Graphic by Naima Mark
I remember the feeling when I saw H.E.R. strumming an electric guitar on TV She had a nose like mine. The nose that I pinched with a clothespin so it wouldn’t be flat and wide. I remember the feeling when I saw Bretman Rock With a million followers on Instagram He said words that I knew. Words that I refused to say or refused to learn because I didn’t want an accent. I remember the feeling when I saw the brown heart That Apple added to the emoji keyboard It was the same color as mine. Yellow never felt quite right, my outsides and insides are brown. I remember the feeling when I heard a Filipino man Had been slashed across the face in New York City He had a face like my grandfather’s. A long cut on his brown skin, across his wide, flat nose. No one talks about being Filipino. No one talks about being Asian. It’s a silent belonging. It’s a physical belonging. It’s the food on my plate. the words my aunties say to each other my nose and my hair and my almond eyes a box that I click on every application: Asian/Asian American. A simple box. For so many people: My aunties and uncles in the Philippines, My childhood Taiwanese friends Bruce Lee My Indian professor The lady that does my pedicures. Yet to the world, We all look the same. Oxes to be rounded up and herded into a fence. Asian/Asian American. The elderly Thai man who was killed in San Francisco The Vietnamese woman who was robbed in San Jose The Chinese restaurant owners who lost everything Because no one wanted to come in.