While I'm in my sixth calendar year of blogging, around this time five years ago is when I started this thing up to put out another voice from the APIA community. I wanted to talk about race and racism, some pop culture, random things that interested me, put the word out on as much as I could from the Asian American community, and in a way, simply to say this is who I am as a member of the APA community -- take it or leave it - and at the end of the day if I could help push out something new to at least a few people about a community that I love to see flourish - even if sometimes from a distance because that's simply who I am - that's a part of what it was and still is all about.
I've learned about myself, the community - a lot since starting this - and I just have to put out a thank you to all the great people I've met either online or offline, those folks who've backed me up, taken the time to help with things I've been involved in, shared what they have to offer, not been turned off because I've wanted to maintain a sense of anonymity when I have and haven't always known how to work that, and not been afraid to say they actually like or use this blog and what I do here.
This blog has never created a lot of dialogue in terms of comments. I've always known because of the language I use, the name of the blog itself, and some of the things I talk about, or the way that I talk about them, that it would never have the reach that some do or will. As I've started blogging less over the past two years, traffic ebbs and flows, and I wonder where it goes from here as I think about other things down the line.
I'm approaching 5,000 posts. The content put out here has been exposed at least 2-3 million times by half a million to a million people. It's a drop in the bucket for a lot of folks, especially over this time -- but for someone who didn't quite know what they were doing, still can't really network worth a damn - if I think about how long it would have taken or the amount of resources needed to get even half that exposure en masse via traditional means (think fliers and gatherings and readings) and to reach some of the people who I have - I can't help but think that I've done what I set out to do here five years ago during this month - because truth be told - I just didn't feel like I was doing enough and I needed to do more.
So to the people that still read this, to those that have lent their voices and their time, to the musicians and filmmakers, writers who've kept me up at night, friends who've passed news my way, and just to those that have been around - keep doing what you do and thank you again, one last time.
