Militant. I've Been Thinking About You.

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Hey Militant,

I was thinking about you last night and decided I should write you out an update. I figure while you might be seeing it all from wherever you are (and I figured you'd like that cause who knows where you ended up xD), you're probably busy writing, getting to know the answers to really big questions that we can only hope to understand, and doing what people do after they've left this place (chasing beautiful things perhaps?).

So honestly--we're still in the shadows--things are changing no doubt, we're getting some exposure, but we're still there--the unpolished ones. The survivalists. The foul-mouthed. The dirty.

We're under-represented.

I'm not saying things haven't moved, and I'm not saying I don't do what I have to do and sometimes that involves the polish--but like everything else--it'll wear off--and it's kind of like we talked about in the past - where's our representation? The fallen, the corrupt, the ones w/o all the connections, the ones who have to hustle it out day in and day out to make it work (or at least that's how it feels, but data-wise I think I can still say that).

In that way, honestly--I miss your voice and what you had to say, and that piece of a larger whole--standing together even at opposite ends, individuals just representing from their own side--in that way, I still miss even just the idea of you.

Because that was something.

I think I'm writing this to you too because man--as far as I think I've come in ways--it still feels like an uphill battle. It's like I can suit it up, chat the chatter, walk the walk, but in the end, it's like I'm walking up the hill with 100lbs of meat on my back with a stench that grows deeper each day--and I don't know if I've gotten used to it.

As far as we've come, we aren't. The brown SE Asian American man, still has to take it. In all my years professionally, and I'm supposed to be in my prime, I've really only seen a handful of us reach at least some rung in the ladder, and sometimes when that happens--it's all a wash. They're the outliers. I've noticed that White Folks--they're happy to do the professional dance with Asians from different countries, and obviously to a certain extent us--but there's a difference.

It's kind of the same thing over and over--speak your mind, do the same things the WF's do--and they don't know how to deal with it.

They're afraid and scared if those Brown men are smarter, quicker, or simply more determined than their privileged-got-too-used-to-control-even-though-they-got-lazy selfs. I've actually seen some of the worst of the worst lately and it's taken me for a ride.

And there's still the ladder of Brown versus Brown. Asian versus Asian.

Probably didn't catch this as you wander and chill--but this Korean guy filed a lawsuit because he said he wasn't getting promoted because he wasn't Indian American. The model is still out there to divide and conquer. Off-shores and outsourcing. Professional caste systems. Fear and Visas to keep the rungs hung as they are...

.....

But onto other things--I became a dad--can you believe that shit? It's crazy. Married, daughter, step-kids. A family man in some ways. And honestly--I never knew how much I'd love someone that looks like me--how much I can't help but want to make sure she's a strong, wonderful, smart, and determined Asian American girl who grows up to be an amazing Asian American woman. I get scared though too--am I being too hard, am I being too soft. Does my inter-generational trauma, born out of the war in Vietnam and all the subsequent aftermath, that need to survive--what will she have to deal with? Will it make her harder than she needs to be? I worry too that I don't get the time I need with her. I feel guilty sometimes. But I have to grind, and I can't lose myself either--self shamed guilt wrapped up in the selfishness of creating a little human.

Sometimes I still feel like I don't know where I'll land. Like I'm close but I'll die not close enough, and I wonder how I'll impart that to my daughter.

And then I know I'm still who I am.

I cope.

I still love to get lost among the trees. I still love the feeling of not sleeping, my body feeling the rush.

I'm still dirty.

I still love to fuck.

And I know that I'm still broken--that piece of the Vietnamese diaspora that an individual of the community still knows, even if 3rd gen+, the piece of pieces, the aftermaths, different for each individual, but the pain in the collective still there, no matter how far we come and go.

I still love all the things that made me who I was and who I am--

and I try to reconcile that with trying to be polished.

Because I'm also cognizant of what it means to be an Asian American Brown Vietnamese SE dad--that perception alone I don't care about--but for my daughter--I have to polish it up some days.

But maybe I'm getting old too...

because I'm okay with that too,

even if I can still be out of control.

A dog still knows its master right?

It still heels when needed. When it feels suffocated. When deep down, it knows it needs to survive, because it still wants to play when it can.

Is this the dichotomy of being who were are?

But I'm building...it's slow...it's small, but in a lot of ways that's all I care about--those little ripples for the community and myself even though I still talk about us being in the shadows--I don't mind the shadows--but I also wonder about the perception and the reality for us as a whole--what I already talked about.

But I can only do so much right?

Resist In Peace,
Adam

Are Asian American Men Still Getting The Shaft Post Crazy Rich Asians?

Tuesday, September 03, 2019

I don't want to start the all too familiar war of Asian American men versus Asian American women - but - I do have to wonder if post CRA - Asian American men - at least visually and from an artistic standpoint - aren't getting their due.

Think about all the movies coming out with some hype featuring Asian American men.

And those NOT NAMED KEANU (because let's face it - as much as we love us some KR - he's an outlier).

Tell me.

And I'm talking mainstream.

Like HOW THE FUCK does Randall Park and John Cho not get more play?

Is there actually going to be an Asian Teen Heartthrob in To All The Boys Part Gazillion?

And can you name me an Asian American MALE actor getting as much play as The Wu and the AWKWA?

And - no - don't read into that last statement that they don't deserve it.

But can you do it?

I highly fucking doubt it.

An Open Letter To Trump Supporters

Tuesday, September 03, 2019

Dear Trump Supporters,

Listen - I understand - you feel like we just don't hear you.

You feel like we don't understand your plight.

You need jobs.

You need a home.

And immigrants, POC, Asian Americans - like myself - are just taking it all away.

And you don't feel like you have any power.

Because the numbers are against you.

So you needed a proxy.

Someone to lift your voice of oppression to the masses.

So you could be heard.

So you could go back to days where Asian Americans couldn't testify against White People in court.

To those days, when Asian Americans couldn't marry a White Person.

To those days when you could just use Asian Americans and other immigrants and POC to get what you needed, because you deserved it.

Because no one was worth was much as a White Person - and why would they, no matter what they accomplished, no matter how hard they worked, no matter what they did - they should never be as much as a White Person right?

And when no one is worth as much as a White Person, it just hasn't made sense to you that your voice has been trampled upon.

That you were silenced.

That no one was giving you, your due.

I get it.

It's the same reason I want him out. It's the same reason I want us to take a step backward and go back to the Obama days, when at least it looked like we had a chance.

I get it.

I really do.

So These 2 White Guys From MN Created A Vietnamese Heroine?

Tuesday, September 03, 2019



While I'm late coming to the book release party for "SHOOT THE BASTARDS" - because apparently that happened this summer in June...

Here's the setup from the article down at twincities.com

When her good friend goes missing in South Africa while exploring rhino-horn poaching and international smuggling, Crys gets an assignment from National Geographic to pick up where her friend’s last email came from and continue reporting on this dangerous trade.

Nguyen travels from South Africa to Mozambique to Vietnam, never knowing whom she can trust among the government officials and rhino-protection groups she meets. What she does learn is that there is mountains of money to be made with these horns, and men of several nationalities won’t hesitate to kill anyone who interferes

Is there anything inherently wrong with this plot - not really I guess (however I wouldn't trust any government official - least of all one from the Trump administration) - but, you know - it's just - I mean - and no - I haven't read the book - but...

DO WHITE PEOPLE HAVE TO TAKE EVERYTHING?

Why not a new heroine called SUZY FROM ALABAMA?

Why's she Viet?

Can WHITE PEOPLE IN MN NAME ME 5 VIET AUTHORS NOT ALREADY NAMED BAO PHI?

Does that make sense? Most non-Viet people in MN probably can't name me 5 Vietnamese American authors, but yet there's a celebration of a book (small or large I DON'T CARE) written by two White Guys, with a Vietnamese heroine?

It just feels incongruent to me.

And I get it - writers write. Art is art. Fiction is friction is fucktion.

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.

But isn't there also the tenet "WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW"?

Even if it's still fiction? Even if it's still made up?

Don't you still have to have that base?

I mean why choose a Vietnamese woman?

Does someone have a Viet wife? Maybe an adopted grandkid? Did they give money to the overseas coin tappers to help save the children and the people? And these books are to honor the Viet people?

I'm not trying to be a dick - that's legit (because maybe I'm just getting soft in the prime of my life) - but again - it just feels incongruous.

It's like when you were a kid and you accidentally peed down your leg.

You knew it wasn't right. You did it anyway. And it did feel good to get it out.

But it still wasn't right...