Asian Indigenous Relations

Hi Cynthia!~

Yes, it really is a joy to come across more diasporic Asian folks who are resisting boba liberalism, especially among those (of us) who have more proximity to whiteness. I half joke to my people that I could so easily become a boba liberal girl boss if I wanted, as I was raised under that same liberal meritocracy that you write about in your essay, except also different given my family’s immigration story from so-called South Korea and my dad’s “success” as an immigrant breadwinner. Receiving the email about AIR and reading your essay brought me immense joy, accompanied by relief and grief. There’s also an awkward fumbling that I experience when I unexpectedly come across other anti-imperialist diasporic Asians in the co-struggle for Indigenous sovereignty. It’s a feeling of, “Oh, this is nice. And unfamiliar. How do we relate with one another?” I’m looking forward to exploring this through this pen pal-ship into which you’ve generously invited me.

Your question about dealing with the rage and grief made me really sit and pause. Frankly, I am only a few years into allowing myself to grieve and rage around white violence towards Asianness. Having been introduced to leftist politics through Black feminism and Indigenous resurgence discourse, I really fell into the version of the model minority myth that says, “yes, we face some racism, but Asians don’t have it that bad” for too many years. This really speaks to my proximity to whiteness through Koreanness, citizenship and class. But as a Mad Psychiatric survivor due to the police-involved “mental health” response, I’m reminded more and more in the past few years that cops kill Asians too⁵. My abolitionist politics began mostly as an extension of resisting anti-Blackness and settler colonialism, but Asians need abolition for ourselves as well.

I think, as a way of differentiating between the grief & anger that boba liberals experience around discrimination and not getting a seat at The Table™, I think my grief and rage have been changing form to the question of, “why are we even here?” Here, on Turtle Island, on stolen land, participating in settler colonial futurity. I’m thinking about the various imperialisms that lead Asian refugees and immigrants to leave their homelands and migrate to settler colonial nation-states. In this way, it has been so helpful to connect with other anti-imperialist Koreans across Turtle Island. To educate ourselves on Korean history & presents, from Japanese occupation, to the Cold War and the division of the peninsula, dictatorship under US imperialism, the IMF crisis, and the ongoing US military presence that continues to keep our country divided and at war. We are learning to grieve together and rage together. Collective grief & rage cannot be held individually in our bodies. It has meant the world for me to find other Korean kin with whom I can hold these things together. And these relationships are core to any grassroots organizing and political movements. These conversations around our role as diasporic Koreans in varying liberation movements have been coming up and I’m happy to share more as we go along.

I’m curious what your navigation of grief & rage has looked like. If you’ve been able to find places, spaces, beings and/or people where you can be tender. I really do think that AIR has so much potential. Yes, it’s coming out of the academy, but there are so many ways of subverting the academy’s norms and expectations. I’m experiencing AIR as a portal or gathering space that can foster relationship-building among people, ideas, and praxis. I’m also grateful to you for centering grief & rage as a starting point. It’s so important for Asian settlers to process and work through our own baggage in order to engage in co-resistance for anti-colonial struggle on Turtle Island.

Wishing us deep breaths, 

Ji-Youn

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Ji-Youn!

How was your summer? Were you able to rest your body and mind before Vancouver says farewell to the sun for six months? I was in New York City for the last week of August, and I think my body is ready for the colder months after that trip.

I want to start off with a compliment to your writing; The phrase “places, spaces, beings and/or people where you can be tender” really struck a chord with me, and I’ll begin my letter from here.

My personal journey with grief and rage began when I was around the age of twenty. I met someone on Tumblr via a BTS fandom blog, and before I knew it, we were reading Lenin together and comparing it to my terrible job experiences at the time⁶. As time progressed, we eventually created a reading group of fellow BTS fans and leftists. The group began publishing work about the DPRK and the Global South, and how imperialism was a detriment to society. That was probably my first time I felt like I could be vulnerable and tender because I created a space where people with similar experiences and motivations could learn from each other and share their stories. Unfortunately, I had a falling out with this friend when I started dating my ex three years ago. I’ll keep this part short, but the gist of it is: he came from a very different tax bracket than me, and I didn’t feel comfortable expressing my grief with capitalism and imperialism because he could not understand why I was upset. He didn’t understand because he had a seat at The Table™ and was profiting from capitalism. For the two years that I dated him, I (regrettably) kept the grief and rage of being an Asian settler silent. 

Even to this day, I find it hard to answer the question “why am I here?” that you reference in your letter. To my knowledge, my parents did not forcibly leave China; they wanted to have my younger sister and did not think either of us could handle the rigorous academic life in China. Twenty years later, our life on Turtle Island is economically very great, and I am blessed to have the life that I live, but I couldn’t stop the feeling that there was no real purpose for my being here.

Now, as I have grown and matured, I have begun to think that maybe my purpose on Turtle Island is to create these conversations around the Asian settler complicity. I have been able to cultivate a space where I can unapologetically work through my grief and bad feelings. AIR has also allowed me to have conversations with other Asian diaspora about their experiences as settlers. Just this week, on September 24th, Ty and I had the opportunity to guest lecture at two UBC classes; we were able to have some really thought-provoking conversations with undergraduate students. It made me realize that 1) teaching future generations about settlerhood is such an important mission and 2) as important as a resource hub is, on the ground community building is more of a priority if we want to see tangible change. As scary as it, coming down from the ivory tower is paramount to further our mission. 

Outside of AIR, I am grateful for the friends that show genuine interest in my work, either by supporting me through my exhibition at the Cannery in Steveston, or engaging with me in conversations about Indigenous sovereignty. I have never experienced so much love and care during my journey of reckoning with settler guilt. I hope AIR can be a space for many other people like myself to progress on their own journeys. I definitely agree with you in that AIR can be a central space for relationship-building despite its roots in academia. We are already working to host youth summits and our very own AIR conference as part of our mission to ground ourselves more in the community.

In other news, I was very interested in enrolling for your Processing Rage course, but I was so caught up in preparations for guest lectures and thesis presentations that I missed the enrollment date. I do hope you have another offering of it in the future.

Wishing us both a calm autumn, 

Cynthia

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Hi Cynthia~

Wow, these months are flying by and we’re already in the depths of fall. I’m finally getting around to your response on this gloomy autumn day with my tea. 

I welcome the cozy seasonal change from the comforts of my home while also concerned about the climate crisis. In the time of my writing this, we had the recent atmospheric river in the Lower Mainland of so-called BC and Hurricane Helene in the other corner of the continent. Ever since I’ve been learning more from my Global South kin in the past few years, I can’t help but think about the disproportionate impact of manufactured climate catastrophes on the racialized peoples of the Global South as well as racialized, disabled and unhoused neighbors on Turtle Island. 

Coming back to the point of “why are we here?”, I totally resonate with the discomfort of settler complicity, especially for those of us whose families had more agency in our migration. This reminds me of the discourse around settlers vs. arrivants, in reference to enslaved African peoples from the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and their descendants⁷, and the importance of differentiating white settlers from settlers of color. In unpacking Asian settler complicity, I wish there were also more words to differentiate those who migrated voluntarily in contrast to forced displacement such as climate refugees or refugees fleeing from genocide in their homelands. And as you said, class background and class consciousness makes all the difference as well.

I’m so glad you feel held with love and care in your reckoning and I look forward to witnessing the types of conversations you will help co-create/facilitate around Asian settler complicity through AIR. Dominant discourse around Asian American and Canadian-ness doesn’t name and dissect enough of the differences and power dynamics within Asian settler communities such as citizenship, class, queerness, colourism, (dis)ability, and Global North/South dynamics⁸. Oh! And not to forget non-white imperialist histories and presents among Asians. There is so much to work through. During my five month trip to the ROK last year, I had the gross confrontation of the fact that even without US imperialism, Koreans would exploit Southeast and South Asian migrant workers for capital. Additionally, at the end of that trip while I was reflecting on what it means to be of diaspora, the current genocide in Gaza began and thinking about diaspora, migration, and settlerhood & citizenship through the Palestinian context complexified so much more.  It’s important to see how varying forms of colonialisms, imperialisms, and state violence around the world all connect, in the pursuit of Indigenous sovereignty from Turtle Island to Palestine. 

I agree that navigating settler guilt is so much more doable with fellow anti-imperialist Asian settler kin. Implicating ourselves is deeply uncomfortable and unsettling (as it’s meant to be!) and I truly believe that the more honest we are in our complicities, not only in settler colonialism but everything that allows the settler colonial nation state to thrive, the more possibilities come to bloom in our dreaming and co-resistance. How do we process grief & guilt and transform settler guilt into something more generative? What is possible when we do it with fellow kin? I’m reminded of Indigenous teachings on the connection between relationships and responsibilities; identifying our relationships with one another informs our responsibilities to one another, and that informs our solidarity work. 

Some brief responses to your mentions. Ah, BTS! Hahahaha. I have a complex relationship with the global popularization of K-Pop from an anti-imperialist stance ie. the growing soft power of the ROK but I’m so glad to hear that you were able to connect with fellow leftists in approaching the DPRK and the Global South in that realm! We definitely need more of that. And lovely to hear about your interest in Processing Rage. Yes, we intend to continue to run it twice a year so it would be lovely for you to join us some time! It’s been quite liberatory to orient towards rage as ancestral, cultural, collective felt-sense wisdom. I think it’s quite necessary to tap into that as we co-resist in the pursuit of Indigenous sovereignty and collective liberation as a whole.

With care & in solidarity,

Ji-Youn

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