be spiritual/religious and your ethnic background does impact how you practice. I want people to understand these changes we see in France (they lost their standing in Africa, literally all their former colonies told it to cope, and that's leading to their collapse), South Korea (this is not the first, and sadly won't be the last time, power has been abused under the name of "anti communism", in fact ask South East Asians how they treated there and you'll see this was going to happen), the United States (a country founded on genocide and racism isn't going to magically be less of those because a Black woman got to run for office) etc aren't solely a shift in the Star positions.

I see people point out the French Revolution happened the last time Pluto was in Aquarius (but they also had lost all the land in the US and Haiti told them to fuck off, so it wasn't just not eating cake, it was the lack of slave labor to fund their empire). Or America getting it's freedom (Britain was getting close to abolishing chattel slavery (again free labor, people hate to lose their free labor), the Irish and Scottish were also giving the English a hard time, they had to pick between the people next door or the ones over the Ocean). At that time it was the lack of free labor that pushed those movements, yeah everyone didn't have slaves but they all benefited from that system.

So many astrologers say don't let the stars determine your life but literally turn around and do that. Astrology is a tool at the end of the day. That's it, because if someone doesn't believe in it that doesn't change what happens. Conformation bias would have us believe differently but that's just part of our nature to lean towards that which supports us, not questions us. It's a practice that spans the globe and millennia because we can all look up and see the same stars at night. Maybe not as bright because light pollution, not the same positions because stars go supernova and the solar system moves, but it's still up for everyone on the planet. It's something that regardless of where you go, there's some meaning to it, maybe not always spiritual but a reason nonetheless. And it's never the same, obviously or else this would be a very boring plane of existence, and there's overlap because humans gonna human no matter where we are.

I implore you to think on your upbringing. Think on your ethnic group(s). Think on your current country of residence. Think on what you were taught in school. Think on your family. Because that's what's impacting you. That's what makes you make the decisions you do. Not just Mars moving through your third house (this is just an example, if that's happening for you good for you or I hope it gets better idk) .

Pluto in Aquarius isn't bring change. It's humans and our individual motives that are and always have.

Aquarius is a sign that puts the spot light on things already in motion. It makes you think because if you don't you can't understand. It makes you detached because if you feel it too much you might get hurt. It makes you remember because this isn't the first, nor the last time it will happen. Aquarius is the personal motive made public part of human nature. The selfish desires that push for survival. The seeking of like mindedness. The drive for community, but only if it's the same as you. Aquarius is the when of the story.

[alifeincoffeespoons]

i enjoyed reading your "sirius adopts harry" fic a lot, i like how you tried to fix and improve upon some aspects of canon (like the curse breakers being a tad imperialist) and also how you gave the characters backgrounds that were apparent in the story (chinese sirius, jewish remus, desi james). it added a lot to the story and characters, and was definitely better than anything jk rowling ever did or will do with minority representation.

oh my god, thank you so, so much! <33 thank you for reading, and i’m so happy to hear that you enjoyed the story! i’ve always been a fan of stories where sirius adopts harry—their surrogate father-son relationship is incredibly touching, in my opinion, and sirius is my favorite character in all of harry potter.

the cursebreakers have always bothered me—they seem like yet another extension of the historical trend of european nations + the usa taking important artifacts from african/asian/south american nations. the british museum, for example, has been criticized—and rightfully so—for continuing to display artifacts that were effectively looted from their home countries (see: pottery stolen from the emperor’s palace in beijing by the french and british during the age of imperialism). 

writing the harry potter characters with diverse backgrounds and narratives is so, so important to me as a queer asian woman, and i’m glad to hear that it resonated with you! every sirius i write is chinese, every remus i write is jewish, and every james i write is south asian, because in real life, people do have diverse backgrounds and stories, and i believe that fiction should do its best to replicate certain aspects of reality, even in a fantastical world.

it’s incredibly clear that any research jkr does when writing minority characters—if she does any research at all, that is—is minimal. all we have to do to know that is look at her descriptions of ilvermorny (incredibly imperialistic in her mindset, appropriative of indigenous history) and mahoutokoro (a name that literally means “magical place” and additionally brings up the question of why there are multiple wizarding schools in europe but merely one for all of asia) and her depictions of the few non-white characters in harry potter (that of cho chang being the most glaringly problematic). 

this problem, of course, isn’t one only relevant to jk rowling, although she is one of the most problematic authors today—see her blatant transphobia, anti-semitism, lgbtq+ erasure, and racism as examples of such. rainbow rowell is another author who has clearly failed at the task of doing even minimal research when it comes to write characters with minority backgrounds, as seen in eleanor and park. park, of course, is a korean last name, not a first name, and the descriptions of park are incredibly racist—at times, eleanor literally describes his skin as yellow, and his entire character arc is one of self-hatred for his racial identity that has no meaningful resolution.

(as a side note, asian-american and asian characters have continuously been infantilized and reduced to stereotypes in works, even when they are the romantic interests of the protagonist. writing with color has a wonderful post out about this trend today that can be read here.)

if i, a fanfiction writer, can read research papers to try to understand the sociopolitical context of hong kong in the 1980s for a fanfiction, there is no reason actual, published authors cannot do meaningful research when writing characters with diverse backgrounds and stories. 

anyway, rant over, and i’m so happy again to hear that this story resonated with you! thank you so much for this kind ask! <3 

[jungxk]

I completely agree with you that there is a very problematic culture in Asia regarding anti-blackness. The point that I was trying to make, was that in terms of 'origin' stories, there are also other historical contexts relating to colourism that is important to be aware of alongside colonialism. And of course, in modern history to now, I completely agree, you cannot deny the blatant racism and antiblackness that exist with colourism that exists among our communities. I was only speaking of the

2. speaking of the origins of colourism in east Asia and I can only speak of east asia because that is where I am from. But it is evident that colourism has manifested in various ways of abhorrent behaviours against people with darker skin beyond the original idea of wealth and status in my country. I'm sorry I didn't make my points clearer.

3. Also, I am the anon is talking about colourism. I just want to make it clear that I am not hating on you or coming for your throat while we discuss this topic. I am very sorry if I do come across that way. But I personally enjoy this type of discussion about society, race etc and especially lately, its good to have these types of conversations. its 2020, things have to change. But I am sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable at all, that is not my intention

no need to apologise💖you didn’t make me uncomfortable, this was my research topic after all! i talk about colourism often on this blog as well as the east asian vs. south asian narrative. and your points were clear, valid and accurate. thank you for your politeness and maturity.

i think i should have made it clear that when i made those posts about colourism earlier it was concerning this whole wonwoo issue. context matters, and so i was referencing the particular mindset that east asians tend to have over south asians, which is very much dividing themselves from us and not recognising us as part of the asian community despite being so PAINFULLY similar from customs to cuisine to fashion to traditions to languages, you name it.

i personally believe - due to my own academic research and personal experiences as a south asian woman - that this prejudice is likely due to colourist reasons and the fact that south asian countries are considered developing aka “poor” countries. but that’s not to say other factors don’t come into play. it’s just that this is the most overt reason that i find plausible enough to explain why they find it so easy to mock us and further “other” us from them.

but the truth is we are family! we are neighbours! we share so much without even knowing it!!! and i only understand this now, after taking the time to read and learn about east asian customs and traditions, and it’s just sad that so few east asians ever think to return the favour x

[brotheralyosha]

do you have any specific anti rupi kaur poetry opinions you wish to share? i just ask because I can't stand her poetry and it drives me crazy

Oh dear lord anon, I’ve kept quiet on my views of Rupi Kaur’s poetry for years because I wanted to avoid The Discourse - thank you for finally giving me an excuse!

Honestly, the best summation of my feelings on Rupi Kaur is in two very excellent articles. They’re both worth reading in their entirety, but I’ve included my favorite sections below.

No Filter, by Soraya Roberts

What is perhaps as consistent as the badness of Instapoetry—there are rare exceptions, Shire (who, it must be said, is more a Tumblr and Twitter poet, her Instagram being primarily made up of images and video) being one—is the general unwillingness to speak openly of its badness. Admirers focus on its genuine feeling, its emotional truth. Critics shrug it off, claiming it’s just not their thing. Which is basically how it was designed: Instagram was developed out of a project titled “Send the Sunshine” at Stanford’s Persuasive Technology Lab, not exactly a project intended to accommodate criticism. Though critical trepidation is a common consequence of the slippery definition of art—we once believed readymades sucked, too—part of this reluctance is also to do with the genre appealing predominantly to young women and haven’t young women been policed enough? Rupi Kaur herself wields this tack as a way to deflect excoriation, equating the criticism of her work to the criticism of marginalized demographics. Of the label “Instagram poet,” she told PBS, “A lot of the readers are young women who are experiencing really real things, and they’re not able to talk about it with maybe family or other friends, and so they go to this type of poetry to sort of feel understood and to have these conversations. And so, when you use that term, you invalidate this space that they use to heal and to feel closer to one another.” You also invalidate women of color as Kaur frames herself within a landscape of both female and immigrant oppression, a context in which judgment is tantamount to muting the disenfranchised. To the literary world, she has pronounced, “This is actually not for you. This is for that, like, seventeen-year-old brown woman in Brampton who is not even thinking about that space, who is just trying to live, survive, get through her day.” It is a savvy move, invalidating all manner of criticism before it has even been formulated.

But here it is: Her poetry, and much of Instapoetry, is poor. This poetry is not poor because it is genuine, it is poor because that is all it is. To do more than that, regardless of talent, requires time, and, by its very definition, Instapoetry has none. Ezra Pound’s epic collection of poems The Cantos took decades to complete. Maya Angelou has said she has found poetry the most challenging of all her professions: “When I come close to saying what I want to, I’m over the moon. Even if it’s just six lines, I pull out the champagne. But until then, my goodness, those lines worry me like a mosquito in the ear.” Even Rimbaud, who was already composing his best work in adolescence, conceded in his “Letter of the Seer,” “The poet makes himself a seer by a long, prodigious, and rational disordering of all the senses.” Time is what is required to think, the kind of thinking that allows the poet to imbue each individual word with a world of meaning. Harold Bloom described canonical writing as that which demands rereading, William Empson that it needs to work for readers with divergent opinions, provoking a variety of responses and interpretations. All of this implies a richness, a complexity, a variety of strata. The majority of Instapoetry has none of this. It is almost exclusively a banal vessel of self-care, equivalent to an affirmation, designed for young women of a certain privileged position and disposition, one that is entirely self-absorbed. The genre’s batheticisms remove specificity, to avoid alienation, supplanting them with the sort of platitude you find on a department store tea towel. Because this is what Instapoetry is—it is not art, it is a good to be sold, or, less, regrammed. Its value is quantity not quality.

The Problem with Rupi Kaur’s Poetry, by Chiara Giovanni

While more female South Asian voices are indeed needed in mainstream culture and media, there is something deeply uncomfortable about the self-appointed spokesperson of South Asian womanhood being a privileged young woman from the West who unproblematically claims the experience of the colonized subject as her own, and profits from her invocation of generational trauma. There is no shame in acknowledging the many differences between Kaur’s experience of the world in 2017 and that of a woman living directly under colonial rule in the early 20th century. For example: neither is any more “authentically” South Asian. But it is disingenuous to collect a variety of traumatic narratives and present them to the West as a kind of feminist ethnography under the mantle of confession, while only vaguely acknowledging those whose stories inspired the poetry.

…

Kaur’s strategic appeals to two different markets also inform the composition of her collection and her social media presence. While milk and honey contains several poems that, through coded words like “dishonor,” obliquely refer to Kaur’s cultural upbringing, that’s about as explicit as it gets: The poems are vague enough to provide identifiable prompts for readers from a variety of different cultural environments, including — in many cases — white Western readers. Thus the collection remains relatable — and, crucially, marketable — to a wider audience, while still retaining an element of culturally informed authenticity that forms much of Kaur’s brand. The few poems that specifically address race are positioned facing each other, a brief interlude in a collection that is otherwise devoid of racial politics, and once again addresses a white, Western audience in their appeal for recognition of South Asian beauty and resilience.

…

Thanks to this social media strategy of sharing pieces with little to no context, Kaur is able to target two demographics: white Westerners who might be disinclined to buy books by minority writers, and her loyal grassroots fan base that includes a large contingent of young people of color across the world. She is thus able to maintain her brand of authenticity and relatability, but in different ways for different groups; to her Western metropolitan audience, she is “the patron saint of millennial heartbreak,” while to her marginal readers she is a representation of their desire for diversity in the literary world, despite rarely touching upon race in her work. This is not to reinforce the often-damaging expectation that writers of color must write only about racism in order to be successful, only that Kaur claims to be documenting a specifically South Asian experience that never materializes.

[jeanjauthor]

I want people to read the creator’s message below today’s webcomic, and then I want folks (who have the spoons to spare for it) to read the commentary below, and especially Mr. Morris’ replies to many of those comments.  These dialogues between creators and viewers are very important when it comes to messages like this, ones which could be misconstrued when encountered without context.

For my part, I deeply appreciate that he posted his remark. He is a good guy, he does try to “mix it up” to diffuse & disperse bigotry moments (not perfectly, but nobody is ever going to be perfect)...but that isn’t the point.  And it isn’t a point of “performative” apologizing.  It’s not a performance; he genuinely feels bad about the timing of all of this and the potential for someone who hasn’t read the (massive) backlog of stories in the archives to see only surface images.

Regardless of what longtime or even shortime fans know about the story, regardless of utter newbs coming to the webcomic to view it...that statement needs to be there.

As I posted to Anonymous earlier regarding whether or not to include racial slurs in historical settings...to ignore that it happened, to ignore what it looks & sounds & feels like, is to try to deny the pains of the past, present, and future.

By pinning that particular message to this particular comic, Rick Morris is assuring people for generations to come that he knows the differences between fiction, reality, longterm plotlines and surface appearances.  He knows, he acknowledges, he pledges to keep working toward being a better storyteller & artist...and that’s an important message for everyone to receive.  Not just to inspire others, not just to apologize and explain context, but to renew his own pledges to himself & his readers that he’ll keep working on being better.

Storytellers don’t always tell comfortable stories.  Sometimes we tell ones that are meant to hurt, in order to evoke emotions that can create not just sympathy but empathy for the suffering of others...and sometimes that backfires.  Sometimes we tell ones that hurt in additional ways, in very unexpected and unfortunate and/or badly timed ways, increasing the pain for some.

Intention is an important part of storytelling, because most stories have a lesson to teach to our audiences.  (Not all need to have one, but most have something for others to learn.)  Intention also includes trying to be aware of unintended outcomes.

One of those lessons occurred today in a storyline that has been building to this climactic moment for literally the last four-plus years.  No one could’ve predicted how real world events played out.  At the same time, it would be wrong to stop telling this story to “wait for a better time.”  There won’t be a better time for it.

Changing systemic racism will still take years and decades more to come, even if this is a manual-transmission-clutch moment, where we could wind up going faster in our forward progress, or find ourselves dropped into reverse, with a possibly broken transmission. (Hopefully not, but not holding my breath. I got better things to do with my energy.)  So there literally won’t be a better time for this story.

Instead, we need to acknowledge that these visualizations do exist without proper context, and that even with context it can still cause some folks to feel hurt.  Mr. Morris understands if new folks won’t want to start reading the rest of the story because of this one scene (and the following pages involving the rest of this scene).  That’s part of the message that needs to be told.

That’s part of the pain that needs to be acknowledged. It is not intentional, it isn’t the best timing, but it is acknowledged...and all he asks is that folks consider giving the whole story a try.

I’ve been following his webcomic for a very long time, and I can personally say his characters are vastly diverse, and that he does tackle bigotry head-on in multiple ways with multiple races, genders, social classes, and more.  Is it completely problem-free? Nope! But like reality, the characters do learn & change & grow, the creator does, too...and many of his characters have some absolutely outstanding character growth.

You don’t have to give YAFGC a try, but I do hope you’ll read the message & the comment interactions if you’re a writer (or an artist)...because these interactions are a good set of dialogues about this subject, how to handle it, how to agree or disagree, and how to be polite when the latter happens.

Personally, I am deeply pleased to see he didn’t shrug off his responsibility to post that note, and isn’t shrugging it off...like a number of the commenters imply he could’ve done instead, via their absolution-style comments.  Instead, he’s doing the work that is necessary, even if it’s seen by some as extra, unnecessary work. That’s something all of us need to step up and do, for this kind of topic.  Acknowledge the inadvertent visualizations, and apologize for them.

...

Speaking of which...in The Song, I created the character of Duke Finneg, Councilor of Conflict Resolution for the Empire of Katan. The continent of the Empire of Katan is longer than it is wide, stretching from the Sun’s Belt (equator) in the north toward the Ice Sea in the south (separating Katan from the southern polar landmass, smaller than Antarctica and just as uninhabited).

When I populated the landmass that was Katan, I knew that there would be dark-skinned folk in the northern regions close to the Equator, and pale-skinned folks in the southern regions close to the south pole, because that’s literally why we have skin color variations.  Those that live in the middle lattitudes have a mix of skin hues, some paler, some darker, and plenty of people have traveled all over and settled in different areas than those their ancestors were born & raised in, even if the majority of everyone really don’t move very far.  (If you look at the real world, this is basically how reality works, too.)

This logical pattern is repeated all over the world of the DestinyVerse.  In areas with thick rainforests like Natallia, which are tropical to subtropical, the people are tanned but paler in melanin coloration than Sundara, which is a desert environment with few trees for shade (again like the real world we live in).  There are slaves in some countries & cultures, and there are anti-slavery laws in others.  There are good people, and there are bad people, and there are indifferent or self-focused people who just are either apathetic or oblivious to what’s going on around them...exactly like the real world.  But it is not our world

So when I designed the appearance of Duke Finneg, a Katani mage of important political power who was destined (plotwise) to have a high-strung temper and an increasingly unhinged world-view because of self-delusional closed-minded thinking...I was tempted to make him white, to be honest.  But since he’s from Katan, he could’ve been from any point on that continent. 

The Corvis brothers are mid-lattitude with a variety of transcontinental intermarriages in previous generations, but in general are lightly tanned, almond-eyed, and have hair from light blond to jet black, because that’s how genetic inheritances work in their particular bloodline (and I needed a way to easily tell brothers apart description-wise...but I honestly have seen some families with blond, brunette, & redheaded members).  (That, and it’s a non-Earth world, so, I could make shh up like that.)

(If you honestly want to know what the Corvid brothers look like, they’re a blend of East/Southeast Asian & European, with more in the way of Asian features and that wider range of European haircolors, same as most Katani from the mid-latitudes...though some on the east coast mid latitudes look more Latinx than Asian, like the folks from the western side tend to look.)

So when it came to the main protagonist for the fourth book in the series...I decided to roll a dice for his origination point, low for somewhere in the south (pale & blond), high for up near the equator (dark & brunette). I wrote down the general characteristics for each of the numbers/regions that might come up (I don’t have the paper anymore, alas, it got lost in one of my household moves)...and I rolled.  (With real D&D style dice, because I’m a frikkin nerrrrd, duh.)  The dice rolled high, aka his family is from a region up by the equator region where there isn’t much shade and dark skin tones are needed to ward off skin cancer...so I wrote him to be dark-skinned, etc. It was literally a random dice roll.

There are other characters in The Song and in other books of the DestinyVerse, showing various skintones & social backgrounds.  Some are high-ranked, some are low-ranked. There are skin hues and hair colors in a wide range of hues. There are cultures with social equality, and cultures that are extremely bigoted (yes, Mandare, I’m talking about YOU)...but they’re not Earth cultures, and they don’t necessarily have real-world problems.

But I can see how they can be seen that way if you just pick up the book, rifle through it, see that Duke Finneg is an increasingly unstable hardass with a hate-on for the people on Nightfall Isle (spoiler alert, if a bit late)...and read that he’s got dark skin and brown eyes, etc, and perhaps feel hurt that he’s a Black Man being typecast as the Bad Guy from reading just one scene, with nothing of any further context than just that.

So I apologize for that.  I was trying to write a story set within the context of its own universe, with its own distinct and different cultures, and viewed that particular character--the same with everyone else in the book--while writing the story from that viewpoint.  Literally, I rolled up the physical characteristics for most of the Katani characters on that “this is where they’re from” sheet, which is why the harbormaster and his husband in the later books look the way they do, why the various other Councilors look the way they do, etc, etc.

But that doesn’t negate the fact that one of my villain characters is an increasingly unstable darkskinned male, and for anyone who has been hurt or offended by that description for my antagonist/villain character, I apologize.  It was not my intent to perpetuate a false, harmful stereotype from our own world.  It was just a random description roll for a stereotype that (in my mind, at least) has nothing to do with race--and nothing to do with genuine mental health issues--and everything to do with closed-minded attitudes toward “inferiors” and clinging to those mental dogmas rather than releasing them and admitting one has gotten an opinion/viewpoint of others deeply wrong.

I’m working on being better, as a writer.  And to be fair, when you look at the whole context of all my writings, I’m doing a better job when it comes to ensuring diversity for protagonists and antagonists than the majority of published authors (most of whom are white). I’m particularly pleased with my IaVerse, where the main & secondary & other important Human characters come from a wide variety of backgrounds, the chief villains aren’t relatable to anything stereotypically Human, and positions of authority & power are not only achievable, but also removable and/or punishable if one steps too far out of line when it comes to acceptable/forgivable behavior.

The one thing I will always try to do is to try to tell a better story.  People may still get hurt, but my stories will have context, and lessons, and the message that respect, tolerance, and compassion for nearly everyone is very important.

(I will, however, uphold the paradox of tolerance by asserting the lesson of refusing to tolerate the intolerant in order to preserve the existence of tolerance, and I will always encourage the metaphorical/allegorical punching of Nazi types.  Or actual punching in stories, particularly the milSF ones...but then that is a genuine official trope of the military fiction genre.)

[demimonde-semigoddess]

What are the Homestuck trolls favorite Disney movies? Some are pretty obvious (like Lion King for Nepeta and Peter Pan for Tavros) but I want to see what your opinion is.

Oh shit here we go again. This might be long so I’m gonna stick it under a readmore. Worth noting I’m gonna be sticking to animated movies originally produced in-house by Disney, rather than movies that are now retroactively disney (ie older Pixar films) or live-action disney movies (ie The Force Awakens), to keep things in-theme for this.

Aradia: Atlantis - This is also pretty self explanatory. Water/ocean/archaeology themed movie, Kida is amazing and I am weak for Arafef.

Tavros: Peter Pan - Self explanatory.

Sollux: Big Hero 6 - Sollux would claim to hate this movie, but he watches it a lot.

Nepeta: Lion King - It’s Drama, it’s Cats, she ships Timon and Pumbaa in vacillating red-black, what more could you ask for?

Terezi: Hunchback of Notre Dame - SILENCE! JUSTICE! (She wants to hang Frollo from the bell cords.

Vriska: Treasure Planet - She has a whole OC pirate crew in that universe, if she hasn’t played/run an actual entire RPG campaign therewithin.

Equius: Song of the South Hercules - It’s about growing as a person to not be as much of an asshole. He finds the pop culture references charming. Relates to Hercules’ because he too is/was clumsy with his freakish stregth.

Gamzee: Pinocchio - Fairy magic = Miracles, that’s about as far as his logic goes, and about as much as I am willing to entertain Gamzee’s thought process.

Eridan: Mulan - Military triumph, he likes the backup characters, and wishes he could have a guy like Shang. Takes Make a Man out of You a little too seriously.

Feferi: The Little Mermaid -  Not because she relates to Ariel’s romantic entanglements, but because she likes the collections of both Ursula and Ariel (Souls vs Trinkets), and it’s on theme.

Damara: Alice in Wonderland - Solely for the caterpillar that gets absolutely high as FUCK on screen.

Rufioh: Brother Bear - He relates to having fucked up and wanting to make amends. Annoyingly thinks it’s too much of a fantasy for him to actually try to be a better person.

Mituna: Meet the Robinsons - Hopeful message resonates with him a lot.

Meulin: Aristocats - Meulin is the kind of person who could overlook incredible anti-Asian racism in the interest of a cute love story about some cats.

Latula: Lilo and Stitch - It’s just a good movie. If this is humanstuck, she’s probably liked it since she was a kid.

Aranea: Alice in Wonderland - Because she read the book first and wants to ramble about all the old historical context and shit for the book. The movie is just a convenient excuse.

Horuss: Home on the Range - I hate this stupid fucking movie but Horuss would love it because it’s about farm animals and he cosplays the shitty idiot horse that gives like 6 underpaid farmhands brain damage.

Kurloz: Fantasia

Cronus: The Emperor’s New Groove - But like, he didn’t actually absorb the message at all.

Meenah:  Moana - Also nautically themed, secret favorite. Relates to not wanting to be a ruler but also like, actually wanting to be.

[nopingitoutme]

I would like to preface this by saying that I love my brother. 

He is not a good person. Not in the evil way, not in the I hurt people, or I bully people kind of way, but in the - I have never critically thought about my privilege and general existence kind of way. I’ll slow down and start from the beginning.

I am Canadian but my parents are Asian, South Asian to be precise. My dad was born and raised in India while my mother is Pakistani. From there my parents made their way to the US where they met and got married. My dad studied mechanical engineering at University of Oklahoma. He was accepted into Princeton but the tuition was too high, University of Oklahoma was the only university that afforded him with a full ride scholarship. So he made do and studied. What you have to understand here is that my dad was poor like extremely poor. He used to tell us how he would steal packets of ketchup to eat because they had a high sugar content and he couldn’t afford actual food. He didn’t have a choice when it came to studying, he had to get his degree so he could find a job. If he didn’t he was a short, Indian, Muslim brown man with no family, no support system and no credentials.

My mom actually got her degree in nursing in Pakistan but because the credits did not transfer she was not a nurse in Virginia, she worked as a lab tech. Eventually my parents met and got married then had my oldest brother.

Here’s the thing, my mom’s immigration story is murky. While her “nanny visa” isn’t exactly illegal, the fact that the only “children” she was taking care of were her cousins. The rest of her family trickled in using farming visas. I’ll be frank it was definitely fraud in some way but done just carefully enough that the government was willing to overlook it. My mom’s a Canadian citizen now so I don’t have to be worried that she could be deported. 

But anyway my parents met, got married and procreated twice. I have two older brothers who were born in New Jersey and have American citizenships. At this point we were poor. My dad was barely making anything with his engineering degree and my mom had two kids under the age of five, she was basically supporting the family with her job as a lab tech. Then my mom found out she was pregnant with me. My dad being a financially responsible man asked my mom to terminate the pregnancy (she was on birth control, I was very much a whoops baby) but she declined. I am not going to turn this into an anti-abortian argument, I am very much pro-choice, I was just giving context to the situation my parents were in. A few days after I was detected(?) my dad got a job offer in Alberta and accepted it. It turned out to change our lives entirely. My dad started making more and more until he was making six figures a year. This is the type of life I grew up living, moreover this is the life my brother grew up living.

Since I have two brothers, I’ll name them, the ok one will be O and the not-okay one will be U.

U has never known, or remembered financial stress. He is two years older then me so can’t remember his life in New Jersey but he can remember his life in Canada. I won’t insult him by saying his life in Canada is easy, he is lives in an Asian household and my parents are typical Asian parents. They are strict and overbearing, they meddle too much in our lives and they do not get along with each other. Growing up was stressful, my dad definitely has an untreated mental disorder that results in a violent temper and tension in the house for days on end. None of us have healthy coping mechanisms. O is going to get married in the next year, he is terrified that his wife will rely on him to be the sole breadwinner and through that he will become abusive towards her. U, well I’ll get to that. I ignore everything and avoid conflict like a sport. My eventual plan is to get my degree and fuck off and never come back. So, not the healthiest environment to say the least. But I do have to say that it affected U the most. 

He became fanatical. He became obsessed with judging people. He would continuously ask me why I was, “everyone’s lawyer” for having the audacity for saying that unless we understand someone’s circumstances we cannot judge them for it. The best example of his confusingly conservative personality is the fact that he agrees with the Vietnam War.

Today we decided to watch the Chicago 7. He didn’t want to. His first complaint was that it got bad reviews, we showed him the reviews which were overwhelmingly positive (he considers himself a film expert, you can tell by the way that he uses the words “film” instead of movie and “cinematography” and “we shouldn’t focus on diversity in Hollywood, we should just pick the best actor for the job”) the truth came out he did not like the fact that it was about people fighting against the government. He agreed with the conscription and said that he would gladly give his portion of the inheritance to the Canadian military since it was his civic duty to support them, never mind that we pay taxes to support them so they really don’t need more. More and more pieces fit together. His easy spending of money, his virulent defence of conservative policies, his anti-immigration stance. He’s a piece of shit and it took me nineteen years to figure that out. He’s just genuinely a piece of shit.

And  I don’t know where it came from. No one in my family has such extreme views, we are a family of immigrants. I mean the only vaguely conservative thing we do is be rich. And before anyone comes for me I am aware of my incredible privilege. I am also aware that we embody the American Dream to the T and I am aware that the American Dream is a lie fed to us by the rich and no one becomes rich because you worked hard. You become rich because you had connections or in our case we were extremely lucky.  But U is not aware of his privilege as a wealthy person. He doesn’t seem to grasp that he didn’t make good choices, he had good choices (peep the reference), choices that allowed him to get a tutor so he could write the MCAT, choices that allowed to spend months studying and not be worried about money, choices that give him connections to med students and doctors, choices that he only got because he was rich. In fact he is so unaware of it, that it’s like he believes he deserves it. It’s like he believes that it is his God-given right to not have to pay his own tuition, his cell phone plan, his fucking life is paid for and this bitch thinks he deserves it. He spends money like it’s water, he believes transgender people are just mentally ill, he’s anti-immigration (which is hypocrisy of the highest degree, where do he think he came from? He’s darker then I am!), he’s a white posh British man in a twenty-two year old brown body. 

And then I realized, he wants to be that British man, he craves it. It’s why he wants to send his future child to an English boarding school so he (the child will be a boy and named Alistair, apparently. I can’t make this shit up. I wish I was making this shit up) can become a cricket star. He is creating a fantasy, one where he isn’t in this stressful tension-filled house, one where he is the hero, the saviour, the one who is right and rational. He can’t stand the fact that he was born in the family, a family where my mother still speaks with an accent and wears traditional clothing. A family that eschews normal society conventions of being white and Christian and conservative. He hates that he can’t be one of them. And because of that he ignores the immense amount of privilege he has been given. He doesn’t believe in white privilege, believes that affirmative action is reverse racism, believes that immigrants are obligated to give up their heritage to become functioning members of society. What’s that Futurama quote, “don’t insult billionaires, you’re insulting my feelings towards being able to be a billionaire someday” (I don’t know I’ve never watched Futurama, I’ve only seen that quote in a gif). My point is, is that my brother is ashamed. He is so deeply ashamed that he repressed all of his empathy and humanity to beg at the alter of capitalism and classism. He cannot reach the inherent privilege that being white affords you so he makes up for it by being the poster child of white supremacy in other ways. And all of that makes me sad.

Because after all, I love my brother.   

[dipulb3]

Indians are being held up as a model minority. That's not helping the Black Lives Matter movement

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/indians-are-being-held-up-as-a-model-minority-thats-not-helping-the-black-lives-matter-movement/

Indians are being held up as a model minority. That's not helping the Black Lives Matter movement

But what about brown silence? Just as people are being told to acknowledge their White privilege, calls are growing louder for South Asian diasporas, particularly Indians, in the UK, US and Canada to check their brown privilege and speak out against anti-Black racism.

This tension has arisen in part because some Asian groups are still being held up as “model minorities,” celebrated for achieving higher levels of socio-economic success than others, often even the White majority. It’s an old tactic that has proven to cause more harm than good, but it’s one that is still very much in use.

The problem with the practice is that it pits ethnic minority groups, which could otherwise be allies, against each other. It perpetuates stereotypes in and outside the group and, worst of all, it gives governments, companies and institutions of power a mask for their own systemic racism. It completely ignores the fact that one minority group may face very different challenges or levels of racism than another.

Black people, on the other hand, earn less than most other groups after graduating, achieve among the lowest levels in primary and high school, and are over three times more likely to be arrested than White people. Similar trends have been noted in the US and Canada.

There are many ways to digest this kind of data. Some look at it as a clear sign more needs to be done to tackle structural racism and close the gap, but all too often, it is used to congratulate those who have found success, and shame those who haven’t.

Take UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Cabinet of ministers, for example, which he has touted as the country’s most diverse in history. But really, a look at its makeup shows it’s simply the most Indian Cabinet, with three ministers of Indian descent. 

The tension that has created was brought to the fore in parliament earlier this month, when Home Minister Priti Patel, who has Indian origins, dismissed Black opposition MP Florence Eshalomi, who was complaining the ruling Conservative government was not taking structural racism seriously. 

Patel’s response was defensive and aggressive, arguing she too had suffered racism so “will not take lectures” on the issue. It was her way of saying that because she had been the victim of racism, she could not possibly be ignorant of the problems Black British people face.

Joan Doe, a Black high school teacher from London, said she found Patel’s response frustrating. She also said the Prime Minister’s recent appointment of Munira Mirza to lead another diversity review in the country was problematic.

Doe says her problem isn’t so much that Mirza is of Pakistani origins, more that she is known to argue that structural racism doesn’t exist, as she has written in several articles for the right-wing publication Spiked.

“They think they can just put a brown face to the problem and it will go away. And it’s always a Brown face that’s not too dark, not too light, so they can say they are representing ethnic minority groups,” Doe told Appradab.

She said that there was an issue in pooling all ethnic minorities under terms like BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) and POC (People of Color). 

“We all get banded together, and that just says that because you’re not White, you must all have similar experiences and therefore must have similar outcomes, which is just completely untrue,” Doe said.

UK: ‘POC silence is violence’

It must be pointed out too that in the UK, South Asians’ experiences are varied, and just as not all White people have led lives of privilege, neither have all Brown people. Where Indians, on average, do well financially and in education, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis haven’t enjoyed the same socio-economic mobilization, on the whole, and many have borne the brunt of a wave of Islamophobia that swept the world following the 9/11 attacks. And even within ethnic groups, there are such diverse stories and different backgrounds that so many people simply don’t fit the picture the data paints.

But some in these diasporas who have had privileges are starting to recognize them, and young South Asians are beginning to speak up about them. Uncomfortable discussions on issues like the hierarchy of racism are taking place, and just as people are now discussing how national heroes, like Winston Churchill in the UK, held deeply racist views, Indian diasporas are now acknowledging Mahatma Gandhi’s anti-Black racism, revealed in some of his writings during his time spent in South Africa.

Jaskaran Sahota, a 34-year-old advertising executive and an amateur comedian, has attended Black Lives Matter protests in London. She carries a poster that say “POC silence is violence” and is part of a movement of British South Asians trying to change racist attitudes within their communities, particularly among the generation before them.

She points to the way Indians will often attribute their success to simply working hard, and while there may be some truth to that, few stop to consider that other groups may be working hard too and just face other structural barriers.

She laments the way Indians have been able to find social mobility but don’t often help elevate other minority groups in the same way. 

“Unfortunately, brown people got a seat at the table and kicked down the other chairs. What they should have done was dismantle it or bring more chairs. That’s what I see when I see Priti Patel. She took the benefits of BAME and none of the responsibility,” Sahota said.

Many have retained the “colorist” attitudes they or their families had in India, she said, where those with lighter skin typically benefited, while darker-skinned Indians faced more discrimination, a hierarchy validated by the Hindu caste system.

In the UK, that has translated to anti-Black racism among some Indians.

“South Asians can be inherently colorists. Some don’t like people who are darker because that means as people, they are less morally worthy. It’s an inherent bias, as if God doesn’t like people with darker skin,” she said. 

“The UK didn’t teach us that. We need to own that. We’re nasty that way, so let’s deal with that.”

US: A call to Indian-Americans

There are similar calls coming from young Indians in the United States. A Tik Tok video by Indian-American Rishi Madnani that was widely shared last month deconstructs the problem with the model minority myth, which still pervades in some corners of the country.

In it, Madnani points to the fact that many Indians moved to the United States during a wave of migration between 1965 and 1990 under visa programs that targeted skilled and highly educated people. In contrast, many Black Americans’ ancestors were forcibly taken to the country as slaves.  

“Because of this we were pre-determined to be successful and when we were, the media painted us as model minorities, as good, law-abiding citizens that were the opposite of Black people,” he says, adding that many Indian-Americans had been “fooled by the model minority myth.”

“Yes, South Asians face ignorance, casual racism and hate crimes, but we have never in American history been systematically dehumanized and oppressed in the way that Black people have.” 

What Madnani does is offer some context, as simplified as it may be, as to why there may be differences in Black and Asian experiences in the United States. But there are still comparisons being made between ethnic minority groups in the country with no context at all.

Charles Negy, a psychology professor from the University of Central Florida, sent a series of tweets recently dismissing criticisms of US structural racism by comparing Asian Americans and Black Americans.

“If Afr. Americans as a group, had the same behavioral profile as Asian Americans (on average, performing the best academically, having the highest income, committing the lowest crime, etc.), would we still be proclaiming ‘systematic racism’ exists?” he wrote in a tweet that has since been deleted.

The university issued a statement condemning his comments “in the strongest terms” and have launched an inquiry into his remarks and other matters. 

Negy defended his remarks in a New York Times interview, saying he was critical of all ethnic and cultural groups. “There is no way I can be brutally honest about each racial/cultural group without offending someone.”

Canada: Brown ‘silence has been absolutely deafening’

In Canada too, where protests have highlighted disproportionate police violence against Black and Indigenous Canadians, discussions around Brown privilege are starting to take place.

The leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party, Jagmeet Singh, was kicked out of a session in parliament earlier this month after calling another politician racist.

Singh made the accusation in the House of Commons after Alain Therrien, from the Bloc Québécois party, rejected a motion acknowledging the existence of systemic racism in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police force.

Bloc Québécois defended Therrien, saying in a statement that he voted against the motion because another committee was already studying the issue, Canada’s public broadcaster CBC reported. 

And during a panel discussion in Toronto earlier this month on “Brown complicity in White supremacy,” Canadians of South Asian origins came together to talk about issues such as brown silence, brown fragility and the continuation of the model minority myth. 

Herveen Singh, an education administration expert from Canada now working at the Zayed University in Dubai, said: “Essentially, the model minority myth was created to take attention away from the enslavement of Black people and replace it with ‘you’re just not working hard enough,’ not taking into account the hundreds of years of slavery, the eugenics project, that firmly puts White people at the top of the hierarchy and gives them license to dehumanize Black people, who are firmly at the bottom of this racial hierarchy,” she said, adding that brown people were usually placed “somewhere in the middle.”

“When Black communities are under siege, where are we? Where is collective brown solidarity for Black lives? Till now, the silence has been absolutely deafening.”

It’s something that Nodin Nganji, a Burundian student studying international development in Toronto, has also noticed. In a recent tweet, he shared Madnani’s Tik Tok video and called on brown people in Canada to join protests and check their privilege.

“When it comes to protests that I’ve been part of here in Toronto, or ones that I saw in the media in Ottawa or Vancouver or Montreal, there were mostly two races — Black and White. Yes, there were a few Asians, but very, very few,” Nganji told Appradab.

“I see Black people raising posters, I see white people raising posters. I see very few Brown people engaging in these conversations, or protesting, or donating, or speaking out. I don’t think many even recognize their privilege. I know we have some Asian people who are our allies, but from my end it’s not enough.”

Appradab’s Tara John contributed to this story.

[ladystylestores]

Shaky Reopenings, Boris Johnson, Coronavirus: Your Thursday Briefing

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

Good morning.

We’re covering what reopenings look like in countries with rising coronavirus cases, Boris Johnson’s response to the U.S. protests and answers to a decades-old Swedish murder mystery.

Shaky reopenings in countries with virus problems

India has more new daily coronavirus infections than all but the United States and Brazil. But, ready or not, much of India’s lockdown has ended, as have those in other countries struggling to balance economic damage with coronavirus risk.

Some leaders, especially in the developing world, said they couldn’t sustain the punishing lockdowns without risking economic catastrophe for their poorest citizens.

Our correspondents looked at the reopening in India and four other countries — Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Mexico — whose leaders have prioritized restarting even with rising coronavirus cases.

Russia: The country is adding 8,000 to 9,000 new infections each day; even so, Moscow’s mayor lifted many restrictions on Tuesday. One reason, analysts say, is to encourage turnout at a July 1 referendum that could allow President Vladimir V. Putin to remain in power until 2036.

India: In New Delhi, an already strained public health care system may be reaching a breaking point. People can’t get tested. And government officials, desperate for hospital beds, proposed turning the city’s fanciest hotels into health centers.

Iran: Iran, an early epicenter of the global pandemic, reopened in early May to salvage its economy. It’s now seeing a second surge; experts reported 3,574 new infections on June 4, the highest number of new cases since the coronavirus crisis began.

Boris Johnson’s response to Britain’s racism

At a time when the unrest in the United States is prompting many Britons to examine their own society’s racial injustice, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is still struggling to find his voice.

Mr. Johnson was late to address the protests in London and other cities after George Floyd’s death. He has oscillated between calls for law and order and promises to listen to black Britons.

Erdogan and Trump form new bond

Relations between President Trump and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey were in the worst state in recent memory 10 months ago — heading toward clashes between their armies across the Syrian-Turkish border.

But as the coronavirus threatens recession and rallies their opponents, the two leaders are finding a common cause — for now. On Monday, they shared a few jokes during a phone call, according to Turkey.

“To be honest, after our conversation tonight, a new era can begin between the United States and Turkey,” Mr. Erdogan said afterward.

Details: In recent months, Mr. Trump has even assisted Turkey’s interventions in Syria and Libya. He also did not impose sanctions on Turkey for its purchase of a Russian S-400 missile system, which has helped Turkey stay closer to the West.

Also: President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine won an endorsement for his anti-corruption policies with the approval of a $5 billion lending program from the International Monetary Fund.

If you have 5 minutes, this is worth it

Russia’s oil spill spreads toward the Arctic Ocean

Here’s what else is happening

Sweden: The country’s judiciary has finally named a man who they believe assassinated Prime Minister Olof Palme on a quiet Stockholm street in 1986. A prosecutor said “reasonable evidence” pointed to Stig Engstrom, a graphic designer, who took his own life in 2000 at the age of 66.

Brazil: As deaths in the country from the coronavirus outbreak surge to the world’s highest, President Jair Bolsonaro is threatening military intervention to protect his grip on power. Political leaders and analysts say that military action remains unlikely; even so, the possibility is destabilizing the nation’s democratic institutions.

‘Gone With the Wind’: The streaming service HBO Max has removed the 1939 movie from its catalog, pledging to eventually bring the film back “with a discussion of its historical context.” Long considered a cinematic triumph, the movie has come under scrutiny for romanticizing the Civil War-era South and glossing over the horrors of slavery.

Snapshot: Above, members the Sikh Center of New York feeding protesters in Queens. The center has served more than 145,000 free meals in the past 10 weeks. It’s part of a Sikh tradition of feeding anyone in need, which has found new purpose during the coronavirus pandemic and the protests over the killing of George Floyd and police brutality.

Madeleine McCann: With a new suspect, journalists have returned to Praia da Luz, the town in Portugal where the British toddler vanished 13 years ago. Residents are wary of the attention, especially while other unresolved crimes have been archived.

What we’re looking at: This drone footage of green turtles migrating to Raine Island, the world’s largest sea turtle rookery, courtesy of The Sydney Morning Herald.

Now, a break from the news

Cook: These crispy kimchi pancakes are both satisfyingly chewy and shatteringly crisp. Use the most flavorful traditionally prepared kimchi you can find — it’ll make all of the difference in this simple recipe.

Watch: Our TV critic has some suggestions on what to watch if you’re looking for a foreign spy thriller, or simply something light. And, these movies showcase L.G.B.T.Q. characters in all of their wonderful complexity.

Behold: We asked 11 illustrators of Asian descent to create a self-portrait, reflecting on their heritage, their stories of immigration and how they identify as Asian-American.

Read: Here’s a look at down-and-out graphic novels including “The Complete Works of Fante Bukowski,” which our reviewer says is both gleefully malicious and unrepentantly stupid — a winning combination, for the most part.

We may be venturing outside, but we’re still safest inside. At Home can help make staying in tolerable, even fun, with ideas on what to read, cook, watch and do.

And now for the Back Story on …

A Syrian pharmacist’s Covid diary

Hosam al-Ali is a pharmacist in Idlib who volunteered to be the main virus-response coordinator in his region. He keeps an audio diary, which he shared day by day with our Istanbul bureau chief. Here are some of his entries on fighting a pandemic in a war zone. They have been condensed, and edited for clarity.

APRIL 5

A Day of Pain

Today I conducted training for the White Helmets [a Syrian civil defense group].

There were two teams, each with 10 people. We did two sessions to avoid crowding.

The next morning, I woke at 5 a.m., and we modified slides for the lecture. The slides outline the criteria for sending people to health facilities. They also tell people how to handle dead bodies.

The trainees from the White Helmets are very interested. Their motto, I learned, is from the Quran: “Whoever saves the life of one, it is as if he saves the life of all mankind.”

The whole day my mood was very bad, because my tooth infection had moved from my mouth to my eye, and it was very painful. I started to look like a teddy bear.

APRIL 12

The Search for a Ventilator

Yesterday a friend called me. He was looking for a ventilator for his newborn baby. All of the hospital ventilators were busy — and still we don’t have a single coronavirus case.

If that is happening, it means the medical capacity is very poor.

Today I felt depressed: I heard the baby died.

MAY 5

Pressure on All Fronts

There is something very important going on these days. It is not about the coronavirus.

It is about the people. They are in a very difficult situation. Everything is super-expensive now. The dollar is rising, and the Syrian pound is on the floor. The rate of $1 is 1,500 Syrian pounds. People are going crazy. God help the people with Ramadan, coronavirus and high prices. God help the people.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Isabella

Thank you Carole Landry helped write this briefing. Samin Nosrat provided the recipe, and Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh provided the rest of the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S. • We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is about remembering George Floyd. • Here’s today’s Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: Ice cream holder (three letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • Times journalists explained how they decide if scientific research is reliable for Times Insider.

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[bountyofbeads]

16,000 Readers Shared Their Experiences of Being Told to ‘Go Back.’ Here Are Some of Their Stories.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/reader-center/trump-go-back-stories.html

PLEASE TAKE TIME TO READ, ABSORB AND SHARE readers responses when they were told to 'GO BACK ' TO where they came from. 😭🙏🏻😭🙏🏼😭🙏🏽😭🙏🏾😭🙏🏿

16,000 Readers Shared Their Experiences of Being Told to ‘Go Back.’ Here Are Some of Their Stories.

By Lara Takenaga and Aidan Gardiner | Published July 19, 2019 | New York Times | Posted July 19, 2019 |

“Go back to where you came from.”

These seven words are seared into the minds of countless Americans — a reminder that they haven’t always been welcome in the country where they were born or naturalized because of their appearance, language or religion.

For many, the pain of past encounters throbbed again after President Trump attacked four Democratic congresswomen of color in a series of tweets this week.

“Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” he wrote in one.

When we asked readers if they had been told to “go back,” some 16,000 responses flooded in on our website, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Readers recounted the insults they’ve heard as African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans and Jewish Americans. Many recalled first becoming aware of their “otherness” as young children and said that slurs have followed them into adulthood. Their stories span decades, with notable upticks after 9/11 and Mr. Trump’s election. And several readers expressed regret after telling others to “go back.”

We chose 67 of the most representative stories to feature here, lightly edited and condensed. If you’ve been told to “go back,” please share your experience in the comments.

The First Time

I was 12 the first time I heard that. My mom and I were at Costco and it was Christmas Eve. We went there to pick up a ham. By the time we made it to the register, the lines were huge. At some point, a middle-aged white woman tried cutting in line. My mom stopped her, and when she did, the woman said, “Get out of line and go back to Mexico.” When we wouldn’t respond, she got louder and louder.

I had never felt so small or so angry in my life. Even though I’d seen racism on TV and in the movies, that was the first time I ever experienced it in real life.

— Justin Vazquez, Irvine, Calif.

I am American. I was born and raised in Texas. I call this state my home and have never known any other. I am also Muslim and South Asian.

I vividly remember the first time a boy yelled at me to “go home.” I was in middle school and getting used to my first official locker. I had a top locker, which I was excited about, but had not quite mastered it. One afternoon, rushing to change out books between classes, I accidentally dropped one of my textbooks on the foot of a boy whose locker was below mine. I recall turning to him and his friends and saying, “I’m so sorry!”

He stood up — much taller and bigger than I was at 13 — and screamed into my face: “What is wrong with you? GO HOME, YOU DIRTY … ” I won’t repeat his words, but they are seared into my memory.

It was the first time I felt someone’s hatred of me so viscerally. I felt confused, scared, angry and alone. He was the first of many — usually men, usually white, usually angry — who have yelled at me to “go home.”

Now, as a professional adult, it is usually not a slur screamed through an open car window or someone shoving me down a middle school hallway — it is the subtle and not-so-subtle, “Where are you really from?” and, “Are you sure you’re Muslim? You don’t seem like the others,” comments masked as questions.

No matter how many American flags I put on my lawn, how diligently I pursue the American dream that my parents came here for or how hard I try to be the model citizen, it seems I am the perennial “other” — that I have to constantly prove my allegiance to my country and that I am (no really! I am!) American.

— Sakina Rasheed Foster, Dallas

When I was in seventh grade, I commented to some classmates that I didn’t like cheeseburgers. One of them, a white girl, turned to me and said, “You’re not American, go back to Mexico!”

Everyone in the group laughed, and I joined in, trying to disguise my shock.

I’ll never forget that instance, and how “othered” it made me feel. Never mind that I was born in Albuquerque, and am not of Mexican descent.

Up until that moment, I thought my classmates saw me as one of them, an equal. I realized after that day that my Spanish surname and the color of my skin made me an outsider in the eyes of my white classmates.

— Margot Luna, Washington, D.C.

New Tensions After 9/11

I’ve been called a terrorist and Osama bin Laden’s son. I’ve been told to go on my jihad. I’ve been called a member of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. These all came during high school. I was born here, yet others told me I didn’t belong.

I always tried to shrug off the comments. At times, I’d even try to educate the people who called me these names to tell them why it’s incorrect to categorize me as that. I’m a first-generation American and my parents emigrated to the United States from Iran in the 1970s.

— Keian Razipour, Los Angeles

I immigrated to the United States from Panama in 2002 at just 8 years old. My mother enlisted in the Army, so my first experience of America was living and attending school at a military base in North Carolina six months after 9/11.

Faced with hypernationalism, hyperpatriotism and being “othered” by my peers for my language and cultural barriers, I was told to “go back” to my country on an almost daily basis. I was called an “alien,” “beaner” and “wetback,” words that I had no cultural context for.

I wished for nothing more in those first months than to be able to go back home to Panama — but this was my home now. My mother was fighting alongside their fathers. Didn’t that mean we belonged here, too?

— Paola Salas Paredes, Washington, D.C.

I had just started a doctorate program in August 2001. Soon after 9/11, I was talking about the attacks with some of my fellow graduate students. We had a disagreement about what the American response should be. My response was clearly not bellicose enough — my classmates thought we should immediately obliterate the entire Middle East.

These same classmates told me I should “love it or leave it” with respect to the United States. I asked them where I should go — back to Texas (where I grew up)? They said no, where your parents came from. I asked them if I should go back to New York (where my parents were from). They said no, where my “people” are from (three of my four grandparents emigrated from Poland and Russia).

I’d experienced anti-Semitism growing up, but never anything like that. I had never been called un-American, and never been told that this wasn’t my home. I didn’t realize at the time that this was just the beginning, and that this “with us or against us” mentality would metastasize into what we are seeing today.

— Rachel Walker, Keller, Tex.

Growing Up As An Asian-American

The worst experience was when I was a young child, playing on my driveway, and heard several thwacks and felt a cold sticky substance running down the back of my neck. I had been egged, and our house had been hit with vegetables. Someone shouted from a distance, “Go back to China, chink!”

— Kenneth Hung, New York City

I immigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines in the early 1970s with my parents, and we became U.S. citizens soon after our arrival. We lived in a very diverse neighborhood in the Near West Side of Chicago right next to the local university’s medical schools.

One unfortunate day, my mother took my 8-year-old brother and 12-year-old me to a neighborhood that was predominantly white. While my brother and I patiently waited in the car for my mom, a group of kids from that neighborhood came up to the car and started throwing stones at the car while yelling, “Go back home, you chinks!”

Thinking this was just a case of mistaken identity, I tried to explain to them that we were not Chinese, but was pelted with rocks. My mother ran out to yell at these kids to stop, and soon a white adult from the neighborhood came running out. Just when I thought sanity would ensue, the white adult, in support of the rock-throwing kids, told my mother to get the hell out of their neighborhood and to go back home.

My mother drove us out of there in tears, as she wiped the tears from my face.

I had never experienced such outward hatred and bigotry before and I was wondering to myself why were they so angry. My innocent 8-year-old brother broke our silent drive home by saying, “Those must’ve been Sox fans!”

My mom and I could only smile through our tears at the wonderful innocence. From that day on, my brother and I became very aware of our ethnic identities and the power of ignorance and hated.

— Gerry Granada, Chicago

My parents used to own a small diner in Santa Monica, Calif., when I was young. A customer didn’t like his order and got the ketchup bottle and sprayed it all over the wall of the store and yelled, “Go back to your country!”

It was the first time I was made to feel like an “other,” through my parent’s experience.

— Brian Kim, Hayward, Calif.

Los Angeles

I’ve been called a terrorist and Osama bin Laden’s son. I’ve been told to go on my jihad. I’ve been called a member of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

—Keian Razipour

As a kid in elementary school, people found out that I’m Vietnamese and would tell me to go back to my communist country because I must be a communist.

Hearing that from students and teachers as an American citizen and as a young child was hurtful and incredibly frustrating because my family had fought in Vietnam against communism. I had family members that never came home from that war — but that didn’t make a difference.

— Hannah Tong, Winona, Minn.

When my younger sister and I were in elementary school, we were told by an older student to “go back to China” after we refused to tell him whether we knew Yao Ming (so, two racist slurs for the price of one!).

We were both born in America to immigrant parents; our father came from Japan, our mother from Taiwan. We had never even been to China. We grew up in a predominantly white suburb of Chicago, and though I knew we were Asian, it had never occurred to me until then that we might be seen as different or strange in the only home we had ever known.

— Natalie Yang, Chicago

The People Who Said ‘Go Back’ — and Regret It

Unfortunately, I do not want to admit this, but I have told people, people who are Americans, to go back to their country (which does not make much sense other than the fact that they look different from the majority) and I feel horrible for it.

While I do regret these actions, I felt emboldened at the time because of the current political climate.

— Richard Nahas, Omaha

Several years ago in Los Angeles, a guy cut me off in a parking lot. That escalated into yelling out of windows and, to my utter shame, I yelled for this Arab-looking man to go back home.

I was ashamed then and more so now and have never repeated this epithet.

But to say this is not who we are as Americans is not entirely true. This is who we are on our worst day. I would give a lot to be able to apologize to this man.

— Matthew Sunderland, Joshua Tree, Calif.

One day while shopping in Home Depot, a lovely dark-skinned man of obvious Asian origin commented to me how very hot he found it in my Florida hometown ever since moving from New York.

Without thinking, I said, “So why don’t you go back to where you came from?” meaning, fully and honestly, to New York, not the country he’d emigrated from.

“I mean, to stay cooler,” I quickly added, seeing the look of insult that swept over him.

Both of us remained silent as he led me to my aisle. For me, I realized every word I utter has impact.

— teZa Lord, St. Augustine, Fla.

African-Americans’ Constant Battle For Equality

I’ve been told to “go back to Africa” repeatedly. At this point, I don’t really feel anything about it because I’m accustomed to people’s ignorance. I’m a black American and my family has been here since the 1600s. I usually just respond with that fact and people get uncomfortable. The funny thing is that one of my nonblack ancestors is actually Robert E. Lee.

— Whitney Lee, Washington, D.C.

Decades later, I still remember how much it hurt.

I was usually the only little black girl in class. I was teased about my nappy hair and my wide nose. My dark skin was called dirty. Many times, I was told to go back to Africa although I’ve never been.

And it wasn’t just mean kids. Even teachers would sometimes ask me where I was from with a look of disdain.

I rarely stood up for myself. I would just shrink inward in unwarranted shame. It wasn’t until the era of black pride that I finally found my voice. I’m black and I’m proud of my African ancestry and look forward to one day going to Africa for the first time!

— Pat St.Claire, Atlanta

I was about 13 when a white classmate overheard me complaining to friends about the Vietnam War. He looked at me and said, “If you don’t like it here, why don’t you go back to Africa?”

I was too shocked to respond. I had never considered Africa to be my homeland. My family has roots in northeastern Louisiana dating back to slavery. To me, my ancestral home was Oak Grove, La.

It wasn’t until much later, after many other such negative interactions, that I understood how, to many whites, African-Americans are not considered to be real Americans, equally deserving of the rights and privileges of citizenship.

— Michael Hornsby, Albany

I was on a summer league basketball team in 1990. We played a game in Squirrel Hill, the same neighborhood as the Tree of Life shooting.

We beat the all-white team with a late flurry of baskets. In the team and their fans: anger. We were called “N-s.” Our lone white player was an “N- lover.” We were “monkeys” and told to go back to Africa.

In 1990 and in western Pennsylvania, we all had experienced racism and disrespect on that level except our white player. He quit the team. Embarrassment? Shame? We don’t know because none of us ever saw him again.

— Allen Malik Easton, Pittsburgh

The Ignorance Fueling Racist Comments

I was in high school and my brothers were in elementary school. We were riding the school bus in the morning to school. Some kid threw a crumpled-up piece of paper and yelled, “Go back to where you came from! You didn’t win in Iraq and you aren’t going to win here!”

What this redneck didn’t know was that we are from India, not Iraq. He had thought that my Sikh brothers and I were Muslim.

— Reetu Height, Nashville

I’m Peruvian-American born in Flushing Hospital, and yes, I’ve been told to go back to “Taliban.”

— Chris La Rosa, Queens

I am a black woman of biracial ancestry. My mother is a white Jewish woman and my father is black. My facial characteristics are racially ambiguous, and I am often misidentified as Latina, specifically Puerto Rican, Dominican or Cuban.

Several months ago, at a gas station in Jacksonville, Fla., an older white man approached me as I pumped gas into my car.

“How many houses did you clean to buy that convertible?!” he yelled.

Startled, scared and angry, I chose to ignore him because, well, it is a “conceal carry” state.

As I attempted to quickly place the nozzle back onto the pump station, he walked closer to me and with venom in his voice said, “You should take your ass back to Mexico!”

— Chevara Orrin, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

My family suffered at the hands of plantation owners in Hawaii and during the internment camps of World War II. Even when our countrymen thought of us as traitors, we fought for them in the 442nd.

My mother, sister and myself have been told numerous times to “go home.” My family has fought, died and worked for a more perfect union for generations. Seeing the president and his apologists share this idiocy is infuriating and hurtful.

— Joel Higa, Chicago

During my first semester in college, my friends and I were walking to dinner when two guys told us to “go back to China.” This was 2015, at a highly selective private school in an urban city, so it was incredibly shocking to hear those words on campus.

I envisioned college as a place where people were past making racist remarks, but it only confirmed to me that society still saw Asians as perpetual foreigners.

To be honest, at the time I was still a green card holder, but I had spent my entire childhood in the U.S. The country that I’m “from” is Canada.

— Stephanie Yuan, Washington, D.C.

Abuse In The Trump Era

I was walking my two boys out of their middle school. In the school’s driveway, as several students and parents were walking out, a minivan pulled out to my side and a middle schooler yelled at me and my boys to go back to my own country. She was driving with her mother and was barely 13 years old.

I was dumbfounded and surprised. There was hate in her and her voice and expression. I did not catch the minivan’s license plate number but did catch a Trump sticker on the back. This was right after Trump got elected.

I felt hurt, as this was the first time I was confronted with racism in my face.

— Yogesh Lund, Austin, Tex.

I am the U.S.-born white parent of a child adopted from Vietnam. He is a naturalized U.S. citizen.

In early February 2017, just a few weeks after the “Muslim ban” went into effect, someone put a sign on our front lawn. It was a Trump/Pence sign from the 2016 election. The side facing our front door had been papered over with “Ban Them All” written on it.

It was devastating. It took my breath away to see such hatred directed at a child, to know the intent was for my sixth grader to see that message when he opened the door to go to school.

We called our town’s police, but we had to make follow-up calls to try to convince them to classify it as a hate crime. I posted a picture of the sign on a local Facebook page, and this spurred an outpouring of support.

Two days later, our lawn was decorated with dozens of signs saying things like “You belong here” and “We’re glad you’re here.” I believe love will always trump hate, but two years later, my family is still reeling from this hateful act.

— Bonnie Gardner, Vienna, Va.

I had a new employee whom I was instructed to train in 2017 where I was employed in Kansas. He was from the South and I am originally from California.

Upon introductions, he immediately spun around and told me to go back to the country where I came from and get the “HELL” out of America. This was after Trump was elected and he was bragging about being a Trump fan. I never talk politics at work so I let his comments go.

It was very unnerving trying to train someone whose viewpoint was that I was an unwelcome immigrant from California.

— Mayjo LaPlante, Topeka, Kan.

I mentioned to my friend, whom I’ve known for 50 years, that during my recent visit to Australia, how impressed I was with the national health care system in comparison to the dismal state of ours.

I was devastated when she suggested I move to another country since, “You don’t seem happy with this one.” I responded that “I’ve been a proud and patriotic American citizen since I was naturalized at age 10,” that this is “my country as much as it is yours,” that I care deeply it and that critiquing and participating in protests against certain government policies is patriotic.

I reminded her that protests against the Vietnam War helped end it sooner and saved American and Vietnamese lives. She didn’t respond.

We’ve had a deep chasm in our relationship since she voted for Trump, whom I consider a racist and abhorrent individual who lacks character and decency.

I love my friend, but I now suspect she’s a white nationalist. As painful as it may be, I’m considering whether it’s time to address my concerns with her and see where the chips fall.

— Nadia McGeough, McLean, Va.

Reacting And Responding

About five years ago, I was watching the Fourth of July parade in Bristol, R.I., when a woman who was upset because I was unintentionally blocking her view, shouted, “Go back to your country!”

Even though I wasn’t an American citizen, I had lived legally here for more than 15 years, married to an American citizen with an American daughter. I was very upset and felt humiliated, but I said back to her: “Are you a Native American? If not, you should go back, too!”

— Rogeria Christmas, Bristol, R.I.

I was told to go back one beautiful, sunny afternoon in Brooklyn. I turned around to make sure it was indeed what I had thought I heard as I walked past a woman, someone mumbling, “Go back to Egypt.”

When I turned back and looked at the deliverer of the message, she looked at me directly and repeated it. I was in a sassy mood and retorted, “I’m going to take you with me.” She quickly turned around and avoided further conversation, and I smirked my way down that Brooklyn block and laughed it off with my friend who was with me.

— Rokshana Ali, Queens

Changing To Blend In

From my experience here in Tennessee, I have learned that I am no longer allowed to wear my head scarf in public because of constant harassment and physical assault.

I used to work in West Town Mall at a local phone store, and I was harassed and followed to my car multiple times by racist people telling me to go back to my country.

There was even a time I was grocery shopping and was screamed at and chanted at in the middle of Walmart, “RATS GO BACK TO IRAQ.”

It was so hurtful as a child to know people didn’t know me and already hated me. And it has affected my mental health as well.

— Yasmeen Hamed, Knoxville, Tenn.

This happened a couple of years after Sept. 11. I was walking out of the old Barnes & Noble on Austin Street in Forest Hills with my husband, who was carrying our granddaughter on his shoulders. An older white woman, who mistook my husband to be Iranian (he’s Central American and has a beard), started shouting at him to go back to Iran.

She then said our granddaughter should have burned in the towers instead of Americans.

I was blind with rage, but my husband remained calm, as it appeared our granddaughter was unaware of what the woman was saying and that it was directed at the two of them. This woman did not see me, as I was behind them. It took all of my willpower to not make a scene for my granddaughter’s sake.

The next day my husband shaved his beard so as to not appear too “Muslim.” My heart broke that day.

— Adele Chavarria, Brooklyn

When Bystanders Stay Silent

One day, on a crowded subway train in New York City, an older couple wanted to get on the extremely crowded train car that I was in. They asked me (a visibly Muslim woman wearing a hijab) to move over, although there was no room for me to do that. I told them that I couldn’t move, and they responded by pushing me to the side and saying: “In this country, you’re not that important. Go back to where you came from.”

I felt offended about the assumption of where I am from, and totally taken aback by the fact that they felt they had more of a right to take up space than someone else did, no matter where I was from. Although others nearby heard what they said, no one spoke up and I felt incredibly vulnerable.

— Lama Ahmad, Dearborn, Mich.

The day the lockdown broke in Boston after the marathon bombing, I went with a friend who happens to be East Indian to celebrate (and breathe easier) at a bar in Boston.

An older white man who stood behind us was muttering insults somewhat under his breath. Finally, I turned around to face him, to which he replied, “Take your slanty eyes back to your country.”

I am Filipina-American, born in San Diego. My father served in the Navy. Though I grew up in New Orleans, I have no “accent.” Not Southern, not Asian, not even Bostonian. Not that that would matter, but I mention it only to highlight that the only quality that signaled “not from here” to this man was the color of my skin and my facial features.

He would not relent, and out of sheer disbelief and anger at his taunts, I stood up on my bar stool, now the tallest person in the room, and shouted at the top of my lungs (I was a junior varsity cheerleader): “WHAT DID YOU SAY? Say it again! Say it again because everyone in this room is going to hear you now.”

I was shaking and afraid. The room buzz went down, then back up again. No patron intervened the way someone always does when there’s a punch thrown. Soon, the manager of the bar, a white woman, came out and asked me to wait in the back room. The bartender, a black male who had witnessed the incident and knew the man taunting us, came back as well. I explained what happened and she offered to give us a gift certificate or to comp our dinner. I was appalled. I did not want a free meal, nor did I want to be pulled aside for my calling a bigot out.

I left that day, not celebrating freedom after the city’s siege. I left feeling imprisoned in my skin in my home country — a born citizen who will never truly belong.

— Annaliza Nieve, Newbury, Mass.

San Antonio

It doesn’t matter that I’m multigenerational American. It doesn’t matter that I come from a long history of veterans and social activists who have worked to make our nation safer and stronger.

—Eddie Torres

I was born in the States but raised mostly in South Korea until I moved here in the early 2000s. About five years ago, I sat next to an elderly man on a bench in the subway. He immediately recoiled and started complaining about how I shouldn’t be sitting there, though I didn’t realize this at first because I was listening to music.

When I finally realized he was speaking to me (or about me), I immediately felt afraid. I did not want to engage him, so I stood up and began walking away. He yelled to my back: “You don’t even speak English, do you? Go back to your [expletive] country!” It was a pretty busy platform, but everyone averted their eyes and pretended they couldn’t hear anything. No one said a thing.

I waited for my train burning in shame, thinking about all the things I could have said to him. I’ve had quite a few encounters like this over the years and it’s always the same: I’m stunned into silence, and the slow burn of anger lingers for a long time.

— Seine Kim, Brooklyn

Dealing With Slurs At Work

When I was a reporter for the CBS TV affiliate in Fresno, a viewer called asking who was “the spic on the air?”

I said: “You are talking to him. How can I help you?”

Other times, the message was, “Go back to your country.”

— Pablo Espinoza, Elk Grove, Calif.

I am a physician. I worked on a patient in serious condition. In the morning, he was much improved and woke up. The first thing he said when he woke up was that he wanted a white physician and I should go back to my country (expletives excluded).

A Latino patient next to him defended me and told him, “If that doctor went to sleep instead of taking care of you, you would not have woken up today. Be thankful.”

I knew I saved his life and that was important to me, not his prejudice.

— Sridhar Chilimuri, White Plains, N.Y.

One day at summer camp, a bully who pretty much did whatever he wanted at camp was bullying a little girl over her ice cream. She was crying and before I realized the implications of what I was about to do, I yelled out, “Hey, leave her alone.”

He looked at me and said, “Shut up, spic, go back to where you came from.”

This was the first time I was ever called a “spic” and suggested that I did not belong here because I was not American.

I felt isolated, alone and scared because the bully was now moving toward me and I was surrounded by other kids who were his friends, and I was now going to be the recipient of his wrath. Luckily for me, camp counselors saw what was about to transpire and broke up the confrontation.

In my first year as a firefighter, I was the only person of Hispanic heritage in the department. One person asked if I was an affirmative-action hire. Another said, “Why couldn’t a white guy get the job?”

The thought that I had gone through the testing process and passed on my own merit was more than they could comprehend. Then someone said, “Why don’t you go back to where you came from?”

Those same feelings I felt as a 10-year-old boy came rushing back. Again I felt isolated and alone, but the counselors were not there to save me. I looked back at him and said very calmly, “I was born in Stamford, Conn.”

— Rey Rodriguez, Danbury, Conn.

Children of refugees on ‘American-ness’

As the first-generation daughter of Vietnamese refugees, throughout my entire life I have been told to go back to where I came from. Every single time, those words wound me to my core. My parents fought and sacrificed endlessly to scratch out a life of opportunities for my sisters and me.

Just because my eyes are slanted does not mean I am any less deserving of being here. Just because I am a woman of two languages and two cultures does not mean I am any less American. Just because I see the flaws in our government does not mean I am not patriotic.

In fact, all those things make me inherently more American. This country was built on the backs of immigrants, shaped by hundreds of cultures and molded by the voices of dissent for equality.

— Christina Tran, Greenville, S.C.

Growing up in Chicago in the Uptown neighborhood, I’ve been discriminated against since I was 5 years old. My parents were Cambodian refugees who arrived to the U.S. in 1981. I was born four years later.

The one that I remembered clearly was in Uptown. I was helping a friend parallel park her car. I stuck my head out the window to help her when all of a sudden a white man walking by told me to go back to where I came from.

I was stunned but not fazed because this racism wasn’t my first encounter. People always question my American-ness because I’m Cambodian-American and I don’t look white.

— Phirany Lim, San Francisco

When you’re told to ‘speak English’

I was born in Philadelphia to Palestinian immigrant parents. I’ve been told on numerous occasions to go “back to Palestine” (or “back to Pakistan,” an unsurprising error racists seem to make).

Once while shopping and chatting with my mother in Arabic on the phone, I heard a man tell me that “We speak English in America. Like it or leave.” I hung up the phone, turned to him and said, “I beg your pardon?” and watched his shock. He hurried away.

But I didn’t feel victorious. I felt humiliated. As he’d wanted me to.

— Susan B. Muaddi Darraj,Phoenix, Md.

I went to the post office to mail a package. There were many steps going up to the entrance door. I was holding my 4-year-old daughter’s hand. We counted in English on our way up. We mailed the package. On the way back down we counted in Spanish. Suddenly, an older woman said, “This is America; talk to your daughter in English or go back to Mexico.”

I don’t think she realized I spoke English because she was very caught off guard when I replied: “As a U.S. citizen I know that because I live in America, I can speak in any language I please.”

This is just one of five instances since Donald Trump was elected president. In my entire 34 years previously, I’d only ever been told such a thing one time.

It makes me feel like I belong nowhere. I’m a U.S. citizen born to an immigrant parent who later became a naturalized citizen. However, I feel like I will never be American enough because I’ll never be white. Regardless of my accomplishments or strife, I’ll just never be good enough.

— Sandra Benitez, Sunnyside, Wash.

Some years ago, I was in a bar with a friend chatting in Arabic. I went up to get a few more drinks, and some guy thought I had cut in front of him and said, “Don’t you know we have lines in this country?”

I was taken aback and asked, “Excuse me?” He responded, “If you don’t like it, why don’t you go back to your country, and have fun drinking over there.”

As a rule, I don’t ever try to explain my humanity to someone — it’s a degrading experience in and of itself. So I ignored him, got my beers and went back to my table. My best revenge is enjoying my time with my sister at our local bar.

— Randa Tawil, Seattle

[nonoboymusic]

Monday Music: Parekh & Singh / Wes Anderson & Colonial Legacy

A lovely, little group to stumble across as the summer nights linger a little longer than we deserve in the northern hemisphere and we have need of songs with which to further enjoy the lengthened twilights and unnamable oranges and pinks which play on clouds or air pollution, depending on your location.

The venn diagram of people who would enjoy Parekh & Singh and people who would enjoy quirky coming of age comedies with an OCD level of attention to whimsical detail and the meticulous direction of Wes Anderson, has a large overlap, as you can see in the chart below.

It is then a smart branding move of Parekh & Singh, with their perfectly pocket sized indie dream pop tunes to make music videos in tribute to Wes Anderson, the divisive, brilliant auteur, and favorite of the indie set. 

I quite like this music. It’s good. But, what I find really interesting here, is thinking about Wes Anderson’s films and specifically the criticism he faces when it comes to his handling of minority and foreign characters, especially in the context of two Indian guys taking his work, which at times has indeed, been questionable, especially in its portrayel of Parekh & Singh’s fellow countrymen, and other south asians.  

I’m an ardent W.A. fan, but I do not mind if people jump on Anderson for Gene Hackman’s character being openly (and hilariously) racist in Royal Tenenbaums or if they have a problem with Owen Wilson’s Custer obsessed, war paint donning character in the same film. In all honesty, the mention of the tongue-in-cheek “Chick-chaw” trail in Moonrise Kingdom always makes me cringe, even though I love that film. I appreciate when people are aware enough to point out uncomfortable moments of appropriation in his films and I do not make apologies for him. But, I personally don’t get too bent out of shape over that stuff when it pops up in movies, especially when I think that this director (white man, he may be) is smart enough and sensitive enough to be pointing out the problems of race in society through showing cartoon versions of racism. My argument would be that Anderson doesn’t get race right all the time, but he might actually be doing better work with it than we might have previously thought, given the knock that Wes Anderson and White are synonyms.

(Eli Cash high on mescaline wearing war paint, Royal Tenenbaums)

Take Royal Tenenbaums. Hackman’s character Royal is an admitted “asshole” after all and his racism is a part of that lost old white man-ness of his character. Eli Cash, Owen Wison’s character, and the other great offender within the ensemble cast, is a drug addicted sendup of white academics who get way to deep into the culture they “study,” and go totally off the rails, wearing funny hats and in Cash’s case, writing in a “sort of obsolete vernacular.” The one prominent black character in any of Anderson’s ensemble casts is Henry Sherman, played by Danny Glover. Sherman certainly is largely there as a target for Hackman’s racist comedy (”Coltrane,” “You want to talk some jive!? I’ll talk some jive!”) but Glover’s character is also successful accountant and ends up marrying Royal’s wife, played by Anjelica Houston, which obviously upends a lot of stereotypes of black folks in cinema. 

(The great back and forth between Glover and Hackman, Royal Tenenbaums)

Thinking about it now, I actually think Royal’s racist moments, are not only for easy-ish laughs, but to also identify him as a man out of time, as a tragically flawed hero. In many ways, Royal Tenenbaums is a very American movie, about a family which chases innovation and prestige, dedicating itself to upholding a strong protestant work ethic, only to come up short despite all of their talent because in the end the world is hard and we are all broken to some degree, and all that really matters is love and tending your own garden, as Voltaire might say. The tragedy and triumph of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s writing and life sings throughout all of Anderson’s American set films (especially in RT and Rushmore, which was inspired by Fitzgerald’s “The Last Tycoon”).  

What better sin to possess the patriarch of this dying star of an American family with than a kind of dwindling, last gasp of the white supremacy. Royal has to overcome many things in order to redeem himself by films end -- abandoning his family -- but he also must overcome a bigoted white machismo, as he finds himself outmatched not only by a changing, more progressive society, but also more directly by a strong, smart, and handsome black man, who has won the heart of his wife, because he is a better man than our hero could ever be. 

Just because an issue is dark and complicated, doesn’t mean it can’t serve well in a colorful comedy--see the way Anderson also handles mental illness, anxiety and suicide in this film, in a way which doesn’t drag the proceedings into total despair, or interrupt the pace, or comedic stability of the overall work, but at the same time, does not treat these topics as inconsequential, but in fact addresses them with respect. 

(Royal Tenenbaum and Henry Sherman making amends, Royal Tenenbaums)

In short, I think it’s fair to criticize Anderson. If you just don’t like his style, fair, his talent may not engulf you the way it does myself and other fans, and this certainly alters how we view his appropriation, or how he writes for characters of color. I get it. It’s fair to cry foul over a movie like Tarantino’s Django Unchained, and say, maybe, white film makers just shouldn’t put words into the mouths of black actors when explosive issues of race are involved. I can respect that because it comes from a position of historical knowledge in which, taking in the scope of slavery, anti-blackness, civil rights, and white supremacy, it’s almost too much to deal with, and honestly, who needs a white guy trying to write blackness onto the screen, especially when plenty of black filmmakers don’t get the same shot. 

If you don’t like Anderson’s precious, meticulous aesthetic (or Tarantino’s over the topness, for that matter), which I can understand, his inclusion of minorities and foreigners (which he has made a space for since his first film) is an easy target. But I think it’s worthwhile to consider this: W.A. is a white dude writing racially charged dialogues and characters, but what is that dialogue and what are those characters doing?

(Anthony, Inez, and Dignan from Bottle Rocket)

I met Wes once, at an NPR office of all places, and so I picture his tired but kind, press tour handshake and smile, when I think of him as I write this. He wears his influences on his sleeve. A white, liberal boy from Texas with a hard on for 60s European cinema and British folk/rock music, who is a nice guy in an expensive camel hair blazer. A soft voiced auteur who seems both normal and a bit snobby, with a singular vision within filmmaking. 

Still, I can sympathize with those critics who call him out, and I don’t necessarily disagree with their points. It’s important to have watchdogs out there to not let people get away with shit concerning race, because some really serious, bad stuff can go down if marginalization is the norm, like life or death stuff, not just annoyances from silly movies. Although, I do feel bad for these critics if they haven’t experienced  the brilliance of Rushmore, the first movie I remember sitting down and watching and afterwards, coming out of the theater,  telling my buddies Josh and Phillip, whoa, that was like a really good film.

(”Payback Scene” from Rushmore, featuring The Who’s “A Quick One While He’s Away”

So, back to Parekh & Singh... Two private school kids from Kolkata who do the indie dream pop thing as well as anyone in the states or Britain, with no trace of an accent. Obviously, British colonialism has left a trace on these guys. Is that a bad thing? Well, I sure like this music, and judging from their pin-point accuracy in performing this style, they sure like British music and have studied the great indie pop of the 90s and 00s from the isles and stateside. And what does their adoption of the Anderson aesthetic in their promotional videos and photographs say? Well, obviously, like many indie pop fans, they enjoy his films. It’s an eye catching visual to replicate and it got my attention, as I would imagine it got many of the hundreds of thousands of people who have viewed their videos’ attention. 

The intrigue arrives when we consider that Anderson’s least successful film, both as a film and a cultural product handling race, is Darjeeling Limited. It’s his most exploitative work by a mile, setting a story of three rich white brothers (played by Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, and Adrian Brody) on a farce of a spiritual journey to reconnect with their nun-mother who is living somewhere in India. They travel by train and India, like classic films from the 50s and 60s, stands in for the “exotic” locale where rich white people find out something. 

(Darjeeling Limited trailer)

There are two supporting actors of south asian descent on the train --which serves brilliantly from a cinematography point of view as the main setting-- played by Amara Karan and Waris Ahluwalia, but they have little more complexity than the colored folks in a Tin Tin comic, that is to say not much (that is to also say, I cherish my Tin Tin comics, even Le Lotus Bleu.)

(Amara Karan plays “Rita” in Darjeeling Limited)

The criticism of Anderson, privileged, white boy director, is most founded here. The movie--rewatching some scenes, now--still has a ton of great moments, though the script is more uneven than his best work (especially the films cowritten by Owen Wilson) and the chemistry between the leads is not great. But when it comes to his treatment of India, there are a number of head shaking moments to choose falling into the cliches of bad, racist costuming, cultural mishandling (especially in terms of religion), exoticization of "oriental” women, white savior complexes, and the fact that the country is little more than literal window dressing from the inside of a train, a liminal but safe compartment from which these three western brothers bicker like children and try to find meaning while taking drugs, fucking hot chicks, and being tourists playing at the Beatles-y spirituality which so many westerners define India by. So, criticism deserved on this one, I say. It’s one thing when W.A.’s setting is Brooklyn or a prep school, because Anderson has some ownership over this cultural context. He has very little ownership over India. He took a trip there, enjoys Bollywood, but the conflation of the country and the superficiality with which he treats it, especially given how necessarily superficial and visually focused his movies are, that’s a little bit of a deal. 

Still, some great scenes, amazing shots, great use of The Kinks, and funny lines. 

(Brody, Wilson, and Schwartzmen in Darjeeling Limited)

So, the question I would love answered is what do Parekh & Singh think, as Indian dudes who love Wes Anderson about Darjeeling Limited. They probably love it, the same way, as an east/southeast asian dude, I really like Karate Kid or don’t actually mind Last Samurai, because 1.) Tom Cruise is fucking awesome always (in movies) and 2.) it’s a fucking movie and my outrage is better spent elsewhere. But, perhaps there’s something more annoying about Anderson’s missteps in Darjeeling than those hollywood blockbusters precisely because Anderson wears a camel hair blazer to an NPR interview with Robin Young. Artsy, bookish liberals are supposed to know better where big hollywood productions don’t give a shit about race sensitivity and just want to make money, so, duh, Tom Cruise totally should be the centerpiece of a movie that takes place in Japan. Still, I’m curious what Parekh and Singh would think (I’ve also texted several south asian friends on their Darjeeling feelings, realizing I’ve never asked). 

Anderson’s aesthetic is highly colonial. He loves the prim and proper style of the British Empire, the bright colors of the military uniforms, and the organization inherit in Britain’s grotesque domination of much of the world in the 19th and 20th century. 

(British Colonial style)

Musically, Anderson’s heavy use of 1960s British music is interesting because it came at a pivotal time in British and western history. It was the soundtrack of a dying Empire and an emerging globalized (American) world. I ask myself, was the British Invasion with all of its appropriation (Rolling Stones=Blues, then country, Kinks=Rock, Hillbilly) the swan song of an empire or a the sonic marking of a sea change towards a more progressive society? 

(The Kinks)

Concerning film, Anderson borrows heavily from French New Wave cinema and classic Italian masters, and we must ask, similarly to his British Invasion admiration/fetish, is this a continuation of brilliant but white-washed and colonial film making in the guise of mid century cultural change within these respective western european countries, or was this film making truly pushing towards a more culturally inclusive and aware future?

(Seberg et Belmondo, A Bout de Souffle (Breathless))

So, again, Parekh & Singh: Sons of colonial subjects taking the culture of their former conquerers and making their own music, or subjects of a continued colonial legacy? Probably both. Having grown up Vietnamese, but fully appreciating the French culture my mother was born into in Saigon, I don’t think it’s such an easy thing to demarcate. French culture is my culture, even if, I think French colonialism was bullshit, horrible, and wrong. British culture is Indian culture for some Indians, probably moreso of upper class kids like Parekh and Singh, and their private school crowd. No judgement on any individual actors. By looking at their work, as well as Anderson’s we can take a minute to reflect on the deeply engrained transnational, colonial influences, and the good and bad of this legacy in art, and in the world.

At the end of the day, this is talented group making good tunes and using a popular director’s style to promote their music, and I’m fine leaving it there. As an academic-ish, I do appreciate their videos for making me think more deeply about Anderson’s work and history, I guess. 

Also, I want to mention, that, after Darjeeling Limited and the ultra-white, school boy fantasy Moonrise Kingdom (a great film, despite the “Chick-chaw trail), I really loved Anderson’s next film Grand Budapest Hotel featured Tony Revolori, a Guatemalan-American actor as the film’s hero. I’m sure Parekh & Singh, like myself, appreciated seeing a brown skin kid as their hero, especially in what was perhaps Anderson’s best work to date.

(Tony Revolori as Zero in Grand Budapest Hotel)

[teachanarchy]

Responding to the recent targeted attacks on South Asian Americans requires a deeper solidarity with the experience of previous generations.

I saw the picture before I knew the whole story, but then pictures tell their own stories, don’t they?

This one shows the inside of a general store, somewhere in the United States, and the antique cash register and sepia-tone suggest that it was taken long ago. There’s a dashing South Asian man, wearing a bowtie and vest, hands in his pockets, looking off screen. He seems sad, though; his stance mirrors the pillar at the center of the room.

Even without a caption it’s clear that this man works in this store, which, I’m embarrassed to admit, is a mildly astonishing realization — did vest-wearing South Asian people work in this country back then? But there are other, more burning questions: What is he looking at? Is he alone because the store is closed, or because business is slow? Is that the cause of the forlorn expression he wears — or is there some deeper pain showing through?

This man was, as I found out, named Vaishno Das Bagai and he actually owned that general store on Fillmore Street in San Francisco. According to records, in 1915 he moved to the United States — selling his properties in India and arriving on Angel Island with his wife and two kids — and a few years later he was naturalized as an American citizen. He opened this shop around that time and took this photo in 1923. Bagai, it would seem, was living The American Dream.

And yet, as the melancholy in this photo hints at, there were roadblocks to that fantasy. In a letter he wrote to the San Francisco Examiner in 1928, Bagai compared life in this country to living “in a gilded cage.” He wondered out loud if he had made the right choice by moving here. He wrote of insults and the laws which prevented him from owning land. A litany of depressing and familiar facts for immigrants, even today.

He wrote of insults and the laws which prevented him from owning land — a litany of depressing and familiar facts for immigrants, even today.

Of course the stories of immigrants in this country have never been quite as simple as we’d like them to be. Nor has the story of the country itself. In 1924, after a Supreme Court case barred Asians from citizenship — because they were not white — this South Asian small business owner lost his footing. Feeling unwelcome in his chosen home, he longed to return to India. But, without citizenship, that wasn’t possible either; as he writes in his letter, “They will not permit me to buy my home and, lo, they even shall not issue me a passport to go back to India.” Soon he lost his general store too.

Heartbroken and hopeless, Bagai rented an apartment in San Jose in 1928, turned on a gas stove, and took his own life. The letter he wrote to the Examiner was his suicide note:

“I do not choose to live the life of an interned person: yes, I am in a free country and can move about where and when I wish inside the country. Is life worth living in a gilded cage? Obstacles this way, blockades that way, and the bridges burnt behind.”

To see a reflection of yourself in a photograph is an affirmation of the moment, but also a reminder of the life that extends well before you. Every selfie on Instagram announces: I am here, but also I have been here. The timestamp is always a culmination of moments.

Since every picture captures a moment in the past, when I see a bit of myself in one, it can feel a bit like time traveling. Looking at this photo of Bagai, taken nearly 100 years before the events of 2017, we see him and his story, but also a century of other stories of South Asian Americans in this country — told and untold. It’s impossible not to hear the echoes of our current stifling moment reverberating in that empty room.

Since every picture captures a moment in the past, when I see a bit of myself in one, it can feel a bit like time traveling.

In the last few months, at least three men of South Asian origin have been shot in the United States. In Washington, a Sikh man named Deep Rai was standing in his own driveway when a white man yelled, “Go back to your own country!” and fired at him.

Harnish Patel was fatally shot outside of his home in Lancaster, South Carolina.

In Kansas, Srinivas Kuchibhotla was killed in a bar by a white American who thought he was “Middle Eastern.” That man also apparently yelled “get out of my country” before killing him. Afterwards, his wife, Sunayana Dumala, wrote a mournful note on Facebook, asking, “Do we belong here? Is this the same country we dreamed of…?”

Sikh Americans Prepare For Resurgence Of Anti-Islamic Violence Sikh Americans are turning to community as they face mounting bigotry in the wake of Trump.theestablishment.co

When I first saw a photo of Kuchibhotla pass across my Facebook feed, accompanied by the horrific story of his murder, it showed him and Dumala on vacation in Las Vegas. In the background the Paris Casino is visible, and a billboard reads “The #1 Best Buffet in Las Vegas.” Both are smiling. They look happy.

Though he’s not wearing a bowtie, Kuchibhotla has a face like Bagai’s. A handsome mustache. But unlike the early 20th century general store owner, Kuchibhotla is looking directly at the camera, as if he is looking directly at us. Waiting for a response.

Of course, his photo came to me with more context. Not only in the form of a link, but with the fact of shared time. Kuchibhotla and I are no doubt very different, but we were alive on the same days. And though his picture is not mine, I too have seen the Paris Casino in Las Vegas—I’ve taken photos on that street.

I’ve also been down Fillmore Street in San Francisco many times, but I don’t think Bagai would recognize that area today. In that sense, we are much more tenuously linked. I wonder then how the answer to Dumala’s question about belonging here might also be different today than it was in 1928— even as certain circumstances, woefully, are not.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s executive orders and ongoing exclusionary campaign — which has been fueled by white supremacist hate — there are ample reasons for immigrants and their children, especially those with dark skin and who wear a headscarf or turban, to wonder if they should stay or go. And though these legislative actions and hate crimes have no doubt been influenced by the rise of the alt-right, they are also a continuation of a much older story.

How long have we been killing South Asian people in this country? For as long as they have been arriving here (which is at least since the 1700s). This story of xenophobia is really just the founding story of America itself. Which even before Bagai opened his store was permanently embedded with a legacy of genocide, chattel slavery, and hatred of “others.”

This story of xenophobia is really just the founding story of America itself.

Yet, within that broader narrative, South Asian Americans have long played a complex role — one that has often remained purposefully obscured, off-camera. It’s certainly not a part that the media or our history books tend to spotlight, but it’s also not one that has always been claimed by many South Asian Americans either.

In a 2015 piece for the New Yorker—which also begins with Bagai’s story—author Karan Mahajan reflects on how the the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 transformed Asian American identity in the U.S., establishing new possibilities, which ultimately could not avoid the old limitations:

“There are now, in a sense, two Asian Americas: one formed by five centuries of systemic racism, and another, more genteel version, constituted in the aftermath of the 1965 law. These two Asian Americas float over and under each other like tectonic plates, often clanging discordantly. So, while Chinese-Americans and Indian-Americans are among the most prosperous groups in the country, Korean-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans, and Filipino-Americans have lower median personal earnings than the general population…More damningly, the reputations of Asian-American groups, just as in the past, can turn on a dime, with national or international events triggering sudden reversals.”

Today we seem to be amidst another of those turning points (or is it a circling back?) where anti-Muslim and anti-Black sentiments—alongside long festering anti-immigrant attitudes—have metastasized to include all Asian communities, seemingly regardless of faith or class. It’s hard not to feel a sense of deja vu.

In 1915, when Bagai and his peers arrived in America, despite the fact that many of them were Sikh and Muslim, they were often collectively called “Hindoos” — attacked as a homogenous group of foreign men arriving to take white jobs (see the Bellingham Riot of 1907). During a 1914 House of Representatives hearing on immigration, California Representative Denver S. Church described Hinduism as a “Mohammedan” religion which was bound by “a strange religious fanaticism” (his argument seems largely based on what these men would or would not eat).

Church would, a month later, introduce a bill banning “Hindu laborers” from the country, which laid the groundwork for the 1917 Immigration Act — which imposed literacy tests for immigrants and barred most people from Asia from entering (though, as opposed to today, that “barred zone” did not necessarily include most of the Middle East).

Anti-Muslim and anti-Black sentiments — alongside long festering anti-immigrant attitudes — have metastasized to include all Asian communities.

Echoes of that racist language can be heard in the rhetoric used to drum up fear of Muslims on Fox News, but the same intentionally limited understanding of “others” means this fear also includes Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs, and even those brown-skinned Asian-Americans who voted for Mr. Trump. Mahajan’s essay makes the important point that to flatten the Asian American experience today is to misunderstand it, and in many ways only serves those who seek to push everyone who isn’t white, out.

After all, there are also communities of Americans whose grandparents are Bengali and Puerto Rican, or Black and Afghani — some of whom are also queer, trans, poor, disabled — and their experiences are more complicated than even the “two Asian Americas” accounts for. These people have also been killed in this country.

The Truth About The Men Who Riot And Kill theestablishment.co

Mahajan concludes by saying, “If Asians sometimes remain silent in the face of racism…it is not because they want to be part of a ‘model minority’ but because they have often had no other choice.”

But perhaps this risks, in another way, making a similar mistake of flattening — especially across time and circumstance. Deja vu is a feeling, but not necessarily a memory. Don’t some South Asian Americans have more choices than others? And, specifically, aren’t our choices today different than those of our parents — of previous generations?

In his letter, Bagai writes about the decade he spent trying to become as “Americanized as possible,” only to be faced with hate and exclusion. When I look again at him in that photo, I imagine that part of what he’s looking off at is the colonial oppression he thought he left behind in India. He was actively involved in the Gadar Party here, who were working to try and liberate their home country. He was hoping to rally support for that radical movement, but was met instead with suspicion and surveillance by the U.S. government.

Asian Americans like Bagai lost their citizenship after the Supreme Court heard the case of Bhagat Singh Thind, who in 1923 lobbied to be seen as “Caucasian” — describing himself as “a high caste Hindu of full Indian blood.” In India his actions were framed as a fight for racial justice — some believed Thind’s anti-colonial activism was the reason the judge ruled against him — but even if it had been successful, Thind’s citizenship case would not have eliminated racial oppression in this country. It, after all, did not include Black Americans in its pursuit of Caucasian-ness (or most others with dark skin).

Meanwhile, after Thind’s failed case, men like Qamar-ud-din Alexander went to court to argue that they were white precisely because they weren’t “Hindu.” These South Asian folks described their ancestors as Persians or Arabs, and thus felt that they should be seen as white, as opposed to men like Thind. They also failed.

How We Learn To Love ‘Good’ White Men With Guns theestablishment.co

What’s striking about this history is not so much the fact that different groups of South Asian Americans were desperate to keep themselves and their families safe in America, but that 100 years later some of our tactics have not changed.

Regardless of our desperation, proximity to whiteness has not lost its allure. As one man, Gaurav Sabis, recently told CNN, some Indian-Americans still don’t like to be “confused with Arabs or people from Muslim countries” because they consider themselves “quasi white.” And within all South Asian communities, including Muslim ones, there remains a current of anti-Blackness. Yet if there were reasons for South Asians trapped under British Rule to see Thind’s case in a more complicated light, we have fewer ways of explaining these actions today.

Violence and distrust of people of color has always existed in this country — but there are limits to the comparisons we can make across time. Because small business owners in San Francisco today are not exactly the same as those in 1920s San Francisco, when that cash register in Bagai’s store had only recently been invented. Wealthy, straight South Asian American men here are certainly not dealing with the exact same problems of exclusion Singh did, and have an extra century of disproportionate power in this country to ponder (as compared to the women in their own communities, Black Americans, and other more marginalized groups).

Proximity to whiteness has not lost its allure.

Do we belong here? America itself does not belong here. This land was stolen, built by force. South Asian immigrants, and their children, are as “Americanized” as anyone else the moment they arrive. Whether or not the white people in power accept them is a question for those people to answer — but it’s clear our own communities haven’t always been welcoming, inclusive places either.

Responding to the targeted attacks on South Asian Americans in this moment, then, feels like it requires a deeper kind of solidarity with previous generations. It requires furthering their work, not just remembering what they went through. Allowing them to travel with us. That means not ignoring the pain of those most in need in our own communities today, including immigrants, nor the danger in which other communities exist. Not shying away from the complications of identity.

There have always been these additional South Asian Americas: those in pursuit of power, and those who are organizing against it. But these histories of radical resistance have also been largely overlooked by those in power. These include stories of Dalit liberation movements connecting with Black American leaders. The organizing work of queer South Asian Americans. And the women who have confronted the legacy of sexual violence left by partition.

Yet, though I feel the rush of representation when I look at these old photographs now or hear these stories of activism, I also have to remember again the two or four or million “Asian Americas” that exist, and have existed, in this country. And that, as a straight cisgender man, every narrative isn’t mine.

Do we belong here? America itself does not belong here. This land was stolen, built by force.

The racist murders of Srinivas and others echo murders in the past, but their photos also serve to highlight the life that extends around and ahead of us. Of how much nuance exists in a single person’s story, and how systems of hate and fear insulate us from that expansiveness. Because there are also echoes of Bagai’s words in those of Daniela Vargas, the young dreamer who, when threatened with deportation, wrote, “I don’t understand why they don’t want me. I’m doing the best I can.” And though echoes are not equivalencies, they are opportunities for empathy. For collaboration.

This is one way South Asian Americans might honor the life of those we’ve lost—remembering them along with Black men like Luke O. Stewart. Not forgetting Jamie Lee Wounded Arrow and the trans women of color who have also been murdered this year. Recounting the specifics of all their stories, and sharing their pictures. Looking at them together. To better understand our past, and what we each carry forward.

[ashtchau-blog]

Notebook 2

Ashley Chau

ETHN 2

Mondays @ 3 pm

York 3050A

Olivia Quintanilla

Notebook 2

For my second notebook, I’ve decided try making my “object” more broad in order to make it more focused (I know, this sounds completely contradictory. Allow me to explain, though.) As I mentioned in my previous notebook, I’d also given thought to writing about my dad for this notebook, notebook 2. I then realized, why couldn’t I write about them both, about both of their experiences; detail-wise they were completely different, but generally speaking they both encompass the course theme of “War and the Figure of the Refugee”. In order to better focus on the theme of “War and the Figure of the Refugee”, the national bind of citizenship, and the interplay of race, class, religion, and sexuality in shaping both my parents’ experiences as immigrants/refugees in America, I would like to include my dad’s story in this on-going reflective project. Essentially I’d like to talk about “the Figure of the Refugee” and provide specific examples, namely my parents, to better illustrate my intent/ideas.

The transnational context that surround both my parents’ stories are essentially the same. They both fled their respective birth nations (My mom fled from Cambodia, my dad from Vietnam) during the Cambodian Genocide and Vietnam War, respectively. Their parents fled, hoping to build a better/safer life for their children. Like many refugee families, they had only heard of the haven that was the United States of America. Never in their wildest dreams would they have thought that they would be sponsored by American families and allowed to build anew their lives in a foreign land from which they’d only heard tales of how benevolent, friendly, and humanitarian its citizens were.

Before I begin to analyze my chosen theme, my object’s national bind, and its inherent intersectionality, I must remember to recount my dad’s story. My dad, the third oldest of six, grew up in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The son of a pilot in the Southern Vietnamese Air Force (Anti-communists), he had it relatively easier than my mom. I’m not going to go into too much detail about his life prior to he and his family having to flee the South as it fell to the North (April 30th, 1975), but because my grandpa was a part of the Southern Vietnamese Air Force, my dad and his family were guaranteed an escape by cargo plane. He often recounts how in the middle of the night my grandma rushed to assemble her five (My youngest aunt was not yet born) children and pack one pair of clothes, not knowing what exactly was going to happen to them besides knowing that they had to escape or face the unimaginable (Being a military family, they most likely wouldn’t be let off so easily. Placement in a re-education camp was not likely.) Add on the fact that my grandpa would not be joining them, but would meet up with them in Guam. The cargo plane had no actual seats, being a cargo plane, with people packed in like sardines and made to stand for the entirety of the flight, from Vietnam to Guam (Approx. 5 hours). At one point in time, I’m not sure when/where, but my dad says he recalls devouring a package of rations meant for those in the U.S. military (crackers, mashed potatoes, etc.), and thinking it tasted so unbelievably good at the time. He says he probably thought so because 1. He was a young, famished child, 2. He had never had American food before and was in awe. He recalls how generous and kind the people of the U.S. were to offer their food and help in a time when his family needed it the most.

After spending three weeks in Guam, my dad and his family were flown to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas where a family sponsored their immigration to the U.S. It was from then on that my dad began the story of his U.S. citizenship. From learning English, to dealing with racism and bullying as an elementary schooler; having to pick strawberries in the fields and work odd jobs as a highschooler to graduating with a bachelor’s degree from Cal State Fullerton, my dad’s road to living the American dream became possible because the U.S. as a nation believed in humanity and the promise of those seeking a better, safer life within its borders. Like many who seek U.S. Citizenship today, my dad was not wealthy and could not offer much as a young refugee, except the promise of becoming a law-abiding, contributing, proud citizen that would one day “pay back” the kindness that this country has shown him. The beauty of the United States is its compassion and openness to people from different walks of life. Currently, a large portion of the U.S. populace is seeing an unprecedented and alarming shift in attitude towards foreigners/refugees/immigrants, no thanks to the current president’s astonishingly rash and dangerous ban on Muslims/individuals from certain majority-Muslim countries, even those that have valid greencards. Contrast this new “policy” to the treatment of refugees like my parents, not so long ago in U.S. history. What has changed? This question is not easily answered, but it’s important that we don’t regress and find ourselves in the modern equivalent of Nazi Germany.

Race, class, religion, and sexuality definitely shaped both my parents’ experiences as refugees/immigrants in the U.S. It is without a doubt that because my parents were Asian (generally seen as submissive and non-violent, easily directed/supervised), impoverished (they arrived in the U.S. with basically nothing except the clothes off their backs, at the mercy of their sponsor families), were determined to follow a religion that didn’t seemingly pose a threat to the American way of life (compare this to the current sentiment towards Muslims) or determined to be religiously moldable (my dad has mentioned that he remembers being made to go to church on Sundays with his sponsor family), and heterosexual (had they been homosexual, their acceptance into society would have been more difficult), their path to citizenship may be seen as less wrought with obstacles and hardships as some people’s paths today. I’d like to debunk that myth. My parents didn’t have it easy. They came here knowing no English whatsoever. They enduring daily bullying and racist comments from kids who’d never seen a “chink” before. They had their fair share of physical encounters with kids who messed with them or their siblings, which obviously meant that “[the bullies] messed with all of [my aunts/uncles]”. Working as highschoolers at donut shops, newspaper companies, and all other sorts of odd jobs just to help out their parents, it wasn’t easy.

A C5 cargo plane, similar to the one that my dad’s family stood in while escaping from Vietnam to Guam: 

Example of the type of military food my dad recalls tasted “so good” as a child/refugee:

Sources:

My dad

http://www.distancefromto.net/distance-from-guam-to-vietnam

http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2263

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal,_Combat,_Individual_ration

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3Z3sU0rPDkg/maxresdefault