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Once a month, Sarah and friends highlight a book written by an author who belongs to a marginalized community while sharing experiences, interrogating privileges, and working to cultivate solidarity t

Hey! I was on my first podcast ever as a guest of Ex Marginalia, discussing the novel THE VEGETARIAN by Han Kang. In it, we talk about the nature of the artistic temperament, individual vs. society, mental health/illness, etc etc.

Coincidentally, a song I wrote is also featured as the theme music. :~)

#the vegetarian #han kang #poc #literature #rachel rostad #ex marginalia #korean literature #korea

Technically, I am an immigrant. But I have not had to face the policing other immigrants face. As a four month old Korean baby born to a poor, "crazy" single mom and adopted to straight, white, wealthy American parents -- I faced no significant hurdles on my trip to the U.S. I was brought over by a Korean woman whose name I don't know, and handed off at the airport.

My parents went through the -- I'm sure -- difficult paperwork and interviewing process. But other than that, it was seamless. Insert quip about Seamless delivery service here. What capitalism does is favor the flow of goods and commodities and prized labor (either cheap or highly specialized) and penalize everything else. My trip to the U.S. was seamless because I was an immigrant with (it was assumed) no history, no baggage, no claims to welfare and "handouts." A blank slate on which the American dream could be written. So I was allowed in easily. I had a whole team ushering in my arrival, laws and regulations smoothed away for this trend of transnational adoption. (Regardless of how much I love my family, we benefited from all of these privileges, and admitting that doesn't mean that I hate my fam, because I don't.)

My point is, if you are okay with transnational adoption -- where the bringing in of (usually non-white) children is viewed as a personal charity project, i.e. rescuing said children from bad conditions in their home countries -- then it is Very Creepy if you don't believe in those same ideals when it is children and adults coming of their own volition. So you only want an immigrant with no history? (Even though that's impossible, as my Korean family can attest?) An immigrant, wiped clean and rebooted?

In that case, you don't want people, you want commodities.

I get that it makes a material difference -- my parents take on the cost, voluntarily, of paying for my food and education and wellbeing, as opposed to the state. And a baby isn't going to have ties to any politics in their home country upon arrival obviously. BUT. If you don't believe in providing succor for immigrants and refugees (and all people in general) then you're, as I said, **Creepy** for liking hummus, Nissan, pad thai, iPhones, and tequila. You like open borders when Things and Ideas can travel across em but want a wall to keep out the People who created those Things.

I am a citizen of the United States. And I am grateful for that, in the same way I am grateful for being able to order books off of Amazon and get bananas at the grocery store. As in -- I am not paying the price for this convenience -- but someone surely is.

Well, we know who pays the price for the "safety" of Americans. I believe we must share the cost. Safety, like anything else hoarded, is selfish. Safety, like any other right, loses its rhetorical value when it is given to some and blatantly denied to others.

#no ban no wall

Submit poetry, prose, and/or art to Daughters Of Violence, Issue #1! Run by my good frands over at POC Online Classroom. <3

Details, copied from the site:

Daughters of Violence grew from our desire to create an anthology of the contemporary experiences of young women and non-binary folks of color. We first discussed with this idea last Thanksgiving over dim sum and discovered that we had been thinking about this separately.

Our generation has a unique relationship with race and our intersectional identities:

Our formative years occurred after 9/11, during the rise of Islamophobic fear;

Being mixed race has been an option on the census for most of our lives;

Obama has been president the majority of our young adult lives;

There has been a rise in awareness of racial injustice and state violence due to movements like Black Lives Matter and #noDAPL;

Social media has grown to dominate our cultural landscape;

And today, we face the presidency of a man who has openly been endorsed by members of the KKK. We want to continue the legacy of women of color feminists before us, including This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color edited by Cherrie Morraga and Gloria Anzaldua and Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism edited by Daisy Hernandez and Bushra Rehman. With Daughters of Violence, we hope to contribute to this literary tradition and movement building with the voices of our generation. Who are today’s young people of color leading the way? How do we support and love each other? How do we continue to create communities and break down stigma and shame? Our first issue of this zine focuses on our bodies: mental health, self care, and disability. Bodies are one of the few places we will constantly inhabit - yet their functions, desirability, insanity, and power are often left out of the conversation. We are putting this zine together because we need to talk about it, because we cannot suffer alone any longer, because life is hard but it’s harder alone, because we are stronger together, because we can. In the face of political oppression and alongside movements for justice we must take care of our own.

GUIDELINES:

We are seeking poetry, prose, and art from young people of color who identify as daughters. You may submit up to two poems, two pieces of art, and prose that is 800 words or less. These pieces should focus on your own personal experiences, as opposed to critical essays or academic work/theory. We will absolutely not accept work that is violent or discriminatory towards another group (homophobic, sexist, ableist, transphobic, etc.). Submissions will be accepted at [email protected] until February 1st, 2017. We will contact you to inform you whether your work is accepted or not. The zine will be available in print and (in a different format) digitally on POC Online Classroom. We hope to publish the zine by the end of March/beginning of April 2017.

#poetry #prose #art #submissions #poc online classroom #daughters of violence

From Chrysanthemum Tran:

As a trans woman, I think there’s a distinction between reclaiming vaginas and essentializing womanhood to vaginas. There’s been an overwhelming, well-deserved criticism of the pussyhats and the women's march’s focus on vagina-centric feminism — this may suggest that it’s difficult to discuss vaginas without alienating trans people.

I see, understand, and support the political reclamation of vaginas. The historical and systematic denigration of vaginas is undoubtedly violent. However, this is not an issue specific only to cis women. I want to emphasize that anyone of any gender can have a vagina. There are trans girls with vaginas and there are trans guys without vaginas. The stigma against vaginas is rooted in biological essentialist understandings about womanhood and femininity. But many cis women reclaim vaginas by bolstering the same biological essentialism that stigmatize vaginas in the first place. (If women are "more than their bodies", than womanhood cannot be summed up by the body.) It’s politically ineffective and inaccurate to conflate vaginas with womanhood — there are people who aren’t cis women who still experience violence because they have vaginas. These people, their bodies and their health still matter.

My critique of pussyhats and vagina-centric feminism isn’t to shame cis women for talking about vaginas. Instead, I want to encourage sharper analysis. Vagina-centric feminism alienates because it relies on false generalizations. When we organize, we must be specific. We must be precise with our language.

It’s also inaccurate to reduce reproductive justice to vaginas. Reproductive justice, from its inception by Black women and development by other women of color, expands beyond abortions, birth control and menstrual care. Reproductive justice recognizes that these violent inequalities are affected by structural flaws in different communities. A world with reproductive justice is one where people have the economic, social and political power to make choices about their bodies, health, sexuality and reproduction. To this end, reproductive justice seeks to transform how we approach the environment, healthcare, prisons, segregation, gentrification, migration, displacement, education, employment, adoption, and much more. And yes, there is a place for trans women in reproductive justice. < http://everydayfeminism.com/…/trans-women-reproductive-jus…/ >

Lastly, it’s not a coincidence that white cis women feel most comfortable reductively and haphazardly conflating feminism with vaginas. Race, socioeconomic status. gender, and religion shape who feels comfortable enough to reclaim vaginas.

———

This is an expansion of a thread I had on Twitter. Sorry if you've already read this!

website: chrysanthemumtran.com email: [email protected] twitter: https://twitter.com/chrystran link to original facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/tranchrysanthemum/posts/10211588155849060

#womens march #trans rights #chrysanthemum tran #vagina does not equal woman #woman does not equal vagina #reproductive justice

thank you for your contribution to the poetic community Rachel (Cheesy, but I'm such a big fan of your work) and you're one of my biggest inspirations next to Denice frohman that really pushed me into the world of spoken word. You are AMAZING! ❤❤❤❤❤

<3 <3 <3 thank you so much!

10oclockdot

Saying that man and woman are the only genders is actually LESS nuanced than saying that earth, water, air, and fire are the only elements.

afniel

This is fantastic.

nordicninja

When did I fav this already I don’t remember doing that but #alwaysreblog

flamingoslim

Fabulous post! Because science!

thiccthighs-n-brows

HMMMMMM SOMEONE I KNOW NEEDS TO SEE THIS

Dealing with non-Western countries white-washing their own media and people's apathy about it. For example, Tokyo Fashion Week employed more Caucasian models than Japanese ones, (Japanese models only modeled traditional Japanese clothing). Japanese video games animating their characters based off of White celebrities.

Yeesh yes, this is something that I find profoundly distressing when I go to Korea. To be clear, I’m not judging Koreans specifically, just saddened by the entertainment industries of ALL nations that make people feel ugly and worthless based on how light their skin is, how pretty or handsome they are, how much fat they have and where, what shape their face is, what shape their eyes are...

What’s interesting is that most Koreans that I’ve talked to about it don’t think that Koreans are trying to look White, per se. My theory is that it’s just the same ole thing with capitalism everywhere, creating dissatisfaction and thus stimulating buying things (makeup, plastic surgery, etc.), creating a bottomless hunger that can never be filled. In Korea it’s just so rapid, and so well-oiled, partly due from its rapid development. And it’s all directed towards this impossible ideal, that is not natural to Koreans at all. High nose bridges, large eyes, small faces -- it’s looking White, for sure, but it’s also based in looking expensive, aka how do you differentiate low and high status? See who has the typical Korean features (square jaw, smaller eyes, short stature) and who doesn’t. The people who can afford to look “special” have status.

Not that most Koreans are consciously thinking of that way. Just like how in America, no one thinks that we want to be thin because it’s a status symbol (having $$ and time to eat healthy and work out) -- we think it’s just to be “healthy.” Even though, a few hundred years ago, most people thought the opposite, that having body fat was a sign of health (because it was a sign of wealth!)...

As you can see, I could go on and on about this!

thank you for that cho chang poem!

you’re welcome!

I'm really happy to know that someone else acknowledges anti-Asian racism. I go to a school where a lot of kids are Asian. Some teachers will make blatantly racist jokes about Asians (mostly their study habits) and we just grit our teeth. The reason I don't speak up is because everything I would do would get interpreted as a culturally white kid making a huge deal of being Asian (I'm mixed). But anyway, I admire you.

Thank you! Don’t be afraid to speak up. Also, don’t feel like you have to! But you have a right to speak about your experience as a mixed person. Sending love.

i just wanted to say i think your response video to critiques was beautifully done - that is how you apologise and learn from your mistakes. i really liked how you articulated in the end part that social justice is about learning and growing not blaming people when they make mistakes, but there is a need to call people out. not really sure if this makes sense but i thought it was a great video.

Thank you so much!

Hello Rachel, I hope you're warm and wonderful this winter.

I think this is from a year ago but thank you! I am not warm but I am doing wonderfully... ish! Same to you.

I asked this a little while ago, though was unable to find my answer so I would really appreciate if you could either re-answer the question or answer with a link to your original response. My question was: would you be less offended or not offended at all if JK Rowling had simply omitted any Asian characters from her books, seeing as she was obviously not interested in caring about adding one and it will likely due to pressure from minority rights advocate groups.

Sorry for the delay! Basically I think that’s a false comparison. Why are those my only two choices? Why can’t we have a well researched Asian character? Lol it’s like the argument by the director of Doctor Strange that when he envisioned Tilda Swinton’s role as being an Asian woman, he thought “Dragon Lady” and decided not to. As opposed to, you know, putting in the effort to make it not a stereotype??(source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2016/12/16/margaret-cho-reveals-weird-call-tilda-swinton/95527356/)

i just watched ur piece about cho chang and i want to say thank you for articulating everything that bothered me about her characterization; and also that it's very admirable how you responded to criticism gracefully and humbly; i know this is like two years old but still, thank you

Thank you! If you’re interested in keeping up with me, the latest stuff is on my YouTube channel.

In Which I Start A Vloghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVpIWlMrTlgShort film about being adoptedhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCY7AE6rM0w

I just saw your 2013 Cho Chang slam poetry piece. You articulated the feelings I have so eloquently and beautifully. I'm in tears. Thank you so much.

Thank YOU <3

Updates on vlog?

I know, I abandoned it, didn’t I? I’m working on a more cogent concept, aka “How To Explain ____ To Your _____” -- so, things like, How To Explain Systemic Racism To Your Racist Grandma -- How To Explain #NoDAPL To Your Coworker -- little segments on how to translate theory into persuasive discussions with loved ones whom we’d like to have more productive conversations with.

I'm black but I can relate so much to "To JK Rowling, from Cho Chang" that I almost cry everytime I hear or read the parts "what else could a man see in me? what else could i be but what you made me?" and "girls who look like me are supposed to cry over boys who look just like him". And your tumblr teach me a lot of new things about racial issues. Thank you for such a powerful poem! It really touches me and delivers the message.

I’m so glad to hear that! <3 Sending you love and strength.