This is going to be a short and emotionally vulnerable reflection for me that has to do with the intersection of my identities that influences how I view this project. Last night I had the amazing opportunity to attend my first live Rocky Horror showing! I'm a Rocky Horror fan, and I really loved dressing up and being in such a celebratory queer space. It didn't feel like home to me, though, because the audience was a solid 90% White. After the show, and today, the feedback from my peers about the show has been overwhelmingly positive: "The first time I could breathe!" "Magical!" "I want to replay it over and over for the rest of my life!" I know what they're talking about. A warm glow of acceptance, of home, of complete belonging exactly as you are, a feeling that is magnificent because you don't know it is possible until suddenly it is there, overflowing every pore of your body. I've felt it in little doses--at a boba place with Asian, Black, and White customers, or, most recently, at East Branch Farms when I met an adult with a similar racial identity to mine for the first time. Last night's Rocky Horror show didn't feel like that for me.
I say this not out of any desire to minimize anyone else's feelings of joy or belonging. My White father sums the idea up nicely: "I had to learn that I could be at, say, a Wilco concert and have a great time, but I won't say 'it's the best thing ever' because it's not the best thing ever. What would be the best thing ever is if that space was more accessible to people. That's something White people always have to be aware of." I am tired of blaming myself for not feeling happy or fitting in, when it's not my fault. I am angry that White people's lack of awareness of their own privilege allows the emotional burden of White supremacy to slide off of them and onto me. Anger will be present in my Signature project. I am enraged at how long I've felt unseen. I'm enraged at the erasure of BIPOC from our stories and history books, when, as Cathy Park Hong writes, "We were always here." This project demands that Asian Americans are always part of our stories--of the past, present, and future of America, of the past, present, and future of the world.