My Monster,
I think he found me at age eight
having hatched out of taught cracks of uncertainty
he came to stand at the mirror with me
ethereal & globulous.
My Monster
his eyes were pulled tight at the ends
by little playground fingers
still brown underneath from the sand box
still sticky from halloween pop-rocks
CHI-NESE!
My monster
looks a lot like me at eight
ethereal & globulous & chi-nese
in jeanshorts and purple hi-top nikes
My monster
and me
Sometimes I don't walk alone. Many times I've gone to the grocery store with him cloudy all around me. It gets hard to see clearly and sometimes my eyes get watery when people notice he's with me. Anything anyone does, I think it's because of my monster. He's not a frightening monster, at times I feel attached to him, I don't know what it would be like to not have a monster. Other people may not even see him but I know they subconsciously react to him. It's not me they react to, it's him.
This morning my grandmother brought up what I'd shared with her about feeling like an "outsider" due to my Asianness. I think she was trying to question me to show that what I have expressed feeling doesn't really have any experiential backup, that My Monster is, like all monsters, a figment of my imagination. Had anyone actually ever toLD me something to make me feel bad about my Asianness? I shared with her the chant that my little cousin and Asian Betsy sang the other day "Chi-Nese, Ja-panese, Pe-kinese, Dir-ty knees!" pulling at the ends of their eyes. She didn't understand. I explained they know that chant because kids sing it to them on the playground. I explained they didn't like or understand it very much, although they knew it referred to them. I knew that same chant from childhood, it was nothing new or surprising to me. My grandmother, who is white, said she had never ever heard that taunt before. I think she was in a bit of disbelief. She asked whether it is still proper to refer to Asians as "Orientals". I shared what I knew about Orientalism, Mystification of Asia & The East in academia and the media, and token "appreciation without identification" as human beings. I was at once glad that she would ask about something that required open and honest conversation, and impatient at the thought that this was all new to her.
Later this evening I thought about it, and wrote:
"I can articulate satisfactorily how I feel , and my experiences with race. But when my Grandmother, whom I love, tries to repeat what she has heard back to me, to try and understand "my experience", "my plague", "my monster" (I'm putting those words into her mouth, that's what it feels like an interrogation of, how she views it, or thinks I view it)-it incenses me that she remembers our conversations and thinks to discuss it."
!!! Is it because those experiences aren't about MY asianness at ALL, but about ME experiencing Whiteness itself?!!!
It may be selfish of me, but sometimes I think that my sharing should lead to a discussion: not with me, but within one-self, or with ones white peers.
*p.s More on Monster to come
No comments:
Post a Comment