Race
An exhausted Asian American and the Weight of the World
Struggling in a climate of Asian hate.
I woke up this morning with a keen sense of longing for my youth. I miss those simpler times. I miss them so much. I miss walking underneath autumn trees on a cold New Jersey morning, my black leather jacket pulled in close. I miss the red-orange of the leaves over my head and beneath my feet, the air crisp and clean and scented with that thick scent of grass. I even found myself missing the company of my old lover, whom I’d long cut ties to.
Maybe it was the midnight talks with my friends or the way the world is right now that brought these feelings of missing so strongly that it chokes me up. I just know that at 22, I didn’t have these worries I currently carry in my chest. Times were really much simpler then. No cell phones, no world news, no helplessness in the face of social woes. The simplicity and innocence of that time brings tears to my eyes and a nostalgia so strong, it shook me awake. It was a beauty that I wish I could steal for today as I wake up to an inbox of messages and red notifications that must be reviewed; and even as I face my reality, the ghost of damp earth and cool breezes and soft rain fills my memory. How I wish I could be there in 22 once more.
It’s a strange place to be right now as an Asian American. So much of the turmoil around me reminds me of childhood as new immigrants on American soil — the unrest, the brutality, the constant news of elders being injured. It wasn’t so different back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, except that it wasn’t splashed across headlines so most of the world was unaware. For us though, it was every day news, shared through shaky phone lines and trembling voices, compounding further the PTSD we’d carried across an ocean with us.
In the last few days, I’ve spoken with more of my people than I’d done in all of 2020, voices from all across the Asian diaspora. Their stories stayed with me through the nights, their voices encouraging me to keep writing, imploring me to please don’t let them be silenced again. The pressure for self-preservation is great, but their pain is greater.
Two nights ago, I spent about six hours on the phone with retired Southeast Asian gang leaders and members, getting their feel for the beat on the street. Where did they think all of this unrest would go? What would inevitably come? What was the feeling on the ground? None of it was reassuring. All of it sad and tragic.
Undoubtedly, I’m exhausted. It’s all overwhelming and hard to focus. Nights are sleepless without the help of sleep aids. Recently, there were several violent murders of Hmong women at the hands of Hmong men, domestic abuse and murder-suicide a consistent topic in my community. I’d addressed it in the past, yet here we are again in addition to the current run of Asian hate. It’s all too much.
I sometimes fantasize about leaving it all behind, finding myself a quiet cabin in some remote pine and maple covered island. Just me and my dog feasting on salmon while I focus on finishing that great American novel I swore to myself I’d write. Maybe friends and family could occasionally visit and bring me news of the world and supplies. They can tell me who won the World Series and if penny loafers are back in fashion.
I’m sure there are many out there who also wish for blissful calm. Somehow, being American came to mean being strung up constantly, running at full engines blasting, 120 miles per hour. At some point, that engine’s going to burn out. Eventually, some part of our society is going to have to give. There is no sane way to keep going the way we are.
I’m supposed to be writing a forward for a book right now, but instead I’m here with my anxiety, my sinking feelings, and my longing for simpler times. I’m thinking back on my life before I started writing, before the pandemic. I was a world traveler. I was a people and culture embracer. I loved the different faces I’d encounter in different latitudes and longitudes. I’d have long conversations with perfect strangers on their thoughts on the world and their own life stories. Nowadays, that only happens through Messenger chats, random strangers reaching out to say, “Hey, me too.”
Even as the pandemic starts to crawl towards a close, I worry if this will be for the better or worse. Have we reached the peak of the violence yet? Or are we just getting started? As people become free to mingle again, will the hate die down? Will Asian American issues just be brushed under the rug again? I don’t have any quick answers. I know I can only take things as they come, do my best to soften the blow and to bring awareness as best I can. I still feel like a nobody, just some woman behind a computer screen tapping away into the long hours of the night. Yet even so, I know each writing is like Morse code in the underground, beep beep pause, a message to my people to hold on, to be brave, that I’m here. I’m listening and I’ll be here for as long as they need their stories told.