Asian-American/APIA

40 Days of Writing, Day 20: Memoir as an Act of Self-Destruction

Published on by Lisa

…memoir is the ultimate act of self-destruction… writes Dave Eggers.  That’s how he sees memoir writing — it should be something like the “shedding a skin.”

This Pulitzer nominee describes memoir as an act of self-destruction.  “Shedding of skin.”

This sounds familiar.

ECDYSIS:  the shedding of an outer lay or integument.  Molting.

It’s a sign, I think.  I’m on the right path.

I’m going to see Eggers speak tomorrow.  I don’t know why.  I have a quarter of a million things I need to be working on, but instead, I’m going to go see the author who sees memoir exactly as I do.

Memoir.

I’ve always written memoir.  Since I was, I don’t know, seven years old.  I thought there was rich potential in writing my life out at the end of the day and thinking about what I could share with others.  It never came a from self aggrandizing, quite the opposite.  My life was superbly ordinary in many ways.  I just happened to have a keen eye for detail, a heart created for writing.  But I was embarrassed by it, embarrassed by my desire to write about life, my observations, events that shaped my perspective.  To do so, in my opinion, was self aggrandizing.  And, I figured, someone probably said it before and said it much better than I ever could.

But I never met anyone who thought like me, or could say it like me, or write it in the exact same why I did.  It wasn’t that I thought my way was the best, but I never agreed with what I was reading.  Eventually, I grew listless for waiting for someone to write my thoughts.

Maybe someone has written it before, but no one has or ever will express something to the depths and character that you will express it.  Because no one is you, an old therapist told me when I confessed my desire to write but my fear surrounding the egotistical assumption that what I would write would be useful to the world.  No one is you.  No one can be.

The best way I describe things is through the filter of my life.  I explain through the ecdysis of my life, through the impact upon my mind, the shattering of my expectation, the displacement of my comfort, the movement of my borders.  I write to explain it to myself.  What comes out is what I offer the reader.

Which is the only way I can describe the experience I had at the A/PIA Movement Building conference in Ann Arbor this past weekend.  It breathed new ideas and vocabulary into my system.  It surprised me how easily my head shifted from Mommyhood to activist thinker and writing philosopher.  I took it as a good sign that the side of me that so loves to engage with the activist, academic, fighting, high fists in the air world is just quietly waiting inside me, ready whenever I am to immerse myself back into the trenches.

A/PIA.  Asian Pacific Island Americans.  Us, building a movement.  I had no idea what I was in for during this conference, but walked away with a pride and certainty that my skin is not a curse, not a gift, but an unfolding story in the history of country still unfamiliar with how to reconcile difference.  I learned how community activism is about a life of love, and joy! and that fighting for equality is not always about policy and infrastructure, but fighting for others to have the right to enjoy simple pleasures that are we all seek in our daily survival.  Bike rides, warm blankets, a clean water cup, decent education, an anti-colonial, anti-imperialistic existence.

At 32, I learned when I met Grace Lee Boggs at 96, I may have a long ride ahead of me.  And, I was excited.  I was excited to live long and envision myself talking to a 32 year old young Pinay mother when I am old and gray and still scribbling in my sketchpads because I still hate lined paper.

I envisioned myself at 96 years old, too young to give up, and surrounded by the energy of young hopeful activists determined to see a better world still in front of them.

I saw myself telling them that I lived through the election of the first black and black-identified president and how it was such a big deal back then.

I smiled at my dream – Isaiah wheeling me in to attend an movement building A/PIA conference, and Nick eating a sandwich in the front row with me.

My whole life, at that point, will be memoir-ed.  Ecdysis-ed.  It will all have been lived out, and written about, and processed.  Even at 96 years old, I’ll still be jotting down my ideas to radically love my community, how to improve as a person, and hopefully encourage the young people before me that 64 years ago I sat in their place, with hopeful eyes and restless hearts and the best thing I ever did was write about it.

40 Days of Writing, Day 5: The Education of White Folks

Published on by Lisa

As a person of color in the United States, the issue of white supremacy – and its infiltration in every kind of  institution and system – remains quite clear to me.  The issues can be complex, certainly, but sometimes, incidents of racism occur and reveal simple and forgotten points about the danger people of color face when in predominantly white environments.

Like this story that happened in my home state of Ohio where an elementary school teacher thought there was nothing wrong with asking one of her two black students to pose as a slave during a mock slave auction and had the white students poke and prod as if buying him, even going as so far as inspecting the inside of his mouth and testing his muscle strength.

This, in my mental filing system, is categorized under Nightmare, The Ultimate.

This treacherous and psychologically twisted act of a youth educator brings back some not so pleasant memories of my own.

While much less damaging or stunning, I can remember handfuls of incidents growing up in predominantly white classrooms and being asked my opinion because I was not white. “So, Lisa, tell us what is it like to be in interracial dating relationships,” my sociology teacher asked, assuming all kinds of notions that if I were in a relationship that it automatically would be someone who was White or someone of a race other than Filipino. And also assuming that my life is open for discussion for the intellectual advancement of others.

It irked me when well-intentioned white friends would complain that the person of color in their class was socially reserved and wouldn’t share his or her experiences from Nicaragua, China, Mexico, or Africa, “I just really want to learn from them.  Why are they so quiet?” Mhm, I don’t know.  Maybe that person is just like any other person in class — bored to tears perhaps, or an introverted soul, or maybe s/he doesn”t like to talk in class, or maybe s/he doesn’t like you.

Even in professional conferences about dismantling racism in institutions of higher education, even during plenary break out sessions after the speaker just finished a talk about how women of color are often tokenized in mainstream feminist circles and asked to speak simply because of their non-white skin color, someone at my table still asked me, “What’s wrong?  Don’t you have anything to say on this matter? You’re not white and haven’t spoken yet.  I’d love to hear what you’re thinking.”

To which I replied, “I mean, other than the fact that you’re forcing me to speak when the whole presentation was about NOT doing that, I feel fine.” That and I remember thinking, I just don’t feel like talking. It’s early.  I need coffee. Nothing fancy.

Consider the possibility that people of color, especially in predominantly white spheres are neither inspired or scared to talk.  I can’t speak to the minds of what other people are doing or thinking.  I can only speak to my experiences in dealing with people wrapped in the binds of white privilege in education centered environments and how often I was targeted to speak on behalf of my race.  Cultural awareness is not putting someone’s culture and race in the spotlight, nor is is about ignoring it in efforts of sameness and equality.  It’s somewhere in between.

If you are uncomfortable with white supremacy, or history of slavery, or want to learn or teach about it further, consider this point:

People of color/I do not exist to be subject material for enlightenment.  They/I exist because they/we are humans with unique feelings, stories, and ideas.  So, if you’re interested to know about the practices, rituals, and beliefs of a specific culture or race, read a book.  If you’re interested in a person, form a relationship.

And remember that people of color and our lives are not responsible for white people’s education.