last night, i realized that it’s a simple known fact Yellow girls cannot become poets we are your foreign cardiologist your human calculator your trash-talking nail technician your Yellow doormat to wipe white soles on. if we try to be anything else we are hung by our collars on a clothesline by wide eyes, white eyes. left to wither in the sun left to rot like raisins left to fester like runny wounds. we are jaundiced limoncello vomit stuck on the bathroom floor because it’s a simple known fact Yellow girls don’t have feelings. they won’t put up a fight they won’t bite. so go ahead baby boy, try to stretch your white eyes like rubber bands, pulling at corners until you’ve torn in half—snap! when i was a child, i drowned my eyes in tubs of two percent milk, scrubbed them clean until all my Yellow bled out on our bathroom floor. i cut my mother tongue off with a kitchen knife, left it to ooze like a bullet wound underneath my White pillowcase. i stabbed my brain, twisted the blade until i forgot how Lola folds lumpias blindfolded, how Lolo exhales White smoke from Yellowing lungs. i shoved two fingers down my throat, purged the jaundice out of my skin to feel more like Them. i ripped my fingernails off, picked them raw for barbie baby boys to paint them a color they approved. please tell me why i murdered my Yellow self before i turned ten, stabbed her in the back, mourned her after i saw huang he tears tattooed onto her cheeks. please tell me why i buried my native self in our backyard, threw her screaming corpse over my White shoulders, made her sleep in a sea of soil & shame and was still so empty.

food food is a legacy the women in my family have long carried on. sitting on my tiled kitchen floor watching Nani knead dough after dough, scented marzipan vanilla of the Portuguese history her ancestors left. my orange headband is too big for my head; my hands too small to help. the kitchen is my mother's sacred space. she doesn't make kaju scented marzipan but she pours vinegar in sorpotel like she was born for the moment. she watches fat drip down succulent bacon as she adds thicker slices of pumpkin to the sambhar she's making my father to show how much she loves him. but growing up my hands burn everything they touch and so when we road trip around a white man's country I am kicked out the trailer everytime the kitchen is used. because I have fire in my fingers, my mother reasons, and red hot flames in brown man's skin is called terrorism in a country like this. once back home, I sit silently in the kitchen as I watch my younger sister work her magic. she adds Curry leaves to leftovers, some smoky dhaniya, and voilà! it's a whole new dish entirely. the makhan she slathers on parathas is just right, and the cheese she has stuffed within oozes out when you take a bite. she fries chicken is simmering oil, and it's delicate, golden crispiness almost makes our guests weep. she hangs onto me when the kadhai is all scraped up and I long, I yearn, to be wanted for the magic in my hands, as she is for hers. I gently pat her head as she falls asleep. that night, the world is quiet as I tip-toe into the kitchen. I light the stove with the flames in my fingers and try to create my own magic. I end up burning rice. I am banned from the kitchen again. This piece aims to focus on the importance of food in Indian culture, especially when it comes to women. It also tries to out the sense of loneliness one experiences when we're unable to take part in this form of cultural expression. Biography: Sarah is a kind, hard-working individual. When she isn't busy obsessing over poetry, you can find her making funny videos with her sisters at @sarahmathaii.

TW: Sexual Assault In this wave of a high school and collegiate Me Too movement, Desi rapists, assaulters, and their protectors are being exposed, whether by their survivors or by various anonymous Instagram accounts. Alumni from these institutions who did not feel safe coming forward while they were still in school are naming their abusers too. This era is unique because now more than ever, people can petition for change, find information, and act quickly. Survivors’ supporters are quickly finding where these men are working and demanding that they are no longer employed, publicizing photographs of them, and mobilizing others to spread this information. Especially for diaspora South Asians, our circles are small and cross ethnic and religious lines. In New York City especially, some youth cross boroughs to go to school and later find themselves at different SUNY’s and CUNY’s. Dance team competitions for bhangra, raas, Bollywood fusion, and traditional styles have college students meeting one another across the country. And of course, the prevalence and growth of South Asian Greek organizations mean that chapters are connecting and providing networks for “brothers” and “sisters.” Understanding complicity and coverups has been just as important as identifying the men that have caused harm, because the bigger question is, who let them get away with it and move on into college and/or the workplace without them seeing any consequences for their actions? Several things have been disturbing to me throughout these past few weeks. Many of the anonymous accounts that have been publishing testimonies have been soon thereafter deactivated for a range of reasons: they’ve been hacked, they’re receiving threats of doxxing, or the mental health of the person running the account has been so taxed by the sheer amount of graphic content they have to sift through and publish that they are unable to continue to run the account much longer. Their fear is palpable and we, as the readers and followers of the account, know that if they transfer the account to someone else, that the account creator might lose their own anonymity in that process. These comment sections, while largely filled with young women who are affirming and supportive of the post and its submitter, are attracting defensive and angry young men who demand receipts or proof and question the character of the survivor. Even more horrifying has been the response of some of the named rapists, who, rather than take accountability for their actions and make attempts to apologize, have dug their heels in through a narcissistic rationale along this lines of, “I am a supporter of the Me Too movement and I have a mother and sister(s). Accusations like this against me are undermining the credibility of people who have actually been sexually assaulted.” The first account that I saw (which was taken down within the same week it was created), “Telling My Story,” also named two popular Secondary School Admission Test (SSAT) exam test prep centers in Queens as companies that are run by and/or have hired tutors that are pedophiles and misogynists. These organizations predominantly serve low-income South Asian families and position themselves as companies which can provide children a chance at competitive specialized high schools and hopefully a stable route of upward mobility. The stories in this account, and in many of the account’s offshoots, covered a wider range of experiences because they also included girls’ experiences with being molested by family members, groped by religious figures, or sexualized and demeaned in public spaces by ostensibly members of their own communities. Recently, a pair of South Asian twins from my high school were identified by an anonymous account (without the permission of the survivor, who subsequently publicly came forward to explain how elements of the published testimony were not wholly accurate and actually re-traumatized her) as rapists while they were college students. The two were de-lettered by their former fraternity and have now deleted most of their social media accounts. It was this last revelation that forced me to finally pause and think deeply about how overwhelmed I feel by not having an answer to the question, “Where do we go from here?” Some brown men have seen this movement as something that demonstrates a need for more empathy and self-education on what rape culture is and how they actively or passively perpetuate it. Yet the bulk of the response has been their swift backlash to considering their complicity and instead a desire to more fiercely cling to a propensity to replicate the same norms that for so long have insulated these rapists and sexual assaulters in friend groups, within mutual connections, in houses of worship, and even in one’s own family. They are in these fraternities, they are in these dance teams, and they are in positions of power and influence. As long as so many of them can troll behind their computer screens or their phones to undermine critical conversations and the educational content that women are laboring to create and democratize, they stand against and resent feminists who are demanding that we, our mothers, our girls, and our sisters are believed, respected, and understood. Yes, we need more South Asian counselors, mental health providers, and social workers. These are the people that will provide our survivors with culturally competent healing. But what more are we willing to do in the mean time? Online sexual harassment trainings are being rapidly clicked through with people sharing the answers to the “quizzes” at the end so they do not have to pay attention. Title IX protections for survivors are being eroded by Secretary of Education Betsy Devos. South Asian fraternities haze and appropriate Black Greek traditions, while they are overall modeled on the base cultures of Inter-fraternity Council fraternities. They provide hunting grounds for college men who are theoretically of high character, seeking to uphold our cultures, and creating spaces for brotherhood for the future leaders of our communities. What are we willing to fearlessly demand, beyond these fruitless calls for men to, simply and only out of their good consciences, start evolving? Can we commit to seeking that these Greek organizations are dismantled? If that is beyond our imaginations, can we ensure that our brothers, cousins and sons avoid these organizations and their members, until the stigma alone has them naturally disappear? Can we require that consent trainings and sexual harassment education is not a single hour or single day event, but are ongoing conversations? In our communities beyond college, traditions and a culture that mandates respect for elders make it rarely safe (let alone culturally viable or sanctioned) to address the immigrant “uncles” in the community who are dangerous and threaten women’s bodily autonomy. The mobilization against Dr. Ferdous Khandeker MD was a unique example of how girls have told not only their own stories, but those of their mothers’ as well. There are no easy solutions, but something that has shaped why these testimonies against Dr. Khandeker have been so delayed is because we have not yet normalized a reaction to these revelations in which men are the recipient of our anger and righteousness for raping, assaulting and molesting instead of our women being ashamed of being the recipients of this violence. There is more stigma and labeling for the survivors and what others will think about their family’s values and honor instead that has so many still feeling justifiably scared and silent. I don’t foresee a near future where men will start to hold one another accountable - not until they see that we do not accept the organizations and physical & digital atmospheres they create which make us feel unsafe and unheard. It is not lost on me that I recently wrote a piece about radical love and an ethics of care when it comes to empathizing with South Asian men - but this was as it relates to mental health and our need for collective liberation. Until they are mutually committed to seeing our oppression under cisheteropatriarchy and we are moving forward together with brown men’s uncompromising reciprocal investment in our freedom, we must continue to hold that accountability and de-platforming assaulters is not punishment, but actually a form of community care. In this wave of a high school and collegiate Me Too movement, Desi rapists, assaulters, and their protectors are being exposed, whether by their survivors or by various anonymous Instagram accounts. Alumni who did not feel safe coming forward while they were still in school are naming their abusers too. I believe that until they are mutually committed to seeing our oppression under cisheteropatriarchy and we are moving forward together with brown men’s uncompromising reciprocal investment in our safety and collective liberation, we must continue to hold that accountability and de-platforming assaulters is not punishment, but actually a form of community care. Biography: Shivani is a budding South Asian American racial and immigrant rights advocate currently working as the Outreach Coordinator to Asian Communities at the Center for Safety and Change. She is a member of the New York City Chapter of National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, on the Emerging Leaders Council of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic, and serves as the Vice President of University Chapters of MannMukti. Instagram: @little_miss_shivani / Tweets: @browngirlrising

Little girlhood slipping into the mangled mouth of summer: raw as our blacktop-skinned knees, toppling fearless against the ground over & over as if gravity itself would learn to stop wounding us. Hold us in the way we were meant to be held. Girlhood, I skinsearch. I am holding this body like a clock ticking too slow. Like a question fished out from between my legs. On the last train back home, I girl-watch until every woman is someone I want & want to become, my hair tied up like an invitation to touch me anywhere, but especially on the bare & tender nape of my neck. Even as a secret. Especially as a secret. Oh, girlhood, I tried. I sunburnt until it looked satin & practiced crying like I meant it, carried two sprays of perfume on my wrists nightly. Prickling heat all over me. Even my vengeance was all for you: teething my scalp with a buzzcut. Slinging men’s ties around my noosed & animal throat. Nothing more girl than wanting to bypass your own skin, to consume what is the same as you because every girl that I have wanted was once graceless, too & running not away, but for the motion of it. Every girl learns fear thinking she invented it. Editor(s): Alisha B., Uzayer M., Luna Y. Photo Credits: Unsplash

Yesterday, a memory I did not own came back to me. I walked on, skin curled inwards to keep the story inside. When my feet are covered in dust, you scrub me red until I am clean. I show you my dug-up heart, I say Here. Do what you want with this. The heart is naked on the table, God holds His breath. You trace your fingers over my delusions, knead your palms into my sorrows. I think I am close to being saved under your aged hands when you breath out: What is this? What is what? This, on the right ridge of the heart, Why is it swollen with secrets? Prophets that once danced before my eyes, cry out the Heaven that is in them. I cannot scrub you clean anymore, Child. The memory leaves me sick. I try to throw up but find there is no relief for the soul's indigestion. "Clean" explores the innate desire for us to be validated by a culture/religion, and the dissonance we might feel if we were to be judged by someone of our faith because of our flaws. Biography: Kiran Masroor is a sophomore at Yale University where she’s majoring in Neuroscience. On campus, she is in the performance group, TEETH Slam Poets, and she greatly enjoys writing about her Pakistani culture. ​​​​​​​She also runs a poetry account where she explores the intersection of written word, musical, and visual arts (@poemsbykiran).

Dear Asian Youth, "You're so pretty! If only you were paler." Sound familiar? One way or another, we’ve all heard our Asian grandmas claim that pale skin is superior. According to our aunties, dark skin is ugly and must be lightened. For centuries, in the eyes of Asians, dark skin has been associated with working in the fields, indicating rural poverty. Contrarily, light skin has been considered sophisticated. It lets the public know that you’re rich enough to work indoors, shielded from the sun. Asia’s introduction to Western society only increased the desire for lighter skin, as European colonizers were viewed as wealthy and high class. For Asian Americans, however, these traditional views are often conflicting. Living in a place so heavily influenced with Western beauty standards, we often struggle balancing our traditional beauty standards with those surrounding us on a daily basis. In America especially, tan skin is a valued symbol of wealth, signifying that you have the money and opportunity to enjoy leisure activities, such as going to the beach. Regardless of the dangers relating tanning to skin cancer, it is still extremely popular among Europeans as well, just as skin lightening is common within the Asian community. In cities all over Asia, it’s completely normal to see people wrapping themselves in clothing, holding their sun umbrellas, and doing anything to stay out of the sun’s rays. And all this suffering for what? To fit into social norms. Not to mention, with the ever-rising presence and heavy influence of social media, pale skin has become increasingly popular within the past few years. It has reached such an extreme point that companies are making billions selling skin whitening products. Sadly, these kinds of products make up a major percentage of the Asian beauty industry. Many of these advertised beauty commodities contain dangerous chemicals. Among these is Admire My Skin’s Ultra-Potent Brightening Serum, which is a #1 Best Seller on Amazon. Regardless of its popularity, this product contains hydroquinone, a dangerous, potentially cancerous chemical. By using these kinds of products, consumers are purposefully sacrificing their health for beauty standards. On YouTube, there are countless videos regarding lightening skin. Wishtrend TV’s video titled “How to Lighten Skin? Korean Skin Brightening Tips” has over 1.5 million views. Eunice, the Korean host, gives tips and tutorials for skin whitening, claiming that in order to achieve perfect, flawless skin, it’s “necessary” to lighten it. Well, this video is actually an advertisement for Wishtrend TV’s Skin Whitening Solution products, acting as an announcement for their Cyber Monday sale. Comments such as, “I wish my skin wasn’t as dark” and “Could you do a body lightening video too?” arose, proving that major companies, such as Wishtrend TV, take advantage of the severe beauty expectations placed on Asians. They imply that Asians must keep up with yet another social norm just to be seen as “regular.” Thankfully, there are people like Nandita Das, an Indian film director and actress, who actively stand up against such expectations. In 2013, Das joined the “Dark is Beautiful” movement, a campaign for more representation of darker Indians in the media. This took off and led to the creation of her popular video “India’s Got Color,” showing Indian celebrities supporting this accepting movement. Please remember, skin color means literally nothing when it comes to social norms. There is no need to alter your skin color to become lighter or darker, especially if you are hurting your body in the process. You don't need to be the fairest of them all to be beautiful :). - Megan

Dear Asian Youth, "OMG, you’re from China?” This is a comment I hear way too often when I visit the United States. It sounds innocent enough, but something about it always feels off to me. Though I would love to believe this question comes from a place of genuine curiosity and interest, that is sadly almost never the case. Maybe it’s the intentionally exaggerated “OMG” that gets me, or the eye-widening look of surprise printed on the face of my inquirer - as if they’ve just discovered an unfathomable secret. Yes, Chad, I’m from China. And no, Chad, I do not eat dogs. But why this reaction? I constantly ask myself. When everyone else proudly introduces their hometown of Louisiana or Seattle, I see polite nods of acknowledgement and appreciative smiles from their peers. But when I calmly present myself as a Chinese citizen, all eyes around the room widen in shock. People crowd around me for information. “How can you speak English so well? Is it true you guys actually eat dogs? Do you guys have to wake up at 8:00 a.m. for the government to inspect your houses? Can you even watch TV? Have you ever tried Starbucks before? No… Wait. Do you even know what a Starbucks is?” I know what you’re thinking: what the hell are these questions? As shocking as it is, real teenagers have asked me these questions. I would like to point out an important distinction here. Curiosity and a willingness to learn is definitely not a bad quality; in fact, I actively encourage people to educate themselves. However, this interrogation disguised as a Q&A session has clear undertones of superiority, and is phrased in a manner that undermines my culture. To them, China is this exotic and underdeveloped country. They know so little about what life outside the United States is actually like. They make me feel scrutinized, or somehow drastically different from everyone else. Sometimes, people follow-up their initial comment with reassurance, telling me to “not worry”, and that they would’ve never guessed I live in China. This reply suggests that I should be relieved people don’t think I’m from China. That is the inherent problem - China’s tainted image in the eyes of westerners. Western society has a history of viewing Asian and African populations as barbaric - their justification for colonization and imperialism. A classic case of white man’s burden, colonizers believed that they were “making our ancestors more civilized, and improving our wellbeing” with their forceful entrance. This idea of being ‘better-than’ other ethnicities is deeply ingrained in western history, thus allowing for prejudice against other cultures, including mine, to continue. Western media has also portrayed Asian countries in an extremely negative light. News sources that claim to produce unbiased reports are creating articles directly criticizing and dramatizing the “Chinese lifestyle”. Furthermore, I rarely see articles or videos that address China’s real developments and improvements. Take the Coronavirus, for example. In China, we are celebrating the perseverance, sacrifice, and bravery of our nurses and doctors. Since January, my local community has come together to support one another, and I was lucky enough to witness stores, restaurants, and even schools reopening. My school opened up around three weeks ago, and everything has been going great. We have temperature checks, sanitation stations, and personal seating arrangements to ensure our safety. I was so excited to finally return to school and resume my education. However, in western media, the recovery of China from this dreadful pandemic is barely touched upon. Instead, my social media page is flooded with content attacking Chinese people for their eating habits. I even see foreign political figures referring to this pandemic as the “Chinese virus”. I stumble upon memes after memes about the coronavirus and Chinese people, an example of social media users perpetuating and reinforcing racism under the guise of “dark humor”. The coronavirus is just one of many examples of people hopping on the bandwagon to hate on an entire group of people, for the crime of maybe just one. Because once a bias is set against a certain group of people, an entire population subsequently becomes the target for hate crimes. This pattern of hostility and superiority over another race will continue if we keep overlooking xenophobic content. Western media, with its immense power and influence, needs to use their platform informatively, positively, and responsibly. If not, gossip and misinformation will spread like wildfire, resulting in serious false perceptions about Chinese people, or any other group for that matter. As summarized by Kevin Han, an associate professor at Iowa State University, “If you read a lot of negative articles, that leads to negative concerns and perceptions. Media provides a certain type of experience for people who don’t have personal or direct experience with a country, so they get the message mainly from the media.” As a person who has lived in China for almost her entire life, I can confidently dispel many ignorant misconceptions about my country. No, most people do not eat dogs. No, we are not robots controlled by the government (a shocker, I know!). Yes, I can watch TV and access the internet (wait, no, I am secretly writing this article online and risking my freedom, because the Chinese government will put me in confinement if they ever find out!). Yes, I have had Starbucks before. In fact, we have almost all international brands and stores in China. I want people to know that I love living in this country and I love honoring my culture. China is just another country. And Chinese people are merely humans, just on the other side of the world. I see Americans taking huge pride in their country, praising their land with colors of red, white, and blue. I wish to do the same with my country. My ethnicity is an enormous part of my identity, and I should not have to be ashamed of the blood in my veins. Additionally, many Americans need to understand that the reality of China is not always the way it is portrayed in the media. I implore everyone to properly vet the information you are taking in as “facts”, and stop the spread of misinformation about life in China. I sincerely hope that China’s labels of “exotic”, “scary”, “underdeveloped,”and “inhumane” can be replaced with kinder adjectives. So to answer your question, yes, I am from China, and I am very proud to be Chinese! - Eva Zhong

Dear Asian Youth, Last year, I was prescribed birth control pills. Ah, yes, birth control: the tiny, mysterious pill with a huge dose of hormones. The gynecologist told me that I might experience several side effects, including but not limited to: migraines, weight gain, mood changes, irregular menstrual bleeding, dizziness, abdominal pain, fatigue, blood clots, breast swelling, painful yeast infections, nausea, infertility, and death. Okay, so I was kidding about the death part, but it’s not like the other side effects aren’t serious. That day, I went home with my neatly packaged blue baggy, giddy about the prospect of becoming a “real woman”. Little did I know, I would forget to take the pill at least twice a week (which, to be quite honest, I was to blame). I would experience breast swelling, nausea, and migraines. I would snap at my friends for no apparent reason. And at those moments, I couldn’t help but wonder why I, alone, bore the responsibility of taking the pill everyday? Why don’t men have birth control pills readily available to them? In a world where men too often dictate what women should do with their bodies, it wasn’t surprising to me when I realized women hold the primary responsibility for sexual health in a male-female relationship. Let’s set a few things straight. I understand that birth control pills have their benefits. For women, they can regulate menstrual cycles, cure hormonal acne, and relieve period pains. However, for women who just don’t want babies, this burden seems unfair in comparison to a man’s responsibility (or rather, the lack thereof). But what about condoms? Men are using condoms as a contraception! Indeed, but condoms are cheap and safe to use. They offer little side effects in comparison to the hormonal birth control pill. Standing at an 85% success rate compared to the pill’s 99%, condoms are also less effective than the pill because it is often misused. As a result, the burden to prevent pregnancies often falls into the woman’s hands. With taking the pill comes the financial liability of prescription. According to Planned Parenthood, birth control pills typically cost between $0-$50 per month; this means that it could add up to $600 a year. That’s $600 many American women can’t afford to spare, especially considering that 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. In addition, just the mere idea of having to take a pill everyday at the same time makes birth control sound like an unappealing option. Dedicating the time to visit a gynecologist, pick up the prescription at a CVS, then face protestors telling me contraceptives go against their religious views? Nah, I think I’ll pass. In 2016, feminists all around the world received a glimpse of hope when a study found that an injectable form of male birth control was both effective and reversible. However, the study was quickly dropped when the men involved complained about their side effects. They reported acne, fatigue, mood swings, and increased libido. Guess what? Women have been experiencing the same side effects, or arguably worse side effects, for 60 years now. We are expected to “just suck it up”, a clear reflection of the power dynamics in our society. Fortunately, in 2019, we saw another study alluding to the potential of the male birth control pill. In a research study conducted by the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, 30 men ranging from ages 18 to 50 took an oral pill mixed with testosterone and progesterone for 28 days. At the end of the study, the blood hormone tests revealed that the pill could suppress both sperm and testosterone production, meaning it had succeeded in preliminary testing! But even then, Dr. Christina Wang, the lead researcher at LA BioMed, says that such forms of birth control are more than a decade away from being commercially available. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying to get rid of birth control for women. Rather, I am advocating for an oral contraceptive to be designed for men, while still keeping this option available to women. It is time for men, too, share the responsibility for contraception - they are, afterall, half the population and half the equation to creating a child (who would’ve known!). On the other hand, the lack of control men may feel in regards to fertility in a sexual relationship may be resolved with the development of male birth control, opening a door for them to become more active in family planning. During a time when the Trump Administration is working tirelessly to chip away at our reproductive rights and our freedom to choose, it is imperative for men to step up and become more involved. As the 60th anniversary of the female birth control pill approaches, it’s time that we welcome the 1st anniversary of the male birth control pill. - Stephanie Hu P.S.: While we wait for the development of the male pill, couples in a male-female relationship could engage in open discussions in an effort to share equal responsibility :)

Every spring, I wonder how the worms survive the frost. Surely, the red-breasted robins need to feed in order to sing the way they do. a lullaby for the hunger, for a mother following her children through window pleats of sunlight. a jumble of feet pushing chlorinated goodbyes against a neighborhood pool’s tiles. A well of pesto in my morning toast steals its way down in coruscating rivulets running through my fingers. A common thief’s treasure for the taking. What, asks the internet, is a Saint? This is where our knowledge diverges. What, asks my father, do you have left to lose? That week I spent with you under the concave belly of a church’s rafters. We played that one word game on your phone & avoided the eyes of God which is to say the elderly lady in apartment A206, clanging her keys across the hallway & turning her back every time you come over. asking me, Gonna settle down with a nice boy soon, honey? as if through the apartment wall I hadn’t been reading a Siken poem to you & watching your chest rise and fall. Watching is the same as consumption, someone once told me, but I had to choke out your name, all bone-splintered & fractured marrow to watch you come running. Forgive me, for to name something is to lay claim to it. Forgive me, for I cannot help but want your white-hot brand on my skin. In another universe, I am something more than a hunger. I devour buttered bread in the morning & your laughs in the checkout lane. In another universe, none of my words are holy because I spend all my love recklessly at the cashiers instead of turning it into grimy pocket change. In another universe, I am something more than how the hours keep on beating out a tempo with his mistress’ back against the wall. I am something more than this belly full of want. In another universe I’m so hungry for it, baby. Editors: Alisha B., Blenda Y., Luna Y. Photo credit

Dear Asian Youth, 5:45 A.M. It’s a typical Monday morning, the start to a new week. Rubbing my tired eyes and yawning incessantly, I stumble to the bathroom sink and attempt to wash my grogginess down the drain, in tandem with facial cleanser and ice-cold water. In my scramble to get ready for school, I’m desperately scouring my notes—poring over various formulas that need to be memorized, reciting historical dates, or reviewing the latest biological concept. While I rush to the car, the moon illuminates the tranquil street, bathing lamp posts and mailboxes in an incandescent glow. I’m naturally a morning person, but all I want is to be curled up underneath my warm covers, rising in time with the sun. After a grueling day of classes and several hours of afternoon extracurriculars, I finally arrive home at 7 P.M. and hurriedly inhale my dinner before scurrying off to the shower. The hot droplets stream down my face, and as much as I want to relax and bathe in the steam and scented body wash, I only allow myself a maximum of ten minutes. I still have work to do. Sitting down at my desk, I unlock the screen of my iPad and sigh in annoyance. I had plugged it in as soon as I had arrived home, but it had only risen seven percent in the past forty minutes. I have a headache. It’s one born of long-term stress, from years of pushing myself just almost beyond my mental capacity, from consistently putting my future happiness and success over my present well-being. There’s a persistent pounding behind my eyes, like the steady beat of a drum. It’s been months since I last wore contact lenses—my eyes get drier and drier every day from futile attempts to rub away the fatigue. But I must push myself. To do otherwise would be to fall behind. To do otherwise would be to admit defeat. To do otherwise would be to fail. We need to talk about hustle culture. While an overused word, the academic elitism that is so highly prevalent in our educational system is, in many ways, toxic—it’s an aspect of a larger system that places one’s self-worth in the classes you take, the number of A’s you receive, and the extracurriculars you join. It’s an ever-ascending staircase, a teacup on the verge of spilling over, a bubble about to burst. The hustle culture characteristic to Western society is best reflected in one phrase: the grind never stops. As a whole, we often get so caught up working towards a future version of ourselves that we forget to take care of ourselves in the present. We tend to idealize, normalize, and even romanticize hustle culture—in the academic realm, there is a tendency to glorify and glamorize the all-nighter, when in fact, there is absolutely nothing glamorous about blood-shot eyes and excessive caffeination. As we start preparing for the upcoming school year, we need to let go of the belief that happiness is congruent with academic success, especially when we examine the ramifications hustle culture has upon the individual. It’s time to stop subscribing to this ideology. Just like a tablet or a phone, we need to give ourselves time to recharge. Statistically speaking, the concept of hustle culture disproportionately harms Asian American communities. Although Asian Americans have a 2.1 percent lifetime prevalence of generalized anxiety disorder compared to white Americans with an 8.6 percent prevalence, a 2013 study showed that Asian American students have a significantly higher tendency to worry about familial expectations upon academic success relative to their Caucasian counterparts. Of the Asian youth currently studying in the United States, many have parents that are first or second-generation immigrants—immigrants with tenacity, grit, and determination. We are living proof that our parents were able to succeed in a country that prioritized their professional labor (read: the educated mind) above all else. Our parents prevailed in spite of the myriad of adversities thrown their way, and as their children, we are the embodiment of that success. And now, we must carry our respective family legacies, to build upon our mothers’ and fathers’ accomplishments and advance even further. We aren’t just the evidence of our parents’ success—we’re what fueled them to succeed in the first place. If we fall short, we’re not just failing ourselves—we’re failing our parents and the sacrifices they made for us. Thus, we work. We go through the motions at school, push ourselves to take accelerated courses, and juggle multiple extracurriculars at once. We consistently wake up each morning, both physically and mentally drained, and valiantly attempt to prolong our metaphorical “battery life.” Although it gets harder and harder each day, we force ourselves to continue onwards—because our mental stability is a small price to pay for straight A’s, a stellar resume, and an acceptance into a certain Northeastern private university, behind the coveted Ivy gates. And if we’re struggling, we can’t show it—we are the model minority, after all. For many of us, our subscription to academic hustle culture is primarily due to our overwhelming desire to make our families proud, but it’s exacerbated by our peers’ racially motivated expectations. In Western society, to be Asian means to be inherently intelligent. It means labelling every Asian student as prodigious in nature or innately gifted. Many people from other races, as well as a notable proportion of Asian youth, view such a stereotype as “good.” To people of other races, attributing intelligence to Asians is seen as an appreciative gesture; to many Asian students, it’s seen as a source of pride. However, such a racially-guided narrative has an abundance of harmful implications. Many Asian youth are suffering under immense pressure to live up to their parents’ expectations of who they should grow up to become. Compounded with the devastating effects of the model minority myth, Asian American students often feel the urge to hide their struggles. Due to the generational divide, Asian parents often can’t relate to the internal turmoil their children undergo. Because Asians are expected to be—and often are—high-achieving, teachers often fail to comprehend the gravity of their students’ legitimate struggles. To my fellow Asian youth who can’t seem to keep up: your tribulations are palpable. No words can truly describe the devastating feeling of trying so hard, yet even your best isn’t good enough. But remember: you have and always will be enough, just as you are. To my fellow Asian youth ahead of the curve: whether you’re battling resentful peers who attribute your accomplishments to your heritage or combatting the invisible imposter syndrome, the challenges presented to you are real, and your mental health matters. To anyone dealing with sky-high expectations and the pressure to succeed: you’re doing just fine. While hard work is instrumental for future success, allowing oneself to take breaks is much more sustainable in the long run. You’ll still get there. Take your time—there’s no need to rush. - Justine Torres Sources: https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/studies/20240 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10615806.2012.668536 https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/what-is-the-model-minority-myth https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/aap-aap0000038.pdf https://www.themuse.com/advice/5-different-types-of-imposter-syndrome-and-5-ways-to-battle-each-one

Dear Asian Youth, My house is clouded in a thick fog of incense, mixed with the scent of my father’s cigarettes that burns my nose when I inhale. I know that Paris by Night or some other badly dubbed drama is blasting in the background because my father doesn’t want to hear us talking, but I don’t hear any dialogue. All I see and feel is my mother’s hand on my palm, her blunt nails tracing the lines from one side of my hand to the other. I don’t really believe what she says, but I will never have the heart to tell her. “Trust me on this. I’ve never been wrong.” There are five types of hand shapes in Chinese palmistry: fire, earth, metal, wood, and water. I have a fire hand, with long fingers and a long palm. My mother says that this, along with the fact that I’m an Aries and a horse in the Chinese zodiac, is why I have such a blunt, quick nature and why I’m so stubborn. “That’s why I’m so happy you’re going to be a lawyer. Your birth chart has destined you for this.” I tell her all the time that I’m studying public law because she let me watch too many episodes of Law and Order growing up, but she insists that it has always been written in the stars. Every time we discuss it, she’ll go off onto a tangent about how long my wisdom line is and how it means I’ll definitely have a long education… unless I want to defy fate itself; or how my fingers close with no cracks, so I’ll make money and not lose any. Then, she’ll show me her hand, pointing out how short her and my dad’s wisdom lines are, just to reiterate the fact that both she and my father didn’t go to college. It’s like clockwork. It happens every other night. For years, my mother’s constant worry about my birth chart, and my palms annoyed me. When I was ten, she started telling me that I’d be a lawyer and that I’d live a long life, just because both my life and wisdom lines were long and deeply cut. When I was sixteen, she took me to a fortune teller in Vietnam who told us I would marry a non-Vietnamese man working either with computers or in engineering, and that I was definitely going to work in law and politics. So she pushed me to take internships in both law firms and congressional offices and started interrogating every one of my non-Vietnamese male friends about their intended majors. I was so embarrassed by her chasing after me, telling me to stop wearing red because my signs say that I should only wear dark colors, or asking me if I found her friends’ sons cute so she could ask if they were going to be engineers. I never even discerned that she just cared a lot about me and that she was pushing me to work harder—to be the best person I could. Our family never had enough money to send me to tutoring, and both of my parents definitely could not help me with any homework. I think my mother started believing in tử vi (fortune-telling) to reassure herself that her only daughter and the rest of her family would be successful one day. I think she thought that, if I was a lawyer who had a husband with money, we’d be out of our tiny apartment and she’d get to stop working long and laborious hours. So, now, I humor her. I let her read my palms, and she teaches me how to do it myself. I read my friends’ palms, with my mother laying down next to me on my bed, pointing out details I missed and asking what their birthdates are. We laugh, and she holds my hand, reminding me that I need to stop wearing red nail polish, suggesting I switch to dark blue. I still do not completely believe in fortune-telling, but I’ll agree with her so we can laugh and spend time together; I know it matters to her, and I love her for it. Both of our love lines have always told us that we’d have an abundance of love in our lives, right? - Cindy

TW: strong language and sexual assault mentioned Dear Asian Youth, “I believe that having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man. And when a decent man messes up, as we’re all bound to do, he tries his best and does apologize.” New York representative AOC said this as she responded to Ted Yoho, her voice expressed clearly through the microphone, hands in front of her in a powerful stance. Wearing a sharp red blazer accompanied by bright red lipstick, she did not hesitate to speak her mind as she exposed the vast number of examples where men had degraded her as a government representative, a woman, a person of color, a daughter. Dark brown locks of hair cascaded over her back, behind her ears as if overwhelmed by the power Ocasio-Cortez held with her brilliant words. Prior to the speech, Ted Yoho had called her “disgusting, “crazy,” “dangerous.” These were words that a representative, someone who represents our beliefs and ideals, called Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Luckily for us, AOC is not a woman who can be put down by several rash and rude words, and instead, uses her position to help us. Because Ted Yoho didn’t just call her a “fucking bitch”––he was calling each of us women a “fucking bitch.” And for what? As I listened to her speak, I laid still in my bedroom, staring at my screen, chilled. In many ways, she saw me––she explicitly and clearly explained how I felt about being a woman in the 21st century and the opportunities being a girl now gives me. I am lucky to be able to sit here and write this article without the threat of conservative men––some, not all––breathing down my neck and spitting, with stale breath, that I’m a traitor. But I also realize that we have a much longer path to navigate than we often realize because of how male supremacy has become so deeply ingrained in our culture. Having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. What AOC said on that day comforted me because it made me realize that not everyone believes in the normalities of boys being mean simply because they are boys, boys being rowdy because they are boys, boys being stupid because they are boys. After all, how much longer are we going to allow this behavior to continue? A couple of days prior, tweets were going around saying “boys will be boys” was an entirely wrong mentality that we, as a society, have created and upheld. “Boys will be boys” commits to a long-lasting culture of misunderstanding, assault, and humiliation. I think back to last summer when I learned how, a couple of years ago, a Stanford male student was caught on video raping a girl—it seems like the word “rape” has become stamped so permanently in our vocabulary that we throw it around without caution since it happens so often—and, despite the endless amounts of proof, the judge let the kid go. He came from a good family, had the “right” religious values, and was smart. Boys will be boys, right? A year ago, during an assembly about racial slurs and microaggressions, a couple of boys behind me casually threw around the word “faggot” as a joke. They were older than me, voices deep and low, huddled next to each other, and making fun of the LGBTQ+ community. Immediately, my eyebrows scrunched, not quite sure how to act. The gym felt sticky and hot, and so did I, with a certain discomfort. I shifted in my spot, wishing to be able to say something but too afraid of the consequences. I shut my eyes. Whatever. They’re boys. Boys are stupid that way. Boys will be boys. One time during dinner, I was upset over something small but nonetheless, upset. I had sat at the dinner table with a less-than-pleasant expression, too grumpy to make gracious efforts to be kind to the rest of my family. “What’s up with you?” my dad had asked. “Are you PMS-ing or something?” Immediately, my gaze shot up, ignoring the food, and focusing my attention on my dad. Even my own father, who has two daughters, had the audacity to dismiss our feelings using the pretense of hormones. “If a girl is annoyed, are you immediately going to associate that with PMS?” I sighed. “Why can’t we just be frustrated? Why does there have to be an underlying reason to downgrade our emotions?” The rest of the evening was a blur, but I do remember thinking this: gosh, men just never learn. Men will never learn. Boys will be boys. A couple of weeks ago, a post on social media was circulating to help protect women from sexual harassment. It was an informative view into the thought process of rapists and sexual assaulters so that women could defend themselves better. 1) Once you get in your car, don’t linger, and lock the doors immediately. 2) Always check the back seat of anyone’s car. 3) Rapists think that women with tied hair are easier to attack. 4) Don’t act weak—the weaker you are, the easier they’ll think it is to assault you. There were over 15 warnings and signals, and it reminded me of the fears I had when taking an Uber or when I was walking home after sunset in New York. I had made sure to walk in the brighter parts of the street because, because at the end (many girls and women understand this), it is better to be safe than sorry. I read the entire post, even reread some parts several times, and was thankful for this message and information. My first instinct was to repost it for the sake of my other fellow females, but as I clicked post, I felt myself attempting to wrap my mind around three emotions: confusion, anger, and fear. How is it that we have come to a point where we women have to learn how to defend ourselves, instead of helping to prevent boys and men from committing such horrifying acts? Boys will be boys, right? No. We cannot continue teaching males that this is okay, that this behavior is okay, that we are okay with it. If a man decides to change a diaper once in a while, that doesn’t make him an amazing father. If a man chooses to go out and buy groceries, that doesn’t make him a wonderful husband. If a boy decides against pressuring a girl into sex, that doesn’t make him a model teenager. As AOC said that day, what makes a good man is the respect he has for women. Everyone—believe it or not, not just women, but men as well—has to put in greater effort to learn how to think and act in a more respectful way. It starts with the smaller (but still important) and subtler things: joking over a woman’s body, calling a girl a b*tch or a wh*re because she rejects someone’s advances, accepting male dominance in the workplace, judging a powerful woman simply because of her success, dismissing a girl’s frustration with “she’s hormonal,” and making fun of transgender women and the lesbian community. If you told me I had to list every instance, it would never end. We need to rebuild the foundation on which males are currently allowed to exploit their power in order to slowly reconstruct how society thinks about men and women. It’s easy to stay silent, to conform, to be afraid, but we must overcome these actions to reach gender equality. Once we alter our mindset, we can better help ourselves and the future generation of girls. Most of all, we can better help boys and men in the world understand that they are better than the lowest actions of their predecessors. So, no. Boys will not be boys. We will make sure that they rise above that standard instead. - Hannah