STORIES
Jing Jing Wang, Zohreh Haycock, Tri Nghia, Malavika Kannan, Sowmya Kannan, Jeffrey Liao
Jing Jing Wang, Zohreh Haycock, Tri Nghia, Malavika Kannan, Sowmya Kannan, Jeffrey Liao
Podcast Episodes on Depression - Duality (February)
By Jing Jing Wang, Michelle Zuo, and Anonymous
My mom, a family friend, and I recorded these podcast episodes a bit over a year ago, in January of 2018. She had been shocked when I openly talked about my interest in psychology partly being due to my own experiences with mental illness. With the lack of conversation surrounding mental health in the Chinese American community and the shame around admitting that you or your family is struggling, my transparency regarding my struggles took her by surprise.
My situation and goals have changed, but I still largely stand by what I said. With limited time (and limited Chinese skills), these two episodes are just a shallow skim of my experience with major depressive disorder and my opinions on how Chinese American parents, and parents in general, can help their kids that struggle with depression. We touch on academic pressure, Chinese American parents’ automatic reactions to depression, perfectionism, tunnel vision, medication, proper parent child communication, school support, therapy, the perspective of a Chinese American parent of a child with depression, saving face, and more. I have continued holding these conversations with those around me and advocating on the topic of mental health. Joining the It’s Real team is just another way that I am working to help address mental illness, especially in the Asian American community.
I want to take a moment to thank my mother for her support, understanding, and willingness to participate. She has been invaluable as a bridge between me, a seventeen year old ABC (American Born Chinese), and first generation Chinese American parents. Her perspective as a parent of a child with depression who works closely with them to help support and push them is invaluable. Parent’s can be incredibly influential on a child’s mental health and I am grateful for her willingness to share her advice.
Total track time 57:51.
And a last note, currently the episodes are only available in Mandarin Chinese, but in the future we will see if we have the time and resources to provide a transcription and/or translation.
Podcast Title: 听 Michelle 讲述美国故事 (Listening to Michelle Tell the American Story)
By Jing Jing Wang, Michelle Zuo, and Anonymous
My mom, a family friend, and I recorded these podcast episodes a bit over a year ago, in January of 2018. She had been shocked when I openly talked about my interest in psychology partly being due to my own experiences with mental illness. With the lack of conversation surrounding mental health in the Chinese American community and the shame around admitting that you or your family is struggling, my transparency regarding my struggles took her by surprise.
My situation and goals have changed, but I still largely stand by what I said. With limited time (and limited Chinese skills), these two episodes are just a shallow skim of my experience with major depressive disorder and my opinions on how Chinese American parents, and parents in general, can help their kids that struggle with depression. We touch on academic pressure, Chinese American parents’ automatic reactions to depression, perfectionism, tunnel vision, medication, proper parent child communication, school support, therapy, the perspective of a Chinese American parent of a child with depression, saving face, and more. I have continued holding these conversations with those around me and advocating on the topic of mental health. Joining the It’s Real team is just another way that I am working to help address mental illness, especially in the Asian American community.
I want to take a moment to thank my mother for her support, understanding, and willingness to participate. She has been invaluable as a bridge between me, a seventeen year old ABC (American Born Chinese), and first generation Chinese American parents. Her perspective as a parent of a child with depression who works closely with them to help support and push them is invaluable. Parent’s can be incredibly influential on a child’s mental health and I am grateful for her willingness to share her advice.
Total track time 57:51.
And a last note, currently the episodes are only available in Mandarin Chinese, but in the future we will see if we have the time and resources to provide a transcription and/or translation.
Podcast Title: 听 Michelle 讲述美国故事 (Listening to Michelle Tell the American Story)
Chinese Description
最近我去朋友家做客，与朋友的孩子晶晶聊天时，我问她准备申请什么样的大学和专业，她说想学和心理健康有关的专业，并且现在已经在课外做了很多青少年抑郁症方面的分享，来帮助学生和家长们普及这方面的知识。这让我很吃惊，这才知道这个花季少女居然得了抑郁症。不过现在她已经大有好转，很振作了，并且知道自己追求的目标是什么。这次聊天一下子把抑郁症这个问题第一次拉到我面前，而且这么近。
我从来没有想到自己看着长大的这个朋友家的孩子会有这个病，也从来没有想过自己的孩子有没有可能会有抑郁症。可能很多家长也都没想过这个问题。不过抑郁症以前离我们也并不是特别遥远。以前以为这些名人或者艺人容易得这种病，后来以为中国来到美国的留学生不适应美国的学习和生活才会得这种病，这一次，面对着这个在我眼中一直是乐观开朗的女孩，是个ABC(American Born Chinese)美国出生长大的孩子，我一下子被敲了个警钟。于是我去网上查了一下资料，让我看到了一组心惊胆跳的数字。根据世界卫生组织统计，全世界抑郁症患者达3.5亿人，而仅仅在中国，已经有近1亿患者，每年有20多万人因为抑郁症而自杀，而且有年轻化的趋势. 预计到2020年，抑郁症可能成为全球人类第二大疾病。 所以，我和晶晶及她的妈妈一起录制了这个访谈。希望让更多的孩子 和家长能够扫扫盲，了解抑郁症的症状以及应对方法，帮助孩子早日认识并摆脱这种疾病的缠绕。下一期，我们将重点聊聊怎样治疗抑郁症，家长、孩子、专家、朋友都分别能做些什么。希望能对您有所帮助。期待下期与您再见！
English Description
Recently, when I went to a friend's house and chatted with my friend's child, Jingjing, I asked them what kind of university and major they were going to apply for. They said that they wanted to study a major related to mental health, and that they have done a lot of advocacy about teenage depression outside the classroom to help students and parents gain knowledge in this area. This surprised me, finding out that this flower season child actually got depression. But now they have improved a lot, is very excited, and knows what their goal is. This chat suddenly brought the problem of depression to my attention for the first time, and it was so close to home.
I never thought that the child of my friend, who grew up under my watch, would have this disease, and never thought about whether my child might have depression. Maybe many parents have never thought about this problem. But depression has never been particularly far away from us before. I used to think that only celebrities or entertainers were prone to this disease. Later, I thought that Chinese students who came to the United States might have depression because they couldn’t adapt to studying and life in the United States. This time, facing this teen who has always been optimistic and cheerful in my eyes, an ABC (American Born Chinese) who grew up in the United States, I was knocked out by the shock.
So I went online to check the information and saw a set of scary numbers. According to the World Health Organization, there are 350 million people with depression in the world, and in China alone, there are nearly 100 million patients. More than 200,000 people commit suicide every year because of depression, and the demographic it affects is becoming younger. It is estimated that by 2020, depression may become the second largest disease in humans worldwide.
So, I recorded this interview with Jingjing and their mother. I hope that more children and parents can have a basic understanding of depressions symptoms and learn how to cope with them, and help them to get rid of the disease as soon as possible.
In the next issue, we will focus on how to treat depression, what parents, children, experts, and friends can do. I hope I can help you. I look forward to seeing you next time!
最近我去朋友家做客，与朋友的孩子晶晶聊天时，我问她准备申请什么样的大学和专业，她说想学和心理健康有关的专业，并且现在已经在课外做了很多青少年抑郁症方面的分享，来帮助学生和家长们普及这方面的知识。这让我很吃惊，这才知道这个花季少女居然得了抑郁症。不过现在她已经大有好转，很振作了，并且知道自己追求的目标是什么。这次聊天一下子把抑郁症这个问题第一次拉到我面前，而且这么近。
我从来没有想到自己看着长大的这个朋友家的孩子会有这个病，也从来没有想过自己的孩子有没有可能会有抑郁症。可能很多家长也都没想过这个问题。不过抑郁症以前离我们也并不是特别遥远。以前以为这些名人或者艺人容易得这种病，后来以为中国来到美国的留学生不适应美国的学习和生活才会得这种病，这一次，面对着这个在我眼中一直是乐观开朗的女孩，是个ABC(American Born Chinese)美国出生长大的孩子，我一下子被敲了个警钟。于是我去网上查了一下资料，让我看到了一组心惊胆跳的数字。根据世界卫生组织统计，全世界抑郁症患者达3.5亿人，而仅仅在中国，已经有近1亿患者，每年有20多万人因为抑郁症而自杀，而且有年轻化的趋势. 预计到2020年，抑郁症可能成为全球人类第二大疾病。 所以，我和晶晶及她的妈妈一起录制了这个访谈。希望让更多的孩子 和家长能够扫扫盲，了解抑郁症的症状以及应对方法，帮助孩子早日认识并摆脱这种疾病的缠绕。下一期，我们将重点聊聊怎样治疗抑郁症，家长、孩子、专家、朋友都分别能做些什么。希望能对您有所帮助。期待下期与您再见！
English Description
Recently, when I went to a friend's house and chatted with my friend's child, Jingjing, I asked them what kind of university and major they were going to apply for. They said that they wanted to study a major related to mental health, and that they have done a lot of advocacy about teenage depression outside the classroom to help students and parents gain knowledge in this area. This surprised me, finding out that this flower season child actually got depression. But now they have improved a lot, is very excited, and knows what their goal is. This chat suddenly brought the problem of depression to my attention for the first time, and it was so close to home.
I never thought that the child of my friend, who grew up under my watch, would have this disease, and never thought about whether my child might have depression. Maybe many parents have never thought about this problem. But depression has never been particularly far away from us before. I used to think that only celebrities or entertainers were prone to this disease. Later, I thought that Chinese students who came to the United States might have depression because they couldn’t adapt to studying and life in the United States. This time, facing this teen who has always been optimistic and cheerful in my eyes, an ABC (American Born Chinese) who grew up in the United States, I was knocked out by the shock.
So I went online to check the information and saw a set of scary numbers. According to the World Health Organization, there are 350 million people with depression in the world, and in China alone, there are nearly 100 million patients. More than 200,000 people commit suicide every year because of depression, and the demographic it affects is becoming younger. It is estimated that by 2020, depression may become the second largest disease in humans worldwide.
So, I recorded this interview with Jingjing and their mother. I hope that more children and parents can have a basic understanding of depressions symptoms and learn how to cope with them, and help them to get rid of the disease as soon as possible.
In the next issue, we will focus on how to treat depression, what parents, children, experts, and friends can do. I hope I can help you. I look forward to seeing you next time!
Chinese Description
在出第二期节目的时候，突然听闻中国80后创业明星茅侃侃在2018年1月25日结束了自己的生命，生前患有严重的抑郁症，看来抑郁症已经不能让我们所有人轻视，愿逝者安息，我们这期节目继续上期话题，看看抑郁重生的少女是如何走出低谷的，晶晶是怎样治疗抑郁症的，家长、孩子、专家、朋友及学校都分别能做些什么。希望我们的节目能对您有所帮助。期待下期与您再见！
English Description
While preparing the second episode, I suddenly heard that China’s post-80s entrepreneurial star Mao Kankan ended his life on January 25, 2018. He suffered from severe depression during his lifetime. It seems that we can no longer ignore depression. I hope that the deceased will rest in peace. Our program will continue the topic of the previous issue to see how the depressed and reborn teens get past their low point. How does Jingjing treat depression? What can parents, children, experts, friends and schools do?
Jing Jing is a queer intersectional feminist and a senior at Redmond High School. They are passionate about the intersections between art, activism, identity, and mental health. They spend their time creating art (visual, dance, theatre), writing, doing community service, and loving a lot of things very deeply.
Jing Jing's mother was born in China and moved to the US in 1996. She is a software engineer.
Michelle Zou is the Founder and CEO at Pacific Technologies Consulting Group (PTCG), a Seattle based consulting and training company focusing on US-China cross border opportunities, helping American companies grow business in China and vice versa. She is a board director at Washington State China Relations Council, a trainer/consultant at Microsoft, executive coach, public speaker and radio host. Michelle publishes podcasts “In China with Michelle Zou” and “听Michelle讲述美国故事.” Prior to starting PTCG, Michelle has worked in Microsoft, HP, EMC and IDC. She has an MBA and MS in finance.
在出第二期节目的时候，突然听闻中国80后创业明星茅侃侃在2018年1月25日结束了自己的生命，生前患有严重的抑郁症，看来抑郁症已经不能让我们所有人轻视，愿逝者安息，我们这期节目继续上期话题，看看抑郁重生的少女是如何走出低谷的，晶晶是怎样治疗抑郁症的，家长、孩子、专家、朋友及学校都分别能做些什么。希望我们的节目能对您有所帮助。期待下期与您再见！
English Description
While preparing the second episode, I suddenly heard that China’s post-80s entrepreneurial star Mao Kankan ended his life on January 25, 2018. He suffered from severe depression during his lifetime. It seems that we can no longer ignore depression. I hope that the deceased will rest in peace. Our program will continue the topic of the previous issue to see how the depressed and reborn teens get past their low point. How does Jingjing treat depression? What can parents, children, experts, friends and schools do?
Jing Jing is a queer intersectional feminist and a senior at Redmond High School. They are passionate about the intersections between art, activism, identity, and mental health. They spend their time creating art (visual, dance, theatre), writing, doing community service, and loving a lot of things very deeply.
Jing Jing's mother was born in China and moved to the US in 1996. She is a software engineer.
Michelle Zou is the Founder and CEO at Pacific Technologies Consulting Group (PTCG), a Seattle based consulting and training company focusing on US-China cross border opportunities, helping American companies grow business in China and vice versa. She is a board director at Washington State China Relations Council, a trainer/consultant at Microsoft, executive coach, public speaker and radio host. Michelle publishes podcasts “In China with Michelle Zou” and “听Michelle讲述美国故事.” Prior to starting PTCG, Michelle has worked in Microsoft, HP, EMC and IDC. She has an MBA and MS in finance.
“Your Story” - Roots (May)
By Zohreh Haycock
“I had a pretty great childhood. I didn’t think there were any problems in my life, on the surface or underneath. When I moved to Colorado, this thought persisted. But it was just my mom that came with my sister and me. My dad stayed behind. She said it was for work stuff, since my dad owned a company. But a year or two passed and he was still in Maryland.
When he finally moved, I found out that the company went under and that my parents are separated. Not only was our only source of income cut off, but I also felt lied to. I adjusted to the situation, so this wasn’t a big problem. The big problems happened later. So my mom and dad are separated. My mom lived in a rented house in Cherry Hills Village and my dad in an apartment in Southglenn. I stayed with mom during the week because she lived in the school district and visited my dad on the weekends. I absolutely loved to visit him because not only did he live in such an active, exciting place and give me and my sister lots of freedom, I was such a daddy’s girl. I idolized my father. I looked up to him more than any other person in the world. I took after him, and he practically formed my personality.
So when my mom got evicted from the CHV house, since we lost all our money, I was okay with living with my dad full-time. I would visit my mom living with my grandmother every once and a while and live full-time with my dad. It was great. At first. Eighth grade came along, and you know how middle school is, but that wasn’t the biggest of my problems. For my history class, I had to interview somebody who lived during 9/11 and write about it. My dad was the perfect candidate. He worked at the NSA the day it happened, and he worked under the stress that one of the planes, the one the passengers took back, was headed straight for him.
Instead of asking him the questions like in a normal interview, I just gave him the sheet of questions and asked that he write his responses. It took him days to finish. I didn’t think anything of it. I did not know that I was digging up a traumatic experience and asking my dad to live though it again for days. I just wanted to share to my class the things my dad experienced because I was so proud of him. Later his mental health declined, and rapidly. Turns out he was using alcohol to dull the pain and PTSD he got from the Marines and the NSA, and this was the time he realized it. And I realized my dad was an alcoholic.
That wouldn’t have bothered me that much if he didn’t completely fall apart afterwards. But he did. He shut himself up in his room. I never saw him eat or do his laundry. He only stayed in his room, played on his computer, and drove me and my sister around. I had to become the adult, quick. I took over the job of cleaning the house, taking care of the dog, doing the dishes, doing the laundry, getting the groceries, and making sure my sister was happy. A 12 year old girl should not have all of these responsibilities. My grocery shopping led to me and my sister being nutrient deficient. My dad didn’t do anything. The man I looked up to for so long did absolutely nothing, and it was abuse. He never hit me or touched me, even in times I thought he would, but it was abuse nonetheless. It’s called child neglect. It wasn’t his fault though. He couldn’t even take care of himself, so how could he take care of his kids? I remember having to wake him up in the morning so that he would be able to take me and my sister to school. My sis and I would take turns with who would wake him up, but his room started smelling so much like weed that my sister refused to go in there.
I remember when he randomly came out of his room and asked me to watch a movie with him. He put his arm around me, just like he did when I was little, but it was extremely uncomfortable. He was a stranger. I remember when he had a panic attack and was keeled over, supporting himself with the couch. He told me that he was going to try and sleep and that if he didn’t wake up, to call 911 and say that he smoked one dole of pot. I remember these things most vividly than any other memory.
After a few months of this, dad finally decided to get some help. He went to hospitals and went inpatient and was in and out of rehab. He was getting help. And I should have been happy for him, but I didn’t forgive him for the months of neglect. When he moved out of the apartment, my mom moved in. She would do the dishes and do the laundry and make dinner and get groceries and just take care of me and my sister like an average mom. It was the most amazing relief. I thanked her for every little thing that she did because it lifted so much weight off of my young shoulders. I became very close to my mom. What happened to my father left a hole in me, and I used my mom to fill it. I also hated my dad. I hated him so much for so long for neglecting me, for doing nothing as I sat back and struggled. I struggled through a lot. Money was still an issue, so my mom got two jobs, one of them as a waitress. I was ashamed that the powerful CEO family I was in was reduced to this. We got poor enough that my mom applied for food stamps. Luckily we never had to use them. At least I don’t think we ever did. But I also struggled through middle school. My sociability was a little stunted. I wasn’t able to have close friends. I didn’t really have much empathy for anyone. My dermatillomania developed even more and started including my face (dermatillomania is a chronic skin picking disorder. I’ve had it all my life so it was never much of a problem until I started picking my face. Not the best thing for an insecure middle school girl). I thought I was crazy. I thought I was some sort of sociopath. This is the beginning of my mental health decline. I got depressed. At first it wasn’t too bad. I barely noticed the critical voice in my head bullying me. But because I never got help, it just got worse.
For three years my depression and anxiety developed. I couldn’t forgive myself for getting a B in physical science. I believed I was the stupidest person alive when I couldn’t answer a question. I hated myself for every single thing I did. There was no way I could win. I tried self-harm, but it feels the same as skin picking, so I wasn’t able to find relief even there. My family experience did not get much better either. Money was still a big issue, and my sister’s mental health was getting bad too. Also my dad tried to rebuild a relationship with me. And it was terrible. I still hated him. The only way I could bear being around him was by thinking that my father died and the man I saw was nothing more than a distant relative. All of this was happening, and at times I thought about talking about it and getting help. But I didn’t. I thought I didn’t need it or that I didn’t deserve it or that it would be too much of a burden on my family and other people. It’s very hard to start talking about your problems.
By junior year, my depression took over my entire self. Every single second of every day I would bully myself. Not only was I incapable of doing my homework and chores, I could not eat or sleep or literally do basic human activities. I was walking home from the bus stop once and just stopped walking because my depressed mind couldn’t even make my legs move. That was when the suicidal thoughts were the worst. I started making plans on how I would kill myself. Luckily none of them were followed through.
One night I had the worst panic attack in my life. My hatred for myself and the pain I was feeling was unbearable and I wanted it to stop so badly that I was gonna slit my wrists and bleed out. I am so incredibly fortunate that my mom was there to stop me and to talk to me and to love me. Without her, I probably would have gone through with it. It was only then, when I was staring death in the face, that I finally got help. It was only the terrible, extreme fear of myself and what I could do that motivated me to talk. Even with that motivation it was hard. I decided to talk to my mom first. I trusted her and loved her enough to open up completely (and still do). She was so incredibly kind and helped me continue talking to the people I needed to. I talked to my school counselor and then to psychiatrists and then teachers and then friends. Each time I had the conversation with someone, I was so scared. But after each time, the fear started going away. It got easier to talk about myself and my pain. Not only did these conversations get me into therapy and on medication, but they also relieved some of the burden I was putting on myself. And when you are in so much pain, any relief is a blessing.
I’m doing much better now. My critical voice is nearly gone, I have motivation to do things, I like hanging out with friends and I like doing fun things, and I am really very happy sometimes. I even forgave my father for my eighth grade experience, and I am rebuilding my relationship with him. Sometimes it gets bad and I am reminded of who I was and how my mind worked in the past. Money is still problematic. My motivation can still be variable. Sometimes I want to feel depressed again. But my God, life is the most amazing thing. I’ve realized that now, and I can’t ever take it for granted again. When I was suffering, it was impossible to see the light, to see any reasons at all to keep living. But even when all you can see is darkness, you need to believe that there is some light in order to be able to find it. It might take some time, and sometimes you might lose hope, but the light is always there, even if you can’t see it, just as there are always reasons to live, even if you can’t think of any at the moment. Even if you don’t believe this is true, please just keep it in the back of your mind. It might help you later. And please don’t let yourselves hit rock bottom, like me, before you decide to get help. The pain isn’t worth it, and the fear of talking goes away over time.
Suffering through your problems by yourself is not brave but arrogant, and wanting not to burden other people with your problems isn’t heroic but irrational. It is brave to talk about your problems to other people. Please be brave and save yourself, before it’s too late.”
- Zohreh Haycock (Littleton, CO)
Words I Wish I Knew You Needed - Thunder (August)
by Tri Nghia
Last week I lost my 30-year-old cousin to suicide. I have been struggling to process his death because I want to understand it. I found myself reading old text messages and looking at old photos to see signs, analyzing his smiles and words just to make sense of it all; Was he depressed for a long time? Was he depressed at all? Did he reach out for help and I miss it? As I talked to my family and his friends, I found that most were just as surprised as I was. My cousin and I joked around a lot, we were similar in our happy go lucky personalities and also shared a sense of adventure for the outdoors. You would have never known he was suffering to this degree. I am learning that not everyone presents how we expect someone that is suicidal to present — some people are really good at hiding it. He was. I wish I could have supported him. I wish I had the chance to say these words to him. I wish I knew he needed to hear these words. I write them now for anyone who is reading this and may need to hear them.
by Tri Nghia
Last week I lost my 30-year-old cousin to suicide. I have been struggling to process his death because I want to understand it. I found myself reading old text messages and looking at old photos to see signs, analyzing his smiles and words just to make sense of it all; Was he depressed for a long time? Was he depressed at all? Did he reach out for help and I miss it? As I talked to my family and his friends, I found that most were just as surprised as I was. My cousin and I joked around a lot, we were similar in our happy go lucky personalities and also shared a sense of adventure for the outdoors. You would have never known he was suffering to this degree. I am learning that not everyone presents how we expect someone that is suicidal to present — some people are really good at hiding it. He was. I wish I could have supported him. I wish I had the chance to say these words to him. I wish I knew he needed to hear these words. I write them now for anyone who is reading this and may need to hear them.
- Helpers need help too. I heard you once told someone that if they are sad and hurting, they should not go through their pain alone and that they should call you. You deserve this too. You do not need to feel what you are feeling alone. That is a large weight to carry. I am here to help carry a portion of that with you.
- You are not a burden. I am in your life and you are in my life. We are family (or friends) and I want to lighten the load for you if I can. I choose to, I want to, you are not a burden to me.
- Sharing is hard, but carrying pain and suffering alone is harder. I know there is a lot of shame placed in admitting your suffering and pain, but I love you more than that. I will listen without judgment — even if that is all you need from me.
- Nothing is too big or too little. Pain is pain and suffering is suffering. If it is real for you, I will see it as real for you. I will do my best to support you through your reality.
- Our relationship is deeper than just joy. We have a lot of fun together, but that does not mean we cannot be sad, angry, or disappointed together. If I have any type of relationship with you, I welcome it all.
Perfectionism is a Myth, Unless You’re a Young Woman of Color - Fall (September)
Malavika Kannan
Originally published in HuffPost
Yesterday, I earned the first B of my life. An 89.16 percent, to be exact.
It’s really not a big deal, in the cosmic sense of things, because (a) it was in AP Calculus BC, which is notorious for near-impossibility, (b) I’m a writer, not a mathematician, and (c) it’s my senior year of high school, for crying out loud.
But still, my first reaction was to mentally start packing my bags, retreat to the Himalayas, reject formal schooling and become a female monk. I don’t have tiger parents, in case you’re wondering. That’s just the way I am — a chronic perfectionist, who also happens to be a model minority and also a writer from one of the most underrepresented racial groups in America’s literary scene.
Recently, our society has started having candid conversations about the measurable challenges faced by women of color — wage gaps, harassment, disenfranchisement — but we rarely talk about the intangible pressures — competition, perfectionism, imposter syndrome. It’s not easy to discuss. As a fiction writer, I’m a sucker for tropes, but it is also my worst fear to become one myself — a teenage Asian robot who stress-eats rice, crams for her SATs, sleeps too little and apologizes too much. I turned to writing because I wanted to escape that pressure (and also because I’d failed miserably at math club) but it turns out that when you’re a writer of color, there isn’t much room for error.
Whenever I write publicly about my experiences, I often delve into issues that are personal — gun violence, racism, femininity — because I know that perspectives like mine are not often shared. The responsibility to speak for my generation is one that requires perfection. Issa Rae’s hit show “Insecure” nails exactly what it’s like to speak as the sole representative for billions of people — frustrating. “You are so articulate!” I’m often told with surprise: a well-meaning compliment from those who have never been underestimated. I’m 18 years old, but mediocrity is not a luxury I can fathom.
Because when you’re a young writer of color, and your success is predicated on your acceptance from the majority, perfection can feel like the only real option. It’s not only that you need to be perfectly articulate, perfectly reasonable —you’ve also got to be twice as likeable. It’s a fine line to tread — you’ve got to be kind of ethnic, like a margarita, but you can’t offend anyone, and you certainly can’t be an angry woman of color. The numbers are stacked against us — only 12 percent of children’s books feature POC, and over 80 percent of publishing staff are white. My path to success is along a percentile-skinny tightrope, so it only follows that I’ve got to be a darn good acrobat.
I think that women of color are the ultimate time travelers. We exist in so many places at once, present so many facades, tell so many versions of stories, knock on so many doors. But we also live a life where it’s sometimes impossible to exist as ourselves: trope-y, mediocre, imperfect.
At 18, I know that it’s unreasonable to expect meteoric success as a writer. Still, it’s hard to shake the entirely rational fear that my writing career is out of my control — that my appeal as a young woman of color has an expiry date, that the doors of success aren’t sized for me. After all, we don’t get do-overs. We don’t get taken as seriously. If we fail, we risk jeopardizing the prospects of other WOC who will inevitably be compared to us. We’re forced to compete with our own sisters for limited spots. “Scandal” summarized it best with a quote that every WOC has heard at least once in her life: “You have to be twice as good as them to get half of what they have.”
Maybe it’s because I’m still young, or maybe it’s because I was born into the American Dream, but I want ”Scandal” to be wrong. I want to fight that kind of pessimism with sheer, solid, go-get-’em effort. I want to write beautiful words because I’m a young woman of color, not in spite of it.
Unfortunately, the only way to survive an industry that demands perfection is to be perfect. You have to write the perfect story for people to read: preferably, one that references the trials and tribulations of being a WOC, because society gobbles up trauma like it’s buttered popcorn. My identity is coveted, fetishized and hated by society at the same time. I’m fully aware that I will be an Indian-American writer first, and a writer second. I have to stay in my niche, because all of the normal, mainstream writers’ perspectives are already taken.
Generally, I don’t yell about it. I cry. I go to bed. I sometimes get cynical. Last week in my English class, when my best friend and I were discussing a poem by Robert Frost, I felt myself getting irrationally angry. Angry at the fact that Robert Frost could earn a Pulitzer Prize for composing rambling stanzas of sweet nothings about nature, or something basic like that, but as a WOC, I’d have to write about immigration or cultural assimilation or hate crimes in order to be even a blip on the screen.
“Anyone could write poetry like Robert Frost,” I told my friend. “Here, I’m going to make one up right now.” I took a deep breath, and free-styled in my whitest voice that I use on the phone: “I look, steadfast, upon a bush / and withered flowers of yonder ant / and ask myself, perchance, if man / could find himself in snowy brook / to sleep within the rainy thrush.”
She laughed and said, “That actually sounds just like him.”
“Could I win a Pulitzer for that?” I asked, somewhat belligerently.
“Probably not,” she said.
As much as I want to write about snowy woods and sleeping bugs, the truth is that the pain and wisdom that society never expected from Robert Frost will have to be supplied by women like me. And it’s not like we can shirk that duty―if we don’t tell our own stories, the oppressors will. Or nobody will. I’m not sure which is worse.
Right now, I’m working on publishing my first book. In the process, I find myself trying to outgrow perfectionism, which I recognize as a form of oppression against women of color. I’m also working on being proud of myself, rather than feeling grateful or ridiculously lucky. These are feelings that are too familiar to women who are supposed to feel happy “just to be here.”
There aren’t a lot of happy, tree-loving brown authors, but I want to be the first. I want to take up space, literally and metaphorically. I want to write about racism and plants and magic and justice. I want to be a messy, multifaceted, well-developed version of myself — even at the risk of being imperfect.
Malavika Kannan is a freshman at Stanford University. A nationally-recognized writer, her stories have appeared in HuffPost, Teen Vogue, and Harpers Bazaar, andothers. She is also the founder of the Homegirl Project (homegirlproject.org), an initiative empowering young women of color. You can find her at malavikakannan.com, or on Instagram at @malavika.kannan.
Malavika Kannan
Originally published in HuffPost
Yesterday, I earned the first B of my life. An 89.16 percent, to be exact.
It’s really not a big deal, in the cosmic sense of things, because (a) it was in AP Calculus BC, which is notorious for near-impossibility, (b) I’m a writer, not a mathematician, and (c) it’s my senior year of high school, for crying out loud.
But still, my first reaction was to mentally start packing my bags, retreat to the Himalayas, reject formal schooling and become a female monk. I don’t have tiger parents, in case you’re wondering. That’s just the way I am — a chronic perfectionist, who also happens to be a model minority and also a writer from one of the most underrepresented racial groups in America’s literary scene.
Recently, our society has started having candid conversations about the measurable challenges faced by women of color — wage gaps, harassment, disenfranchisement — but we rarely talk about the intangible pressures — competition, perfectionism, imposter syndrome. It’s not easy to discuss. As a fiction writer, I’m a sucker for tropes, but it is also my worst fear to become one myself — a teenage Asian robot who stress-eats rice, crams for her SATs, sleeps too little and apologizes too much. I turned to writing because I wanted to escape that pressure (and also because I’d failed miserably at math club) but it turns out that when you’re a writer of color, there isn’t much room for error.
Whenever I write publicly about my experiences, I often delve into issues that are personal — gun violence, racism, femininity — because I know that perspectives like mine are not often shared. The responsibility to speak for my generation is one that requires perfection. Issa Rae’s hit show “Insecure” nails exactly what it’s like to speak as the sole representative for billions of people — frustrating. “You are so articulate!” I’m often told with surprise: a well-meaning compliment from those who have never been underestimated. I’m 18 years old, but mediocrity is not a luxury I can fathom.
Because when you’re a young writer of color, and your success is predicated on your acceptance from the majority, perfection can feel like the only real option. It’s not only that you need to be perfectly articulate, perfectly reasonable —you’ve also got to be twice as likeable. It’s a fine line to tread — you’ve got to be kind of ethnic, like a margarita, but you can’t offend anyone, and you certainly can’t be an angry woman of color. The numbers are stacked against us — only 12 percent of children’s books feature POC, and over 80 percent of publishing staff are white. My path to success is along a percentile-skinny tightrope, so it only follows that I’ve got to be a darn good acrobat.
I think that women of color are the ultimate time travelers. We exist in so many places at once, present so many facades, tell so many versions of stories, knock on so many doors. But we also live a life where it’s sometimes impossible to exist as ourselves: trope-y, mediocre, imperfect.
At 18, I know that it’s unreasonable to expect meteoric success as a writer. Still, it’s hard to shake the entirely rational fear that my writing career is out of my control — that my appeal as a young woman of color has an expiry date, that the doors of success aren’t sized for me. After all, we don’t get do-overs. We don’t get taken as seriously. If we fail, we risk jeopardizing the prospects of other WOC who will inevitably be compared to us. We’re forced to compete with our own sisters for limited spots. “Scandal” summarized it best with a quote that every WOC has heard at least once in her life: “You have to be twice as good as them to get half of what they have.”
Maybe it’s because I’m still young, or maybe it’s because I was born into the American Dream, but I want ”Scandal” to be wrong. I want to fight that kind of pessimism with sheer, solid, go-get-’em effort. I want to write beautiful words because I’m a young woman of color, not in spite of it.
Unfortunately, the only way to survive an industry that demands perfection is to be perfect. You have to write the perfect story for people to read: preferably, one that references the trials and tribulations of being a WOC, because society gobbles up trauma like it’s buttered popcorn. My identity is coveted, fetishized and hated by society at the same time. I’m fully aware that I will be an Indian-American writer first, and a writer second. I have to stay in my niche, because all of the normal, mainstream writers’ perspectives are already taken.
Generally, I don’t yell about it. I cry. I go to bed. I sometimes get cynical. Last week in my English class, when my best friend and I were discussing a poem by Robert Frost, I felt myself getting irrationally angry. Angry at the fact that Robert Frost could earn a Pulitzer Prize for composing rambling stanzas of sweet nothings about nature, or something basic like that, but as a WOC, I’d have to write about immigration or cultural assimilation or hate crimes in order to be even a blip on the screen.
“Anyone could write poetry like Robert Frost,” I told my friend. “Here, I’m going to make one up right now.” I took a deep breath, and free-styled in my whitest voice that I use on the phone: “I look, steadfast, upon a bush / and withered flowers of yonder ant / and ask myself, perchance, if man / could find himself in snowy brook / to sleep within the rainy thrush.”
She laughed and said, “That actually sounds just like him.”
“Could I win a Pulitzer for that?” I asked, somewhat belligerently.
“Probably not,” she said.
As much as I want to write about snowy woods and sleeping bugs, the truth is that the pain and wisdom that society never expected from Robert Frost will have to be supplied by women like me. And it’s not like we can shirk that duty―if we don’t tell our own stories, the oppressors will. Or nobody will. I’m not sure which is worse.
Right now, I’m working on publishing my first book. In the process, I find myself trying to outgrow perfectionism, which I recognize as a form of oppression against women of color. I’m also working on being proud of myself, rather than feeling grateful or ridiculously lucky. These are feelings that are too familiar to women who are supposed to feel happy “just to be here.”
There aren’t a lot of happy, tree-loving brown authors, but I want to be the first. I want to take up space, literally and metaphorically. I want to write about racism and plants and magic and justice. I want to be a messy, multifaceted, well-developed version of myself — even at the risk of being imperfect.
Malavika Kannan is a freshman at Stanford University. A nationally-recognized writer, her stories have appeared in HuffPost, Teen Vogue, and Harpers Bazaar, andothers. She is also the founder of the Homegirl Project (homegirlproject.org), an initiative empowering young women of color. You can find her at malavikakannan.com, or on Instagram at @malavika.kannan.
Excerpt from "Bleached" - Hollow (October)
Sowmya Kannan
Step in. Take a step into the water and see if you can feel it, those cool waves washing over your feet. Take a step further and you can feel it better now, the push and pull of the waves, the sea breeze roaring in your ear and tousling your hair. Close your eyes. You can’t hear it yet, but listen, listen closely. Can you feel it?
There. That warming water, that tingling sensation on your toes, and that feeble, feeble coughing you hear. There. That is the sound of me dying.
If you choose to continue, follow the current. The gentle push and pull, they will guide you further down the ocean and into the reef. Amongst the gentle pulse of the last anemone, beneath the beams of the filtered sunlight, deep in the heart of the ocean’s jungle- this is where I am. You could see us from miles away, once, but you will have to look a little more closely to find us now. There. Underneath you, that sandy gray wasteland filled with the crumbling corpses of coral. This is where I am, and this is where I am dying.
Don’t be afraid; you can swim closer. These ghostly white tentacles you see are not what I used to look like. There was a time when the water was cool against my skin and our vast, ever-moving reef was more than this shriveling tundra. It spilled over the hills and valleys, masking hidden caves behind beds of vibrant coral, a lush oasis for the most beautiful fish in the land. You would have come to visit this place once, come to see the regal Maori wrasse, dashing schools of damselfish, the gossamer sea butterfly so silent that you wouldn’t notice until it was right beside you. You would have come then, for the reef that was worth beholding, caressing, treasuring even. But of course, those despondent creatures have dismissed us now; they have taken us for dead. You would stay away. Save your awe for elsewhere.
After the water grew warmer, the tourists that came by the boatloads slowed to a trickle. They used to arrive with eyes full of wonder and mouths open with awe. Now they leave with heavy hearts, tears pooling and only one word spilling from their lips: bleached.
Such a cold, clinical name they have given this slow demise. So meager it seems, so insufficient to describe this calamity, but at the same time, so true. These bone-white skeletons of coral around me have been bleached, yes. Drained of color, drained of algae, drained of movement and life. Bleached. That is what I am. Bleached and on the brink of death…
...They don’t hear anything, of course. You might not have either, if you hadn’t taken a moment to pause, to listen. I suppose they think we are rocks, or plants of some sort. Not living, animalian creatures like them who feel pain as we die and care for the coral fish and look after the algae within us. Perhaps these creatures live in such seclusion that they do not understand what it is to support and depend on one another. This is seclusion, so painful to be away from the ones you love and yet at relief to escape their prying hands...
...Let the current pull you in, float just above the seabed. Close your eyes for a moment and imagine it, remember it, feel it. Before this water grew warm, before the pollution and the acid and the tourists and the dying, before this all, there was life in this reef. There were fish that came to feed, there was algae and there were coral. Sea sponges, mollusks, sharks, crustaceans, they all lived and fed and grew here. I don’t know where they are now, or if they have found another reef, but I do know that they won’t be able to survive in this desert of an ocean without us. Pause in this eerily silent graveyard, and you can see not the ashy white bones of the coral littered around me, but the mosaic of color that was once here.
If you open your eyes now, I think you will be able to see it. Look closely on my bleached and graying surface. There, do you see that little flowering pod? It sways like a bird battered in a storm, but it will grow. Perhaps there is really hope for this graveyard to become a garden, but it will take time. I don’t know if the water will ever become cooler, or if this little polyp stands a chance. They may have left this reef for dead, but for the other coral, the fish, and for the reef, I must try.
Take a breath now, and you will find yourself back where you started. The sea breeze tousling your hair, warm water lapping up at your feet to the beat of the ocean’s pulse. Under the pale moonlight, look out to sea as your toes grip the grainy sand. Listen closely.
There. Can you feel it?
I am living.
Sowmya Kannan
Step in. Take a step into the water and see if you can feel it, those cool waves washing over your feet. Take a step further and you can feel it better now, the push and pull of the waves, the sea breeze roaring in your ear and tousling your hair. Close your eyes. You can’t hear it yet, but listen, listen closely. Can you feel it?
There. That warming water, that tingling sensation on your toes, and that feeble, feeble coughing you hear. There. That is the sound of me dying.
If you choose to continue, follow the current. The gentle push and pull, they will guide you further down the ocean and into the reef. Amongst the gentle pulse of the last anemone, beneath the beams of the filtered sunlight, deep in the heart of the ocean’s jungle- this is where I am. You could see us from miles away, once, but you will have to look a little more closely to find us now. There. Underneath you, that sandy gray wasteland filled with the crumbling corpses of coral. This is where I am, and this is where I am dying.
Don’t be afraid; you can swim closer. These ghostly white tentacles you see are not what I used to look like. There was a time when the water was cool against my skin and our vast, ever-moving reef was more than this shriveling tundra. It spilled over the hills and valleys, masking hidden caves behind beds of vibrant coral, a lush oasis for the most beautiful fish in the land. You would have come to visit this place once, come to see the regal Maori wrasse, dashing schools of damselfish, the gossamer sea butterfly so silent that you wouldn’t notice until it was right beside you. You would have come then, for the reef that was worth beholding, caressing, treasuring even. But of course, those despondent creatures have dismissed us now; they have taken us for dead. You would stay away. Save your awe for elsewhere.
After the water grew warmer, the tourists that came by the boatloads slowed to a trickle. They used to arrive with eyes full of wonder and mouths open with awe. Now they leave with heavy hearts, tears pooling and only one word spilling from their lips: bleached.
Such a cold, clinical name they have given this slow demise. So meager it seems, so insufficient to describe this calamity, but at the same time, so true. These bone-white skeletons of coral around me have been bleached, yes. Drained of color, drained of algae, drained of movement and life. Bleached. That is what I am. Bleached and on the brink of death…
...They don’t hear anything, of course. You might not have either, if you hadn’t taken a moment to pause, to listen. I suppose they think we are rocks, or plants of some sort. Not living, animalian creatures like them who feel pain as we die and care for the coral fish and look after the algae within us. Perhaps these creatures live in such seclusion that they do not understand what it is to support and depend on one another. This is seclusion, so painful to be away from the ones you love and yet at relief to escape their prying hands...
...Let the current pull you in, float just above the seabed. Close your eyes for a moment and imagine it, remember it, feel it. Before this water grew warm, before the pollution and the acid and the tourists and the dying, before this all, there was life in this reef. There were fish that came to feed, there was algae and there were coral. Sea sponges, mollusks, sharks, crustaceans, they all lived and fed and grew here. I don’t know where they are now, or if they have found another reef, but I do know that they won’t be able to survive in this desert of an ocean without us. Pause in this eerily silent graveyard, and you can see not the ashy white bones of the coral littered around me, but the mosaic of color that was once here.
If you open your eyes now, I think you will be able to see it. Look closely on my bleached and graying surface. There, do you see that little flowering pod? It sways like a bird battered in a storm, but it will grow. Perhaps there is really hope for this graveyard to become a garden, but it will take time. I don’t know if the water will ever become cooler, or if this little polyp stands a chance. They may have left this reef for dead, but for the other coral, the fish, and for the reef, I must try.
Take a breath now, and you will find yourself back where you started. The sea breeze tousling your hair, warm water lapping up at your feet to the beat of the ocean’s pulse. Under the pale moonlight, look out to sea as your toes grip the grainy sand. Listen closely.
There. Can you feel it?
I am living.
Faith in Hollow Places - Hollow (October)
Jeffrey Liao
It is 1970. My grandmother wraps her daughter in her arms. She walks one hundred miles barefoot through the remains of the Jiangsu countryside, escaping a Nanjing ruptured by Chairman Mao’s paramilitary forces. Upturned dirt and artillery shells carve rivers of blood on the soles of her feet. Her daughter, blue and sick, cries endlessly as the pangs of hunger consume them. Two days earlier, my grandmother gave birth to ill-omened twins: a stillborn son and a living daughter. She begged her husband to forgive her, but he beat her senseless and bloody and left without a word. Hours later, when the soldiers descended upon Nanjing with gun-smoked fingers, my grandmother put her dead son in a cotton bag and grabbed her sleeping daughter. They fled the war-torn city, bullets sailing toward their fading bodies like hail. Now, my grandmother presses onward against the luster of dusk. The sun is an orb of fire burning into the horizon, staining the sky scarlet. Tears sting my grandmother’s eyes as a feral fear cuts through her, becomes her, destroys her. Wo de tianshi, she whispers to her daughter, caressing her like a glass doll. My angel. Sweat drips from her forehead, and she wipes it out of her windswept hair. Her bones ache, and as the light unclasps itself slowly from her eyes, my grandmother tells herself to keep breathing, keep breathing, if nothing else for the baby cradled in her arms, this miracle daughter who has become the pulse of her life, carrying her forward through the pain. Her feet, raw and blistered, kiss the cracked earth. Eventually, a mountain ridge creeps into view, a pyramid of rock and dust roaming with desert bandits. On the other side of the mountain is my grandmother’s hometown, a lacking village strung along the Yangtze River. She must scale the mountain before sunrise, when the bandits start to plague the land. For the first time, my grandmother feels God’s hand guide her through the mist of darkness. She clutches onto hope the way she held her son, purple and miscarried but with a blind devotion that cannot be quelled. She creates makeshift sandals from terracotta tiles and scraps of bamboo found on the road. Ascends the foothills. Under the veil of moonlight, she is a hovering ghost, skin beautifully cool, eyes sharp and cut as obsidian. When the air becomes too frigid and thin to breathe, when her legs are too numb to move anymore, my grandmother thinks of the faint heartbeat of the infant nestled in her arms. She presses onward. Soon, a thousand sweltering stars paint the canvas of the sky. My grandmother stands at the mountain’s crest. Below, the shadows of clay cottages sweep the vista, illuminated by the cosmic infinitude. Wo de tianshi, she says tiredly. My angel, we’re almost there. With her daughter bundled against her chest, my grandmother sinks down the gorgeous dip in the earth toward the place where the sun will rise. By the time they reach the village, her daughter will be weak with hypothermia yet still breathing. Between brewing herbs and preparing medicine, the apothecary bombards my grandmother with questions. She answers only in silence, for there are only so many words she can say without crying. The apothecary’s wife will call it a swollen wonder that my grandmother’s daughter is alive. A dream. My grandmother will work back-breaking hours on a tea plantation to scrape by. She will bury her son under a wide patch of earth and sky. When the Revolution is over and my grandmother saves enough money to move back to the city, she will meet my grandfather. They will own a small apartment and send their daughter to school. My grandmother will birth a second daughter. The ice packed around her heart will start to melt. Decades later, the eldest daughter, the child of swollen wonders, will become my mother.
It is 2018. My mother and I sit at the kitchen table, kneading dough for pork dumplings, our American radio crackling with words that don’t fit in our mouths, in a language that does not belong to us. She is practicing her English, which, even after all these years, is infested with an immigrant’s broken cadence. Her eyes are bruised and weary with exhaustion – exhaustion from the grueling hours spent at work, or the disintegration of her marriage, or maybe from the unbearable weight of not being heard, of never being enough. When my mother moved to America, a graduate student with hopes of becoming a doctor, she was wide-eyed and eager, brimming with the insatiable curiosity of youth. But as she crossed an ocean for more opportunity and power, my mother soon realized that what she found wasn’t what she was looking for. Besides the exoticism of her raven hair and unfolded eyelids, there was a cultural barrier that divided my mother from her peers. My mother remembers an incident: she saw a water fountain and mistakenly thought it was a place to wash her hands. Only when the snickers and whispers escalated into full-blown laughter did my mother realize the plight of her mistake. Her cheeks blushed flame-red and she casted her eye downward. Another incident: after finishing a chemistry lab, my mother overheard a conversation between her professor and the teaching assistant. There are enough people like her, the professor remarked indignantly. I don’t want to endorse another Asian student. Why can’t they just stay in their own country? If there’s anything my mother learned from graduate school, it is the toxicity feeling like an alien in her own skin, of being seen as a construct rather than a human. One day, I ask my mother why she came here. She looks at me with a far-away gaze. I did it for you, she says. You are the reason I endure. I wonder what it is she’s enduring – this country, or the loneliness of being the perpetual foreigner, or maybe the impossible burden of being, of living. I imagine her as a student: twenty-three and packed with ambition, stripping away her whole identity to come here, only to meet nothing that wants her. My mother never got the PhD she wanted. She never became a doctor. Instead, she spent her days cleaning dishes at a seafood restaurant. At night, she searched through the local newspaper for job offerings. Eventually, she found a lowly position at an accounting firm, her old ambitions crumpled and disposed of like pieces of chewing gum. On the days my mother looks lost and small, I wonder if she regrets coming to America, if she misses the pieces of herself she left behind in China. I realize there are things I can’t put into words, like how it feels to hear the desperation in her voice when she asks me to translate something for her in English, knowing that no matter what she does, she will never truly belong here. Or how the only time she is sincerely happy is when talking on the phone with her relatives, my mother slipping into her native tongue like a rush of water in a season of drought. Tonight, my mother and I will sit in front of the couch and watch a Chinese drama together – her favorite. Through the bright blue flickers of the TV screen, she will be reminded of the future she sacrificed in order to give me a better one. She will wrap her arm around mine, wishing life wasn’t so bittersweet. That she could somehow make it all better. But there’s still hope, I want to tell her. There’s still time.
Wo de tianshi, you’re still breathing.
Jeffrey Liao
It is 1970. My grandmother wraps her daughter in her arms. She walks one hundred miles barefoot through the remains of the Jiangsu countryside, escaping a Nanjing ruptured by Chairman Mao’s paramilitary forces. Upturned dirt and artillery shells carve rivers of blood on the soles of her feet. Her daughter, blue and sick, cries endlessly as the pangs of hunger consume them. Two days earlier, my grandmother gave birth to ill-omened twins: a stillborn son and a living daughter. She begged her husband to forgive her, but he beat her senseless and bloody and left without a word. Hours later, when the soldiers descended upon Nanjing with gun-smoked fingers, my grandmother put her dead son in a cotton bag and grabbed her sleeping daughter. They fled the war-torn city, bullets sailing toward their fading bodies like hail. Now, my grandmother presses onward against the luster of dusk. The sun is an orb of fire burning into the horizon, staining the sky scarlet. Tears sting my grandmother’s eyes as a feral fear cuts through her, becomes her, destroys her. Wo de tianshi, she whispers to her daughter, caressing her like a glass doll. My angel. Sweat drips from her forehead, and she wipes it out of her windswept hair. Her bones ache, and as the light unclasps itself slowly from her eyes, my grandmother tells herself to keep breathing, keep breathing, if nothing else for the baby cradled in her arms, this miracle daughter who has become the pulse of her life, carrying her forward through the pain. Her feet, raw and blistered, kiss the cracked earth. Eventually, a mountain ridge creeps into view, a pyramid of rock and dust roaming with desert bandits. On the other side of the mountain is my grandmother’s hometown, a lacking village strung along the Yangtze River. She must scale the mountain before sunrise, when the bandits start to plague the land. For the first time, my grandmother feels God’s hand guide her through the mist of darkness. She clutches onto hope the way she held her son, purple and miscarried but with a blind devotion that cannot be quelled. She creates makeshift sandals from terracotta tiles and scraps of bamboo found on the road. Ascends the foothills. Under the veil of moonlight, she is a hovering ghost, skin beautifully cool, eyes sharp and cut as obsidian. When the air becomes too frigid and thin to breathe, when her legs are too numb to move anymore, my grandmother thinks of the faint heartbeat of the infant nestled in her arms. She presses onward. Soon, a thousand sweltering stars paint the canvas of the sky. My grandmother stands at the mountain’s crest. Below, the shadows of clay cottages sweep the vista, illuminated by the cosmic infinitude. Wo de tianshi, she says tiredly. My angel, we’re almost there. With her daughter bundled against her chest, my grandmother sinks down the gorgeous dip in the earth toward the place where the sun will rise. By the time they reach the village, her daughter will be weak with hypothermia yet still breathing. Between brewing herbs and preparing medicine, the apothecary bombards my grandmother with questions. She answers only in silence, for there are only so many words she can say without crying. The apothecary’s wife will call it a swollen wonder that my grandmother’s daughter is alive. A dream. My grandmother will work back-breaking hours on a tea plantation to scrape by. She will bury her son under a wide patch of earth and sky. When the Revolution is over and my grandmother saves enough money to move back to the city, she will meet my grandfather. They will own a small apartment and send their daughter to school. My grandmother will birth a second daughter. The ice packed around her heart will start to melt. Decades later, the eldest daughter, the child of swollen wonders, will become my mother.
It is 2018. My mother and I sit at the kitchen table, kneading dough for pork dumplings, our American radio crackling with words that don’t fit in our mouths, in a language that does not belong to us. She is practicing her English, which, even after all these years, is infested with an immigrant’s broken cadence. Her eyes are bruised and weary with exhaustion – exhaustion from the grueling hours spent at work, or the disintegration of her marriage, or maybe from the unbearable weight of not being heard, of never being enough. When my mother moved to America, a graduate student with hopes of becoming a doctor, she was wide-eyed and eager, brimming with the insatiable curiosity of youth. But as she crossed an ocean for more opportunity and power, my mother soon realized that what she found wasn’t what she was looking for. Besides the exoticism of her raven hair and unfolded eyelids, there was a cultural barrier that divided my mother from her peers. My mother remembers an incident: she saw a water fountain and mistakenly thought it was a place to wash her hands. Only when the snickers and whispers escalated into full-blown laughter did my mother realize the plight of her mistake. Her cheeks blushed flame-red and she casted her eye downward. Another incident: after finishing a chemistry lab, my mother overheard a conversation between her professor and the teaching assistant. There are enough people like her, the professor remarked indignantly. I don’t want to endorse another Asian student. Why can’t they just stay in their own country? If there’s anything my mother learned from graduate school, it is the toxicity feeling like an alien in her own skin, of being seen as a construct rather than a human. One day, I ask my mother why she came here. She looks at me with a far-away gaze. I did it for you, she says. You are the reason I endure. I wonder what it is she’s enduring – this country, or the loneliness of being the perpetual foreigner, or maybe the impossible burden of being, of living. I imagine her as a student: twenty-three and packed with ambition, stripping away her whole identity to come here, only to meet nothing that wants her. My mother never got the PhD she wanted. She never became a doctor. Instead, she spent her days cleaning dishes at a seafood restaurant. At night, she searched through the local newspaper for job offerings. Eventually, she found a lowly position at an accounting firm, her old ambitions crumpled and disposed of like pieces of chewing gum. On the days my mother looks lost and small, I wonder if she regrets coming to America, if she misses the pieces of herself she left behind in China. I realize there are things I can’t put into words, like how it feels to hear the desperation in her voice when she asks me to translate something for her in English, knowing that no matter what she does, she will never truly belong here. Or how the only time she is sincerely happy is when talking on the phone with her relatives, my mother slipping into her native tongue like a rush of water in a season of drought. Tonight, my mother and I will sit in front of the couch and watch a Chinese drama together – her favorite. Through the bright blue flickers of the TV screen, she will be reminded of the future she sacrificed in order to give me a better one. She will wrap her arm around mine, wishing life wasn’t so bittersweet. That she could somehow make it all better. But there’s still hope, I want to tell her. There’s still time.
Wo de tianshi, you’re still breathing.