I am having a bad day
I woke up 30 minutes earlier than my 9:30am Asian American Studies class. My coffee was bitter than usual. I have a headache from having only getting 4 hours of sleep. So, yes I am having a bad day.
These last few nights have been restless and it continues to be as the days slowly approach March 21st. There is nothing special about that day, no ethnic holiday or event, no reason for gathering. It is the day I go back to my apartment in Berkeley. It is the day I lose the comfort of the walls of my home, which I used to describe to be those of a prison a few years ago.
I had no fear of going up on a 350 mile trip until two months ago. I am horrible with directions, but a few places have been ingrained into my mind: Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose. I am familiar with fear and I developed the habit of pushing my anxiety and paranoia to the back of my mind. I tell myself they are tricks and lies of the mind that inhibit me. However, these fears seems different than usual; they feel far more real and substantial than before.
I feel scared. Scared about what happens to my parents when they go up to Berkeley and then leave to go back home. What will happen? Will they be able to pass and be invisible as they always have been? Or will the masks they wear to protect themselves be the one that pulls the trigger? Is it safer to risk not having enough gas for the trip or to go out to the station? Will they call to report their return home, or will I learn it from the news?
In the midst of preparing for my Asian American Studies midterm, the words of Cathy Park Hong stays with me: The everyday racialized experience of Asian Americans isn't the fear of being a target of a hate crime, but the anticipation of one.
I can’t help but truly resonate with these words. It is a fear of the unknown, of what ifs. It is a fear that I am not foreign to. It is a fear that rose subtly these passing months since the beginning of the pandemic, but much more drastically the last two months. We screamed for visibility; we wanted to be seen and I can’t help but see the irony in this. All over my social media, I see the pain. I see the grief, the anger, the frustration. I can hear it all and it is deafening. I had to pull my eyes away from my phone, however it only led me to write. The pain is present regardless. We have lost our invisibility like we have wanted and what we see is hurt. All I can think is: What an American form of validation: a proof of pain is needed for a cent of sympathy.
As visible as my community’s pain is, I still feel invisible, drowning and muffled, being pulled into an abyss of silence. My roommate told me that my positionality was unique: I am an Asian American student from the 626 in a political organization within UC Berkeley, a school in California. Essentially I am in an echo chamber and what I hear and see on my media are the thoughts of my own, the tears and blood of my own. So, what if this pain still isn't visible? What more proof do we need? What more pain must we feel?
As I tap away on my Instagram stories I see the same posts; I see the names of the victims and I speak it out loud hoping to give it some life and voice. Within this echo chamber, the same five posts are circulated. I stopped when I saw one that was different: something local, a vigil in respect to the victims. My initial response isn’t one of heartfelt compassion, but of compassionate fear. I want to scream at them. I want to yell at them for being stupid. I want them to run. Why congregate? Why herd yourselves towards the wolves? We have power in numbers, but they have guns! I don’t want to lose more. Please. As much as we need the time and space to grieve, we won’t have the time to do so if we lose more during this process.
But, I understand people need to grieve their own way and I only ask you to be safe, to take your time, and to keep your loved ones close. This xenophobia, this American response to my color, has made me realize how important it is to appreciate my community because the anticipation is killing me and the unknown is far more scarier and real now.
