emily

“Names are indelible markers of our histories. When we are asked to change our names, we are being asked to erase our histories. But names are more than this, too - they move across our relations. The difficulties in pronouncing our names can create intimate moments, can move casual encounters to sudden struggles to listen and understand each other. our names are offerings for these intimacies. When a stranger finds our names too difficult or unintelligible to even try to pronounce, we have learned all we need to know about them.”
― Y-Dang Troeung, Landbridge: life in fragments

“The question isn't where did the Asian guy disappear to? The question is: why is the Asian guy always dead?
Because we don't fit. In the story. If someone showed you my picture on the street, how would you describe it? You might say, an Asian fellow. Asian dude. Asian Man. How many of you would say: that's an American? What is it about an Asian Man that makes him so hard to assimilate? Why doesn't he have a role in Black and White? The question is: Who gets to be an American? What does an American look like?”
― Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown

“When the future is without hope, the present tastes appallingly bitter.”
― Émile Zola, Thérèse Raquin

“The future I yearn for is not one in which we will all be clothed in sameness, but one in which we will finally learn to both read and respectfully discuss our differences.”
― David Chariandy, I've Been Meaning to Tell You: A Letter to My Daughter