A myth of the yellow body
Creators:
Royce Uy
The migration process is often hopeful one for everyone involved; but it is also often mired with obstacles – obstacles that have more to do with how others see them than anything that the migrants have done. Over time, the racialization of Asians has come to be intricately entangled with the model minority myth, which has driven wedges between Asians and other racialized minorities, and sometimes even among Asian communities. This is then also complicated by notions of racial essentialism tinged with queerphobia based on contemporary conservative notions of gender and sexuality. Royce’s collection of poems speaks to all of these phenomena, and invites the reader to think about discrimination both from outside and inside of Asian diasporic communities, especially from an intersectional perspective. What kinds of images and emotions do these pomes evoke in your mind?