I'm speaking

Celebrating Asian Heritage Month

I want to tell you about what it means to be an Asian settler living in Vancouver. And at the junction between Asian Heritage Month and Pride Month, I want to tell you about the intersection between being queer and Asian.

I want to tell you. But I can’t, because I can’t find the words. I can’t find the words, just like I can’t find the words to tell my parents how I’m feeling in Mandarin. I’m silent, just like every time I keep my mouth closed and don’t speak up for myself, invisibilizing my needs for the convenience of others under the model minority myth. I’m speechless, like every time I see a dating profile either fetishizing or pre-emptively rejecting me based on my race.

I don’t have the words, because I never learned them. I never heard the words for complex emotions from my parents, because the model minority myth coupled with Asian immigrant cultural values promotes toxic stoicism and invulnerability. My words are ripped away from me by fear, because I’d rather be silent and complicit then become the next statistic of an anti-asian hate crime. What I have to say means nothing if they’re only heard for the purpose of performative understanding and solidarity. Unexamined sympathy is not woke or social justice, it’s tokenization.

I wish I could tell you how it feels to not feel like I belong anywhere. How can I find the words to tell you how uncomfortable I am saying that I’m Chinese? As if the admission of my cultural identity is a shameful secret. What am I supposed to say when I only ever receive reactions of surprise when I say that I was born here, while my white friends who have just moved to Vancouver are instantly considered locals? Because I’ll never be white enough to be considered “from here,” no matter how much Lululemon I wear, and I’ll never be white enough to be considered attractive under western beauty standards. I’m not Chinese enough to fit in at family gatherings, I’m too Chinese to fit into the gay scene, and I’m too gay to be accepted by Asian culture. How am I supposed to respond to that?

Shall I write you a play, only for the casting to be whitewashed and the script transformed into queerbait? Maybe I can write searing poetry instead, a stanza for every microaggression. Or maybe I need to eschew language altogether, and just focus on healing myself with every bite of egg tart and green onion pancake (and I’m not feeling like sharing today). Let me reclaim all the parts of myself and my history that I’ve let go and lost. Let my desire and longing suffice for now, crossing over oceans of diaspora when I physically can’t.

I’m Chinese. I’m queer. And I’m speaking now.