Elegy for Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Xiaojie Tan, Suncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue, and Daoyou Feng

CW: mentions of racial violence, sexual violence, and war violence

I yearn for a homeland that no longer exists in the planes of the East
To connect to the heartbeat of a drum whose name I do not know
Because my mother tongue has been slashed away through generations
Of violent assimilation to a culture that will never accept me as its own

I can’t go home to another country because I don’t belong there
And if I don’t belong here, then home is nowhere for me anymore
My passport is nothing but a piece of paper and my eyes are just a relic
Of the collision of families from villages that are slowly disappearing

Every day I see the violence against grandmothers who look like my own
Who left their communities at the hands of western imperialist conquest
To live in the land of the white victors, with nothing but a suitcase
Full of dreams and pocket filled with hope in the eyes of their children

I see women who look like my mother shot in their place of work 
Simply for existing as women who look like those whose stories
Have been erased and appropriated for the pleasure of American soldiers
From Madame Butterfly to a faceless woman offering sex in broken English

The men who looked like my father and grandfather deemed 
Somehow both a threat and not manly enough to be equal  
Socially castrating them through imperial emasculation and Exclusion Acts
Still man enough to stain yellow the white cloth of western society

I will never be the blond-haired girl with freckles and big blue eyes
On the front of the anti-terrorism flags blasted across my childhood
My country has never aimed to protect people like me, rather our nations
And our bodies were their playground, to settle arguments and assert dominance

Today’s violence is no accident, rather the echo of militarized imperialism
Across the continent our ancestors and family called home
Whilst we live in the same fear our grandparents wanted to escape
Our elders who carry the torch of cultural knowledge are being extinguished

I stand with all my sisters, and cry as they fall one by one 
Held hostage at the brutal intersection of racism and sexism 
At the hands of men who do not care to know our stories
Whilst they greet us in a language they will not allow us to speak 

Yet a political awakening is happening in my community
Which has been told inside and out not to make waves
But a tsunami is coming if you think we’ll just sit idly by while
Our people are killed as they were in the wars the west started

But with the fear, sadness, anger and mourning comes hope
If a beautiful lotus can grow in the murkiest, dirtiest waters
So too can the rebirth of our communities and our people
The diaspora has been galvanized, fuck white supremacy, this is our home.