abandoning cartography
Jan. 31st, 2009 01:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glass_icarusThere is no map for us.
Once upon a time, a nation that dreamed said to the world, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore." So the people with yellow skin joined all the other dreaming people and crossed the ocean to a land without dragons, a land newly-minted and shining with hope and riches.
Or so they thought.
Once upon a time- no, that's not right. Once upon no time, the men and women who shared my skin toiled in a Land of Opportunity. They were coolies and construction workers, laundromat-owners, "comfort women" and mail-order brides. They lived- and died- in a place where people only saw in black and white, and they were neither white enough nor black enough to fit the citizens' perceptions. If their neighbors saw white as people and black as not-people, or vice versa, then the men and women who shared my skin were simply not: invisible, inaudible, ignored.
Years passed, and more of their fellows came from over the seas, and so the invisible ones turned their sight inward, toward their own. They made communities within their cities, crafting homes-away-from-home out of their loneliness, their bitterness, their exile. They worked hard to try to lift themselves out of the blue-collar class, despite the fact that no matter where they went or where they worked, no one saw them. They worked hard and swallowed their pride because things like family and duty could not be ignored, and if things like honor and respect and acknowledgment weren't attainable for their generation, perhaps they could be secured for their children, or for their children's children.
Thus was the "model minority."
Years passed, and their children came of age in a place where their faces were not. When they learned of dragons, they did not learn about the dragons of the east, but the dragons of the west. When they spoke in school, they did not speak the tongues of their parents, but the tongues of the strangers without their skin. Slowly and surely, despite the best efforts of their parents, these children lost their heritage and became something else, something new, something not of one world or the other. Slowly and surely, these children set their feet on different roads, ones outside the edges of all the maps, and began to walk forward, without compasses.
There is still no map for us.
Once upon no time, the men and women who shared my skin came to the shores of a land of many dreams. Some wanted to stay, and some wanted to return to their roots, but all of them dreamed of home.
-- written for the Remyth Project.
Once upon a time, a nation that dreamed said to the world, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore." So the people with yellow skin joined all the other dreaming people and crossed the ocean to a land without dragons, a land newly-minted and shining with hope and riches.
Or so they thought.
Once upon a time- no, that's not right. Once upon no time, the men and women who shared my skin toiled in a Land of Opportunity. They were coolies and construction workers, laundromat-owners, "comfort women" and mail-order brides. They lived- and died- in a place where people only saw in black and white, and they were neither white enough nor black enough to fit the citizens' perceptions. If their neighbors saw white as people and black as not-people, or vice versa, then the men and women who shared my skin were simply not: invisible, inaudible, ignored.
Years passed, and more of their fellows came from over the seas, and so the invisible ones turned their sight inward, toward their own. They made communities within their cities, crafting homes-away-from-home out of their loneliness, their bitterness, their exile. They worked hard to try to lift themselves out of the blue-collar class, despite the fact that no matter where they went or where they worked, no one saw them. They worked hard and swallowed their pride because things like family and duty could not be ignored, and if things like honor and respect and acknowledgment weren't attainable for their generation, perhaps they could be secured for their children, or for their children's children.
Thus was the "model minority."
Years passed, and their children came of age in a place where their faces were not. When they learned of dragons, they did not learn about the dragons of the east, but the dragons of the west. When they spoke in school, they did not speak the tongues of their parents, but the tongues of the strangers without their skin. Slowly and surely, despite the best efforts of their parents, these children lost their heritage and became something else, something new, something not of one world or the other. Slowly and surely, these children set their feet on different roads, ones outside the edges of all the maps, and began to walk forward, without compasses.
There is still no map for us.
Once upon no time, the men and women who shared my skin came to the shores of a land of many dreams. Some wanted to stay, and some wanted to return to their roots, but all of them dreamed of home.
-- written for the Remyth Project.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 07:20 pm (UTC)(I still haven't commented on your other post, but I'm going to—I just want to make sure I am as thoughtful as your post deserves!)
Do you know Joy Harjo's poetry at all? I feel like we might have talked about it—but perhaps not? In any case, she has a poem (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=179781) which this piece reminded me of. Not just for your line about maps, which she echoes, (though that too) but also because it seems like her poem shares this same feeling of—a story that echoes with pain? I'm not sure how to articulate it, but what you wrote immediately reminded me of that.
If you keep writing these pieces, I hope you keep posting them—I was really glad to get to read. Thanks.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 01:49 am (UTC)Yeah, I can see your point about things transferring, cross-culturally... I recently read a piece by a friend of mine who's Southern to my Northern, and it was startling, just how much didn't come across. I didn't really even get what she was going after.
Then again, part of that was her writing, maybe, and that's not a problem you have. :) ♥ right back!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 08:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 08:54 pm (UTC)Something like feeling out-of-place, unwelcome, or adrift is universal, even if the causes and the depths of those feelings are completely different. So while I can't actually know what this experience is like (for either an individual or the group as a whole), I can get a sense of what some of it must feel like, and that makes me think all the more about how much I just don't know about other people's history and experiences.
There are so many gaps in our education (and when I say "our" I mean American public education, grades K-12 and even beyond) -- they're getting better, but unless I go out and find these things -- unless people like you share them with me -- I have no way of beginning to conceive of the gaps in my knowledge and understanding.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 01:27 am (UTC)i can only hope that this is universal enough- the feeling of displacement or being on the outside is common to all of us, and so i thought it might be a good place to start from... otherwise there's a certain futility in sharing things that aren't relatable, you know? ;P
no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 01:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 01:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 06:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 01:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 08:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 03:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-02 03:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 01:30 am (UTC)<3 And I say this as a half-Asian Canadian, too. Saving it to my computer.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-13 01:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-03 05:58 am (UTC)When they spoke in school, they did not speak the tongues of their parents, but the tongues of the strangers without their skin.
Yes, this. Only my parents scraped their skins and cut their tongues believing that would make us (I and my sibling) be *enough* to not be invisible.
ETA: (here via ciderpress)
no subject
Date: 2009-03-03 03:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-07 04:13 pm (UTC)Once upon no time, the men and women who shared my skin came to the shores of a land of many dreams. Some wanted to stay, and some wanted to return to their roots, but all of them dreamed of home.
Amazing. This resonates with me so much, my family being part of the Chinese Diaspora et all. Thank you so much for writing this. =D
no subject
Date: 2009-03-08 12:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-08 04:13 pm (UTC)perhaps they could be secured for their children, or for their children's children. - they were. They were.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-08 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-20 10:17 am (UTC)This... just about stole my breath away. This is exactly how I feel, and how my parents feel about it me and it breaks my heart for all of us. Thank you for writing this.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-20 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-21 11:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-22 04:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-07 08:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-07 02:23 pm (UTC)