Personal essays from other Asian Americans just like you.
Am I like the overseer of a plantation? The question comes to mind during a masked walk in Golden Gate Park, out of the drumbeat of Ahmaud Arbery … George Floyd … Breonna Taylor … Black Lives Matter … what can we do? From these senseless killings, to the wildfires...
Even without the coronavirus taking 2020 hostage, this year had already been anything but normal for me. In late February, my grandmother, Misao Kobayashi-Henry, passed away peacefully in her sleep at age 89. It still doesn’t feel real, and because of how strangely...
The following article is an op-ed that expresses the writer’s personal opinions. It is transgressive for a woman to want. We are told by society that we can only want a husband and children — and occasionally a career (but never at the expense of the husband and...
“Wow, Amy, you got really tan.” Two people I love told me this recently. They implied very different things. For my white fiancé, it’s admiration for my four+ years of commitment to swim, bike or run six days a week, which has intensified as I train...
They call us the model minority… and I get it. I get that when my parents arrived, they did so silently. They cleaned toilets and mopped floors without question. They told their kids to excel in school, but to never brag about it. Raised us to be good citizens; we...
Excuse me while I show my age, but whenever I think of friendship, I cannot help but think of Zack Attack from the show “Saved by the Bell” and their song “Friends Forever.” How could I not with iconic lines like, “Through it all, hangin’ tough, we’ll stay side by...
My entire life has been about college—and not because I had overbearing parents or overwhelming school pressure, but because I set my own ambitions to a glorified view of what I thought college would be. Growing up, I couldn’t wait for the college social scene. I’ve...
On a recent flight to London, I was tapping through the movie list and there it was under the newly added section: “Crazy Rich Asians.” Though I had seen it many times in theatres, I hit play and settled back in my seat to re-watch it for the millionth time, like I’d...
Photo credit: Charles zcuv pictures //Unsplash When I volunteered to write an article about sex positivity a few months ago, I was excited to talk about the taboo topic never discussed within my own conservative family; I hoped to take down misconceptions about what...