Asian Diaspora Anthology

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!

Video of class reading 2022

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