The following is an interview that took place January 31, 2016. The purpose of the interview was for me, the interviewer, to give Smith College students who identify as Queer or Questioning people of color an outlet to speak freely about their unique identities. After the interview I ask them to take me to a place on campus that really matters to them, that really overcomes them with fondness and positivity. My first participant: Angela<3
Me(T): Why did you decide to participate in this project? Angela: I chose to be a part of this project because I thought it was really awesome. I’ve seen some of my friends from PRISM who’ve graduated do similar things for Sexhibition before and I just thought it was a really awesome way to just show representation especially for the QPOC community (that doesn’t have to do with sex necessarily) for awareness around Smith but also out of Smith for people who don’t go to this institution; to not keep it a limited and private thing. T: Why did you choose Smith? Angela: Gosh, I’ve always wanted to go to a women’s college. I read a lot of books that were centered on boarding school or stories that took place in a woman’s environment. looking back on social justice and activism here, made me realise though that a lot of it is very elitist and class based. I chose Smith because I thought it would be an empowering space. I didn’t realise how white it would be when I got here, then I had to unlearn a lot of my own prejudices that had to do with colorism, classism and self-hate when I came here, but I’m glad I learned those things from Smith although if I had a daughter I don’t know if I would send her here (giggles), to be honest…. T: Because of….the journey? Angela: (smiling) Because of the journey, like, for me learning is about unlearning a lot of things which I learned to identify when I came here, but I don’t know if I’d necessarily want my daughter to choose Smith because of the way I chose it. So yeah.. T: What are you focusing on in college? And that’s like anything, like not necessarily your major but your interests. Angela: I learned more self care, but I guess from when I was little I learned how to do that like from a young age. Just ‘cuz my parents were very hands off and I had to - I knew how to be independent and take care of myself. I learned how important community was here too, especially to find people similar to me. And yeah, hearing everyone’s stories just was very important and finding sisterhood, too, with its intersections. T: Then that comes to focusing like in terms of major. Angela: I thought I’d learn more about my own racial identity, etcetera, which has to do with diaspora since I immigrated over here. T: From? Angela: Yeah, sure. I was born in China. I did not grow up there. I was born in Beijing, moved to Hong Kong, and then I moved to New Zealand and I lived there for six years, moved to New York when I was nine and that’s where I’ve been living since, but I moved up here for college and then Massachusetts is so different from New York, gosh. I miss having a diverse space that’s not diverse in just Smith and having different cultures, not just white culture that’s very western Mass and New England. I miss that about New York. And the rest I guess choosing my major, I wanted to-I thought I would choose East Asian Studies because I wanted to connect to my culture and sort of learn more about history ‘cuz growing up a large majority of my time being diasporic Chinese I didn’t learn lot of history, like I felt like that part about being Asian in general and here is silenced; a lot of people don’t know about our struggles and assume that all Asians speak the same language when that’s not true at all. There’s so many different cultures and I think solidarity within the Asian community is kinda hard sometimes with a lot of interethnic tension that, um-and also interracial tension that has played out with white supremacy tries to pit ethnicities against each other. I thought I would find more of myself in academics. That kinda did not happen most of the time (giggle). I think a lot of the professors in the East Asian Studies department, they are white, and that’s not a problem when you can teach history in a very respectful and honorable way but, I don’t know, I didn’t find myself and my passion in academia. I have always loved creative writing and poetry, and I found a lot of myself there and through just my friendships with women from all backgrounds and learned more about my own classist ideologies when a lot of my friends are working class or immigrants that were not middle class, um so different from me but hearing them talk about their struggles just made me realize how much of an advantage and how complex that is with my own background. T: How do you fully identify? I mean you and anything you want someone to know about you. Angela: Okay, um, so I do identify as queer. I guess Asian-American, although I struggle with the term. Sometimes I don’t identify with either. I identify as diasporic. I guess an Asian person, bisexual, religious, creative, and non-conformist. T: I fully support that. But I see you put religious and non-conformist like right beside eachother and that was confusing (giggles) If you would like to explain... Angela: (giggles) Yeah, definitely. I identify as non-conformist because I’m unlearning a lot of things and one of the good parts about going to school here, I learned to challenge a lot of my beliefs and also learn how to call other people out on their shit. T: Mhmmmmmmm Angela: (giggles) And also how to redirect conversation when I think it can be like going a little bit astray and on the abusive side. And also, yeah, learning how to be there for my friends and survivors(…) I believe in love, most importantly. I think just the practice of compassion and kindness is evident in all major religions I grew up Christian but when I studied abroad my host family was Buddhist and I learned a lot about Buddhism, went to temple with them, celebrated a lot of their traditions, and also being Chinese, just, we have a mix of indigenous culture as well as religious practices and beliefs that people nowadays wouldn’t necessarily think of as religious. a lot of our ideologies come from Buddhism, Taoism, and a mix of traditional things like ancestor worship. T: Cool! Who do you look up to? And a more indepth who is your model, ideal human being? Angela: Yeah, um gosh, that’s so hard but so complex, but such a simple question. I love my grandma. Growin’ up, a lot of my grandparents particularly, my grandma on my dad’s side and grandpa on my mom’s side, interesting combo there, uh (giggle) they sort of raised me, shaped a lot of what I believe in being kind and like dignified to other people and treated both myself and others with dignity. That’s what I really appreciate, so I admire both my grandparents. My grandma has always been spiritual and religious, going to church, but the type of church and god she believes in is one that’s very compassionate and not prejudiced against other people just because of what society tells you. And I’m also thinking that my grandpa, he describes himself as Atheist/Agnostic ‘cuz he grew up during Cultural Revolution, a defining war in China, and that just made him question everything but then he held onto his humanity in a way by sort of just remembering to be kind and treating everyone and himself with dignity and that’s what he passed on to me. Those are my role models and I take what they have taught me with also a little bit of my own interpretation by not only treating everyone with dignity but also noticing when things are wrong and speaking up when I think they are, which is so important because a lot of my friends have grown up with violence and domestic abuse and emotional abuse, a degree of which I have experienced myself, so I think it’s so important to just have these role models and keep holding on to something is so inherent to how my grandparents survived and how I survived. T: Where do you see your identities represented? I would like it to be like who do you feel that you see succeeding in the world identifies with as many characteristics as you identify with? Angela: Hmmm, who do I see in the world that identifies like me? Ummm that’s so hard. I see it in a lot of immigrant poets, I love poetry. I see it in queer immigrant poets. I love Audre Lorde. Yeah, I identify so much with what she writes but I wish I could become more like her and confident and also just kind of like carefree and not afraid. And Who else? Just some poets I’ve spoken to who have spoken here. I identify with a lot of things that Darkmatter do. i think through poetry these poets have expressed themselves and that they are activist through their poetry without directly being involved in a lot of the movements. And some are also poet activists that are not activists purely through their poetry. I wish I was brave enough to speak up a lot but it is hard when I feel in a lot of ways this institution silences a lot of voices of color. T: Next question: What makes you happy? Angela: What makes me happy? Remembering to be grateful. Remembering to be grateful for my friends, talking to people, and just thinking about all the things I love makes me happy. T: What do you love? Angela: I love poetry. I love water, that’s my element right there (giggle) Anything that has to do with water and anything creative and spiritual, that’s what I love. Happiness though, growing up. I grew up, in my culture we don’t really talk about happiness, we like talk about practical things and how to be content and that in a way is like happiness. Something unidentified, and something we experience everyday in little bursts from like having good food to a walk outside, those are things that makes me content and to me being content was like a degree that was different something I defined differently from being happy and sort of too interspersed with each other and even when I was learning about happiness for the first time I was like but I don’t necessarily agree with that. T: Three words to describe yourself. Angela: (giggles) Quirky, honest, and caring. T: What motivates you? Angela: What motivates me? God motivates me to get out from bed everyday (giggles) and go about my day, you know, so people I love, seeing them, thinking about them even if they’re living in a different country motivates me to keep on going for them and doing what I do and what I’m passionate about. T: What would you tell someone coming upon this post? Angela: I would tell someone coming upon this post to just be true to themselves. It’s one of the most important things I learned growing up. People can tell you in all sorts of ways who you are and who you are not, but you find out who you are through living and everyone has a different journey, so be true to yourself. And if you’re a friend coming upon this, I don’t know, just like, I don’t know if you’ve learned anything new about me but yeah, I love you, whoever you are (giggles) and I hope you discover something new about yourself and also learn to love others fully and love yourself. T: Hopefully this is the first of many interviews you do in your life [Recording ends]
Angela .L is a Senior majoring in East Asian Studies at Smith College. Her passions include poetry, children, books and fair-trade tea. She uses poetry as a form of healing and advocacy. Read her work here at: https://yutongthepoet.wordpress.com/
[Blurb about the interviewer: My name is Tyahra Angus, my blog is http://bitchpudin.tumblr.com/. I like when people pronounce my name right, so think Tiara, but funky. I am a Jamaican, American, Pansexual, writer, singer, poet/anything I can get my hands on type of artist, Smith College 16′ focusing on English and Africana studies with a concentration in Queer Black Literature and Art. My blog gives you a better sense of me: I only reblog self-identified black women, in all our uniqueness, all our beauty. And Angela truly is the sweetest, most spiritually positive person I’ve ever met. She deserves nothing, nothing but the best this world has to offer. Go out there and shine, Queen<3]