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Asian Diaspora Anthology

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For the past several decades, San Francisco-born poet, playwright, and performer Genny Lim has facilitated classes for Asian diaspora, helping them to discover writing as a tool for healing and liberation. Classes have brought together intergenerational communities to transmute collective wounds such as Japanese incarceration, immigration, war, patriarchy, racism, anti-Asian violence, as well as celebrate ancestral cultural wisdom.

We are fundraising to create an anthology that will showcase our varied stories. From gender diverse healers and activists in their 30s-50s to elders in their 90s, we prove that Asian Americans are not monolithic. Together, we are weaving threads to create a tapestry of who we are and how we choose to be seen.

The intention of this anthology is to uplift Asian diaspora voices and stories. Spaces for intergenerational communal healing and reflection are sorely needed amidst a profound time of change in our collective history. We have raised our goal to $10,000 to cover costs in producing a draft copy of the anthology. Expenses include drafting submission requirements; soliciting, selecting, and editing pieces for the anthology; book jacket design, and other ancillary costs. This money will be used to pay Genny as well as students Vickie Chang and Tiff Lin for their time in preparing the anthology and fundraising. Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center (APICC) in San Francisco, has generously agreed to publish the anthology.

The additional $5,000 (from our initial $5,000 goal) will allow us to hire a copy editor, compensate those putting together the anthology at a more reasonable rate, pay APICC for their support, as well as aim for a more professional product.

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2/12 YEAR OF THE WOOD DRAGON ASTROLOGY TALK with Sally Chang, LiZhen Wang, and Tiff Lin (moderated by Xiao Rong Chang)



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1/20/24 TEANCE FINE TEAS LIVE READING
Thank you to those who've helped us raise a total of $1181 from our first Live Reading event at Teance Fine Teas on 1/20!



Excerpts:

By Leslie Yee-Murata

a thief of time
that one is
my shadow self
ever lurking
in the dungeons
of my mind
razor-sharp talons
shred open my heart
feeding on my real and
imagined fears
thirsting for my anguished tears
yet these depths of despair
vanish as suddenly as it came
has disappeared
ever vigilant to reappear
to steal my joy

--

By Sapho Flor, “Mama Bayabas”

Mama Bayabas

My favorite guava tree in our backyard was a little taller than my 6 year old self,
each year growing as I did.

Her fruits would start as small green bulbs with tiny eyes at the tip,
the petals hardening into eyelids.

Sometimes I couldn’t wait to taste her brightness.
Impatience chewed on sour,
waxy
starchy skin.

Finally the green turned golden,
the hard
shell softened.
Each pink bite melted
with sparks of seeds.

Her love is tart and sweet.

I later discovered on a visit to the motherland
That her leaves, when boiled in water
Is a balm to itchy skin.

Tita would gather a pile of her leaves and boil them down,
I’d use the the medicinal water to rinse my raw body
Biten by mosquitos
Gently feeling soothed by her hands.

Her love is healing.

--

By Vickie Chang

A wall of daffodils
And a roomful of friends
We greet before nestling
On the same side of a booth
Tears stream down my rounded cheeks
And unable to raise my eyes
The words drop from my red mouth
It was a high cost for freedom
Losing you, old friend
I awaken with a start
Full of grief
Full of love

--

By Danni Tsuboi

Inside-out flowers

Two meat slabs stuck to the walls of heaven

They are sliding down slowly -a race back to earth

leaving slime (en)trails behind them -

The path back home



(what about) Do you ever miss your placenta?

[She] knew your face before your birth giver before air

Suspended together in the dreams of your ancestors

You waited she watched your holes form sealed with red black water

you thought you would never be alone



after falling after the holes rip open and life pours in and out. Something about belonging. About what none of us can see or foresee and about forever wanting to go back home



This morning I stuck a needle deep into the (hairy) white butt of a loved one. I pushed progesterone into the muscle and watched its satin ribbons curl up and around the fetal cells collecting and organizing into two meat slabs, beginning their journey back to earth

Dear baby your face is all of time collapsing, is death, is home, is a bridge, is the wet wheel turning

is

Wet inside-out flowers waiting to unfurl

The figs are late to ripen this year

Oh to be a wasp incubated in that sweet death womb.

Waiting to be eaten.

waiting to go back home.

--

By Leon Sun, "Solitude"

Two pines stand resolute in the mist
Wind carries the cry of a lone hawk
Cold stream washes over my tired feet
Calloused and cut from traversing roads
Strewn with the debris of ignorance and corruption

Dewdrops dabble my furrowed brow
Like glistening gashes in
Mountainsides ten thousand years old
I have walked a hundred lifetimes
To sit here in solitude

Let mosquitos feast at my stillness
My blood is there so others may live
I ask for nothing
I accept everything
May the earth accept me

--

By Jeena Cho 조지현, “The Harvest Moon”

The harvest moon. I knew her once.
Even loved her
Didn’t we dance to her song once?
Offering her our deepest gratitude

Then I forgot
This erasure wasn’t voluntary
This relocation to the land that isn’t mind
Yet, the harvest moon has made herself known

Playfully, she dances on my blanket
Wrapped around my body
She says, come back, my love
Remember
Remember your roots

I look up
she says,
let your tears fall
let the grief wash over you
let me hold your heartache
let my light heal you
Let me fill you with joy once more

And I make love to her
She graces my skin
Touching my face
I reach my hands up to the sky
And embrace her light

And I re-member
I say, Chuseok (추석), Thanksgiving
I say, Charye (차례), the honoring of the ancestors
I look at the photograph of my grandmothers
and my mother holding me as an infant
My body craves the food we once ate
Newly harvested fruit (햇과일), Songpyeon (송편), Japchae (잡채), Jeon (전), Galbijjim (갈비찜)

And I can feel the pull of my motherland
She is calling me
She says, come back to me
Come and drink my water
Lay your body against mine
Allow the ocean to wash over you
Come and breathe me
And bring me your daughter
so she too can remember

--

By Tiff Lin, "The Wall"

Someone once said to me
and I paraphrase
On the other side of your truest most deepest desires
is an equal force of resistance.
Resistance as in fear.
Fear of not knowing how your life would change if you were to get that thing.
Fear of your whole identity shifting, worlds collapsing.
Your status quo homeostasis of comfort no longer.

Can you even imagine?
Do you really want it after all? Is the juice worth the squeeze? Is the view from the mountain worth the climb?

What exactly is this wall anyway? How tall is it?
Do you have equipment? Is there a cushion on the other side if you trek, stumble, and come crashing down?
Who will you be leaving behind?

Life’s not so bad now right?
You are comfortable
Yet a part of you will always wonder
What is on the other side?

Its too much work the avoidant one says
The foggy weather comes through the cracks in your consciousness and your body learns what its like to dissociate, to placate, to numb
Removing yourself from a projected source of aliveness, the brighter sun, clearer air, greener pastures
You sink further into the coach
Turn on the tv and you forget

This isn’t a Hollywood movie
This is your life
It’s okay to take as long as it takes you say
One day you’ll have enough strength and momentum and clarity and vision to leap over that wall you’ve built, the bricks that have been stacked, one by one, by each of your ancestors who’ve labored endlessly to protect their family from the outside world, these walls that keep us safe are the same ones that keep us small

But at least we’re alive they say.
Alive
As in our bodies are still here. Our hearts are still bleeding are they not?

Aliveness is different from just being alive
You hear a small voice whisper to you
inside

What if you just
break through those walls and just do the thing
What do you want?
What do you really really want?

--

By Monica Ramil, "A Grief Prayer"

I pray for you in those quiet moments
Between family gatherings and zoom prayer meetings
Between phone calls and text messages
When the house is quiet
And you would have otherwise heard her voice
Or the sounds of her stirring
Or just known she was there

I pray for you most especially during those times
That you allow yourself the full range of your grief
To scream into the void
To free fall into the agony of her absence
To find comfort and closeness in your shared pain

I pray that you discover her again and again
In untold memories
Resurfaced photos
A visit in your dreams
An unmistakable sign
A serendipitous hummingbird
The kiss of a passing spirit
All the ways she whispers that her love for you lives on

I pray that as you navigate this dark, unmarked path
And bump up against the edges of your existence
That as you swim in the abyss unable to tell up from down
You discover yourself
Your potential
Your depth
And also your center
Your breath
Your anchors
Your strength

May you allow yourself the grace to fall apart
and come back together again

May you be open to the different faces of grief
both within yourselves and each other

May you make space for each other’s messiness

May you know you can ask for what you need
And be gentle with yourself when what you need isn’t always clear

May you know you are loved and held by all of us
The village that holds you

By Sally Chang, "Coastal Meditation"

The best kind of morning breath is oceanic
Inhaled by the redwoods drawing the floating marine layer into its boughs
like a comforter

Mist alights on the fine threads of my skin fur, and
slides down to the epithelium, where the pores assess what is allowed in or not
Clean ocean air, in
Truck smog, out
Tiny doors rippling, connect-the-dots open or connect-the-dots closed

Pacific mist or smog, breathing will continue
Body remembering the dry autumn wind sweeping over ancient Appalachians
while standing on the deck at Ancestral Heart Temple
Long necked cranes stretch like noodles oscillating, ascending, aiming for the invisible thermals
One by one cresting on the airlift, in-sync, feathers poofing out to full wingspan, then
suddenly still, a taught harmonic
having caught the membrane of the heat balloon

Yet my body is still West, in Oakland
The truck, long past while I was extrapolating a memory
My face now relaxed, a soft smile appeared unconsciously, lips hydrated in the upturn

Am I here or there, my mind wonders, as it gently pulls together a tiny stitch between coastlines
The mind leans East, the ruddy ridgeline, the wind
combing my body fibers into the ley-lines of the earth
Ancient circuits connecting breath to flesh, flesh to feet, feet to foothills,
salty sweat conducting into the grass, to ground, to roots, mycelium and dirt
Following the worms as they till the hardpack, aerating threads of space between grains of soil

I swim in their wake, and become liquid
All droplets descending, focused on hunting the scent of home waters
Damply precipitating through the earth, burnished and filtered,
slipping down stalactites, to tip across the dark space
finally dropping into the hidden aquifer.

Welcome home, where have you been
Regale us with stories about your epic journey, old friends say
Rest is in reunion
The weight soothes the body whole again
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Donations 

  • Anonymous
    • $10
    • 2 mos
  • Catherine Conroy
    • $50
    • 6 mos
  • YU-WEN Chen
    • $60
    • 6 mos
  • Diana Wu
    • $300
    • 8 mos
  • Lawrence Lin
    • $100
    • 8 mos
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Organizer

Vickie Chang
Organizer
Berkeley, CA

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