A New Language for Our Time on Earth
I met Ocean Vuong (Vietnamese/American poet who just won the T.S. Eliot Prize and numerous other poetry prizes) a few weeks ago, and I could barely speak to him, my voice was trembling with unexpected emotion. I had bought his book, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, at random in Astoria Bookshop, and discovered a permission and a call within it to speak my own story. There's a line in his poem, "Immigrant Haibun," that I've written about here before:
If you must know anything, know that you were born because no else was coming. (my italics)
I read this and realized that I just had to write. Not because I'm clever or clever with words. But simply because I had things to say that no one else could say for me. We can't just rely on someone else's art and craft to carry us. We must make our own way. We all have to bear our share of creation. This responsibility confronts me over and over again as I read more and more, attend readings, visit art museums, watch performances, write and write and write. Because no else is coming. . .
Today, I got to host Newtown Literary and Queens Library's celebration of Asian/American writers in Queens. What a honor and thrill to share this afternoon with such amazing artists (Sangamithra Iyer, Syeda S. Rahman, Malcolm Chang, Noelle De La Paz, Eugene Lim). All the depth, the humor, the grace, the vulnerability, the lyricism, the deft storytelling, all that gorgeous language and language-bearing. It's hard to put into words how grateful I am for their work. This art is a true gift. Although we are always in sore need of such generosity, it continues to amaze me how expansive art can be, how our stories can stretch into all our nooks and crannies, how art can make things both fresh and new and deeply familiar and resonant. And after every piece that was read, I wanted to just listen more, to delve deeper into the worlds the readers opened up for us. I highly recommend checking out Newtown Literary. Issue 12 is out, and it is so good.
It's a little funny to me that I was asked to host an Asian/American literary event and that I find myself communing with Asian/American writers. I never sought out any Asian American groups and associations in college. I was sort of skeptical of the idea that sharing a broad racial/ethnic background, even though Asian/American experiences vary widely, was enough to bind me to a community. To my younger self, I suppose it seemed limiting. And very likely, this was a kind of snobbery that I see now was rooted in seemingly benign white supremacy. In the same way, my internalized misogyny rejected early female friendships because I wasn't "like other girls," I formed more connections with white people than with Asians like myself. And of course, I cherish those friendships with white people, some of them life-long and life-giving. But I also get now how nourishing and fertile the common ground is where people share your culture, history and struggle. How that freedom from being tokenized and marginalized (however unintentionally and/or lovingly it's done) leads to the courage and fortitude necessary to create, to enter that vulnerable state to say all the things that are urgent and true.
I read somewhere (and it was on a Facebook post about cultural representation in children's literature and I can't remember who posted it or who made this comment so I can't properly attribute it) that if we let others tell our stories, they are no longer our stories. This is a power, this power of creation, that we must wield ourselves. No one gives it to us. It's outside of the systems of oppression we humans keep erecting and perpetuating. We have this awesome power to make space for ourselves and to build a new lens or multiple lenses to view the world around us. The universe is still expanding, along with human experience. And if we/you are open to it, we can inhabit and explore these ancient and newborn places together. Then our stories become your stories become our truest stories once again. This is our infinite human magic.
If you must know anything, know that you were born because no else was coming. (my italics)
I read this and realized that I just had to write. Not because I'm clever or clever with words. But simply because I had things to say that no one else could say for me. We can't just rely on someone else's art and craft to carry us. We must make our own way. We all have to bear our share of creation. This responsibility confronts me over and over again as I read more and more, attend readings, visit art museums, watch performances, write and write and write. Because no else is coming. . .
Today, I got to host Newtown Literary and Queens Library's celebration of Asian/American writers in Queens. What a honor and thrill to share this afternoon with such amazing artists (Sangamithra Iyer, Syeda S. Rahman, Malcolm Chang, Noelle De La Paz, Eugene Lim). All the depth, the humor, the grace, the vulnerability, the lyricism, the deft storytelling, all that gorgeous language and language-bearing. It's hard to put into words how grateful I am for their work. This art is a true gift. Although we are always in sore need of such generosity, it continues to amaze me how expansive art can be, how our stories can stretch into all our nooks and crannies, how art can make things both fresh and new and deeply familiar and resonant. And after every piece that was read, I wanted to just listen more, to delve deeper into the worlds the readers opened up for us. I highly recommend checking out Newtown Literary. Issue 12 is out, and it is so good.
It's a little funny to me that I was asked to host an Asian/American literary event and that I find myself communing with Asian/American writers. I never sought out any Asian American groups and associations in college. I was sort of skeptical of the idea that sharing a broad racial/ethnic background, even though Asian/American experiences vary widely, was enough to bind me to a community. To my younger self, I suppose it seemed limiting. And very likely, this was a kind of snobbery that I see now was rooted in seemingly benign white supremacy. In the same way, my internalized misogyny rejected early female friendships because I wasn't "like other girls," I formed more connections with white people than with Asians like myself. And of course, I cherish those friendships with white people, some of them life-long and life-giving. But I also get now how nourishing and fertile the common ground is where people share your culture, history and struggle. How that freedom from being tokenized and marginalized (however unintentionally and/or lovingly it's done) leads to the courage and fortitude necessary to create, to enter that vulnerable state to say all the things that are urgent and true.
I read somewhere (and it was on a Facebook post about cultural representation in children's literature and I can't remember who posted it or who made this comment so I can't properly attribute it) that if we let others tell our stories, they are no longer our stories. This is a power, this power of creation, that we must wield ourselves. No one gives it to us. It's outside of the systems of oppression we humans keep erecting and perpetuating. We have this awesome power to make space for ourselves and to build a new lens or multiple lenses to view the world around us. The universe is still expanding, along with human experience. And if we/you are open to it, we can inhabit and explore these ancient and newborn places together. Then our stories become your stories become our truest stories once again. This is our infinite human magic.
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