Listen to the audio recording of Prasanta’s words here, or read her piece below: Of Thorns and Skin Your Task Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.* A long wind brushes its fingers through the trees […]
culture
Obey: a Four-Letter-Word
OBEY. It’s a four-letter word—at least, that’s how I think of it. I associate this word with punishment, negative emotions, consequences, rigidity, and legalism. The word itself makes me cringe at times. It feels autocratic and one-sided, as in a command that also means, “Do what I say.” The word itself feels cold and authoritative. […]
How Much Cultural Discomfort Can You Put Up With?
I know it’s hard to embrace someone else’s cultural values. Whether it’s their noise level, the smell and look of their food, their communal gatherings, the way they look at you, talk, dress, or act, another person’s way of life often feels like a disruption. Their actions and words can annoy us or make us […]
May You Bloom
There’s something inside you waiting to unfurl. It is quietly growing beneath the surface. You can feel it gathering itself up, the momentum of its growth building. How it began is a mystery. What it will become is yet to be seen—even to you. But in its time, if you nurture it well, it will […]
Always a Foreigner, Never Home
My face is the filter through which people see me. It can’t be helped. When people look at me, they see an Asian girl. To some, it’s the face of familiarity, but to most it’s the face of a foreigner. It creates distance, division, and tension. It brings up questions of heritage and place and […]
Putting on Christ (Revelations from an Airport Bathroom)
I leave more than the stale air of a thirteen-hour plane ride behind in the airport bathroom stall. When I emerge into the terminal in Istanbul, I feel like a new person altogether. I had walked off the plane still wearing the evidence of the life I left behind in Bangladesh. I wore a salwar […]
I Learned to Use Unsanitized Language to Empower Myself
Last Fall, I attended the Ruby Woo Pilgrimage (which happens again this Nov. —seriously go check it out)! It was a powerful time of fellowship with so many beautiful, diverse, dynamic women my heart was full to the brim. I thought I knew what I’d get opportunity from an opportunity like this. And in some ways, […]
Subversive Celebrations
The entrance to the seafood restaurant is flanked by a series of large windows. Inside I see white folks sit at the bar laughing, and nursing glasses of wine. Some glance as we pass, following us as we enter through the wooden door. We are here to celebrate Jonathan—our son graduated from college today. At […]
Mothering in Black, White and Red
When I was very small, my mom only bought me black baby dolls because she wanted to do right by me. She was familiar with the studies where little brown girls reject black baby dolls and she wanted to be sure, as a white mother of brown daughters, that she was raising my sister and […]
The Grito as Prayer
I watched her draw in a deep gulp of air, opening her airway, chest firm and ready for battle. La Maestra closed her eyes, and on her mark, in unison, twenty-two of us let out a hum whose vibrations and frequencies resonated across our torsos. We could feel each other without touching. From where our […]
Four From The Night, Four From Anywhere
1. Traffic Light When I slow to a stop at the traffic light, I notice a police car flashing blue into the darkness. A few feet away, a man stuffs his hands in his pockets and leans back against a dented trunk. I stare at this man with skin like mine. This man in a […]
See, Say, Spell, Repeat
“Could you spell that?” My name. You ask about my name. Countless times. Almost every week, in fact, you ask me to repeat or spell my name. For years, I lamented the fact I did not have a simple American nickname to make this part of life easier, for you and me both. When I […]
Making of A Remnant Keeper
Someone just blew up my neighborhood with an AK57 etched with these letters- g e n t r i f i c a t i o n. My layman’s definition of the word is “moving Black folks, so white folks can move in.” Black folks are not alone in this war. Our Native American brothers and […]
Asian. American. Christian. Woman.
I walk each day as an Asian-American Christian woman drifting between four separate worlds (Asian. American. Christian. Woman.). These worlds often have opposing values affecting my mindset, responses and how I make decisions. I grew up in Boulder, CO one of a handful of Asian-Americans. At the age of nine, I accompanied my dad, producer […]
Coming of Age in This American Life
I. As a girl, I learned about racism from my white father. He taught me it was evil which was the exact opposite of his upbringing where racism was as natural as a Carolinian drawl and black eyed peas with salty cured ham hocks and collard greens. His blonde haired blue-eyed roots were soaked in […]
I Don’t Fit a Label
When it comes to race and culture, I am confused just like I am with most things in life. I have so many roots that it makes it very hard for anyone to put a label on me. It makes most people uncomfortable. We like our labels; we like to know exactly what or who […]
Always a Foreigner, Never Home
My face is the filter through which people see me. It can’t be helped. When people look at me, they see an Asian girl. To some, it’s the face of familiarity, but to most it’s the face of a foreigner. It creates distance, division, and tension. It brings up questions of heritage and place and […]
Oreos and the Image of God
I’m not a white girl in a black girl’s body. I am a black girl in a black girl’s body. Since I was a teen, it bothered me to hear someone call me an oreo, whether friend or family. I am just as much ashamed at the times I used those words too. I see […]