Thursdays with Jen: A Heavy Week/Month/Year for Asian American Women
The impact of the Atlanta shootings and the pandemic on Asian American women.
Dear reader,
I have a lot to stay about this week’s mass shooting in Atlanta, which resulted in the murders of 8 people – 6 of them Asian American women. I have a lot of say, but not a lot of energy to write. Here is a scattered bit I wrote on social media this week:
6 Asian American women had to die for people to start caring about us. It wasn’t enough that Asian American women make up the majority of people reporting hate crimes against AAPI people over the last year. It isn’t enough that Asian American women have the second highest suicide rates across all demographics in the US. No one knows nor cares that Asian American women are the least likely group of people to be promoted to leadership positions in organizations – we are slightly below Black women, another group no one really values. And I could go on and on about the ways Asian American women are mistreated by all types of people – especially men in our own cultures. Being a woman of any kind is very hard – being an Asian American woman is it’s own flavor of absence, duty, high expectations, harsh treatment when we fall out of line, vigilance, weariness and silence. I’m so sad that 6 Asian American women had to be murdered for us to kind of understand this. And like our existence, I’m fearful that this happened and we will fall into absence tomorrow.
Even if the murderer denies that he targeted his victims based on their race, I want people to know that the implications of this event are significant for Asian American women. Here is a flow chart outlining the questions I ask myself before going out in public. This mindset is more entrenched given what happened this week:
Click here to enlarge the above image.
As some of you have observed, I’ve been on a 2021 hiatus from this newsletter. I thought the culprit for the writer’s block was my temporary move to Houston. I guessed that this writing dry spell was due to needing space to adjust, to finding my writing groove, and to developing a Texas-style rhythm of creativity. I now understand that this was not the reason.
I began this newsletter in late 2019, right off the heels of a big wedding. At the time, I was full of creative capacity because I no longer had to spend hours thinking about whether I wanted martini glasses, wine glasses, whiskey glasses, or Collins glasses on taupe, off-white, eggshell, and/or cream colored linens. That was an era when I didn’t fear having 150 people in chairs that were an inch a part. I asked people to “cover up” in layers due to the “celestial, unpredictable, fucking weird” fall weather in San Francisco – not because of a global pandemic. My biggest worry at the time was whether my 40-deep, large ass Asian family understood that I was marrying a woman and, unbeknownst to them, they were participating in a lesbian wedding. I did not have to think about whether their explorations into San Francisco would result in harassment, violence, or trauma. I was worried about parking.
A year ago, this was my newsletter. It was my artistic bread and better: light-hearted with quirky hand-drawn graphics, bad jokes, and a humorist style with a tinge of “insight”. I was a very hopeful person with streaks of pragmatism and vigilance.
One year of isolation and over 25 newsletters later, I am no longer in a light, quirky, humorist mood. I am still that girl, but with added callous layers of heaviness, constant wondering, and some cynicism. With the shifts in my personal disposition, I feel an evolution in my creative output. I’ve been so focused on returning to “light and funny” content – a disingenuous misalignment with how I feel at the moment. Hence the writer’s block.
I’ve come to accept this shift. I won’t fight it, but I’ll work with it, struggle with it, and mold writing with it. As someone who has spent far too much time and tuition engaged in literary studies, I’ve learned to love authors beyond single works and across their full trajectories as people: sparkling youthful prose brimming with energy; disenchanted anger from coming of age; heaviness from loss and the weathering that life brings; later life focus on the beauty of the world and the quotidian; reflection on life in its complexity, wholeness, and beauty. I have also noticed that the writing also becomes better with age and real feeling. I can’t make a commitment to being a better writer, but I can commit to writing.
So, here I am with a new commitment to this newsletter. I appreciate you (maybe) sticking around for this ride as I attempt to experiment with aligning my personal journey with my writing style. I thank you all for the space and the audience to do so. Most of all, I wish you are all afforded the safe creative spaces to evolve your respective side hustles to your current dispositions. As always, I am here to support.
See you in two Thursdays,
JTVN