How I Created a Wound
Chinese New Year, my dad Skypes his family: two brothers, one sister, and both his parents. None of them are fluent in English–most of them only know a few words–and I’m not fluent in Mandarin so whenever I join my dad, I have to stitch together words to form grammatically incorrect sentences while conversation flows...
Is Racial Solidarity for Black Lives Real?
When I first started learning about racism in-depth and opened my eyes to the injustices around me, I was a bit too optimistic about it all. I thought that racial solidarity was easy to achieve. 1, 2, 3 and boom it’s there! I was positive that I could show solidarity to other races, especially ones...
Yellow Peril and Black Power
I took AP US History last year, and my teacher told us about the many racist acts passed by Congress as a response to the influx of Chinese immigrants starting in the late 1800s: there was Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, the Immigration Restriction Act in 1917 and the National Origins Act in 1924. The...
#WeMatter x #IAmADoubleThreat
Recently, a black man was shot and killed for selling CDs, another for following a police officer’s instruction, and a man also supposedly hung. I’ve been stuck trying to organize my words. I’m trying to rephrase my sentences so they sound right and ethical, but I’m having a hard time with this.
ATTN: Budding SJWs
I have lots of names and nicknames. Audrey, Aud (started by my 7th grade English teacher who insisted on only calling his students by the first syllable of their first names,) Koh, AKoh, the list goes on. One of them is SJW, short for Social Justice Warrior.
On Being Half Indian
When I was twelve I decided that being half Indian was embarrassing. On moving from primary to secondary school, I would have the opportunity to reinvent myself, and thank goodness for my fair skin and Caucasian features, otherwise I would have been stuck with the ‘brown girl’ label.
The Grey Area
I cannot deny that, as a Korean girl, I face many stereotypes about my race and gender. Such stereotypes are exacerbated by the fact that I juggle two different cultural environments; I live in a Korean neighborhood, but I go to a predominantly white private school. Thus, Koreans taunt me by calling me “whitewashed”...
The Mysterious Vanishing Trick of Blackness
A recommendation from a friend led me to a comedy web series that stemmed from the short film, ‘Ackee and Saltfish’. It’s about black sisterhood in the U.K, which mirrors that of the U.S.
The Death of Culture
From 1987 to 1993, a group called the “Dotbusters” roamed the East Coast attacking and harassing South Asians. In 2012, Vanessa Ann Hudgens began wearing a bindi to music festivals, sparking a new trend of white girls sporting that same accessory that South Asians could potentially be murdered for. This phenomenon can best be described...
Bridging the Gap
“Have you heard about that case?” We were in French class, working on creating an imaginary dialogue, when one of my friends asked the question. There had only been one case that had captured national attention for the past year and a half. With a sinking feeling, I asked, “What case?”
Using Our White Voices
When I first started this, joining Margins, I wanted my work to be intersectional above all else. I wanted it to touch base with everyone, for every person to feel like what they had to say was important on issues that are relevant. Especially for people who are often forgotten, whose issues are not...
The Missing Voices: The Fight for Voting Rights
In my United States History class, we were taught that the main cause of the Civil War and the secession of the South was not division over the terrible and inhumane institution of slavery, but in fact, South Carolina’s states’ rights and nullification challenge.