Asian American feminism, politics, and pop culture
Several types of face masks, arranged in a row.
By Guest Contributor: tsonami
i’m not your scapegoat
never seen nor heard nor given a say
to be spit on and shot when you’re having a bad day
not considered a person of color
and only ever expected to answer
Have they run out of White tears yet?
Racism, after all, we can’t as easily forget.
Days ago, Calvin Trillin penned a foolish ode
to Orientalism, chinoiserie, and General Tso’s.
Trillin appropriated China’s provincial diversity,
and re-processed it into no more than a foodie’s troublesome adversity.
Twenty eight lines of witless, badly written drivel,
to lament that China is not so conveniently artificial
as orange sauce basted fried chicken bits,
or stir-fried noodle counterfeits,
or tasteless envelopes for pseudo-Confucian tidbits,
or any mix of cream cheese and crab could possibly transmit.
(H/T: The Aerogram)
Vijay Seshadri, a Brooklyn-based poet and writer, has become the first Asian American to win a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, awarded for his book of collected poems, 3 Sections. Seshadri, who was born in Bangalore, immigrated to Columbus, Ohio at the age of five with his family.
3 Sections is Seshadri’s third book; the first two are Wild Kingdom and The Long Meadow. In awarding Seshadri’s 3 Sections the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry this year, the Pulitzer committee wrote:
[3 Sections is] a compelling collection of poems that examine human consciousness, from birth to dementia, in a voice that is by turns witty and grave, compassionate and remorseless.
You can purchase 3 Sections from Amazon here.
Correction: An earlier version of this post neglected to note that Seshadri is the first to win a Pulitzer in Poetry; Asian Americans have previously won the Pulitzer in other categories.
Since the start of the Korean War in 1953, over 200,000 children of Korean ethnic descent have been put up for adoption in America and globally. The ways in which this experience has uniquely shaped the racial, cultural, and ethnic identities of Korean adoptees is rarely explored, and deserves greater voice.
Laura Elizabeth Hyo Jin Wachs is a spoken word artist who was adopted into a family in Seattle, Washington. She has set up a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a series of poetry and spoken word workshops and showcases, as well as two books, to help international Korean adoptees and Korean American adoptees find a voice in the poetry medium.
Laura has just under a month to raise another $7000. I know y’all just got your income taxes back; how about kicking a little over to help out this awesome project?
